This is just the prototypical Devan thread. "Infinity is this", despite him contradicting the actual standard mathematical definition of infinity. "Mathematicians are wrong" despite not actually addressing their arguments with a response beyond "Bad definition" with no subsequent elaboration.

I know for a fact I and many others here have walked him through this a dozen times before. It's never any different, and shocker, this thread follows that trend. Devan, define what current mathematicians mean by Infinity, lay out their argument for why they ended up accepting that definition, and then argue against that. If you cannot meet that basic task, a task I know I've done to you more than half a dozen times, you're not an honest participant in these constant infinity threads you make. You're an ideologue.

Yet your is counterpoint is that this doesn't matter because... Trumps inhumane policies and global warming. Even if global warming is important (and I did try to show that this isn't an issue only the left cares about in the World), in this context It's a strawman argument. It's like having the counterargument for ANY leftist or liberal idea that it doesn't work because... look at Venezuela. Colombia now holds over 1.1 million of the 3,4 million refugees from Venezuela escaping the Latin paradise of 'democratic socialism' (see UN News Venezuelan refugees now number 3.4 million; humanitarian implications massive, UN warns). And because you aren't talking about this very true crisis in Venezuela, but something else, your nonsensical. — ssu

Again, my point is simple to the extent that I think you're purposefully ignoring it. Let's be extremely clear. You're point was this:

I think the underlying problem is much more the polarization of the political discourse and the lack of even trying to engage the other side. This creates the current toxic environment. — ssu

In response, I pointed out some of the actual and significant causes of the toxic environment between the right and the left that go beyond kids at universities not being open minded. Namely, widespread support for extreme racially/ethnically directed national policies towards foreigners, absurd suggestions on how to deal with what problems there are and even a persistent misrepresentation of the reality of the situation, claims (from one side, mind you) that a global climate crisis is a hoax, etc.. So by comparison, are you claiming that the toxicity is equally the fault of safe-space liberals complaining about the racism the right is making every attempt to validate?

The problem isn't that one can bring up any ideological issue(e.g. Venezuela) to turn away criticism of one sides members. No, the problem is your claim of "both sides are making things toxic" implies they are roughly equal in responsibility for that toxicity. And I don't see why anyone ought to take the example you gave seriously by comparing to the panoply of conspiratorial nonsense propped up by one side to the dumb actions of, mostly, literal kids on the other side.

This might not apply to me, as I don't characterize PCism or SJWism as "stopping problems from being solved," but I simply take issue with people wanting to control others' thought/speech/expession. I have a problem with people wanting to control others in general, which is part of why I have the relatively unusual views about laws (far fewer things would be illegal if I were king), the prison system (I'd have a completely different system in place/different approach to criminal justice in general), etc. that I do, too. — Terrapin Station

I don't think I was talking about you, but the first few posters in this thread. In any case, I think the characterization of "trying to control others thought/speech/expression" is a false one though.

If the topic was (somehow) political correctness, then refuting it by Trump and global warming.. :roll: — ssu

No, the refutation was against your nonsensical "both sides have made things toxic". Then, you're justification of that was to point at college kids while ignoring the other side are engaging in hysterical, prolonged campaigns of denying reality and affirming broad conspiracy theories which then become the justification of the acts done by Trump. Kids being obnoxious vs Trump throwing people in cages and trying to ban Muslim immigration.

You keep saying I'm Americanizing this but that's because I'm talking about America. And given you are complaoning to this stuff about kids on college campuses no platforming people and moaning about them bringing up microaggressions, surely you were talking about America as well. If not, then I don't know what phenomenon you're talking about.

This is a very American attitude. Yep, free speach is just for appearances sake in reality. And this of course is one reason for the toxic and agressive discourse. You see, it's all about winning with your argument... Seeking a consensus? Learning from others? Rubbish! — ssu

Free speech? Not remotely relevant to anything I said. I was talking about the suggestion that people not communicating is creating a toxic environment where both sides aren't listening to each other (this was what you mentioned). People aren't usually listening to each other anyway in political discourse. When it's not purely partisanship, it's usually just an appearance of seeming open. And of course it's American in attitude, thats the place I mostly refer to in my post. But if you want to talk about actual, existent, threats to free speech, I'm more than willing to. But even there you will see a clear tendency to which side is doing it (hint: college kids being dumb aren't remotely close).

And who here is defending the idiot in Chief here? This is exactly the point I'm talking about. — ssu

Um, I quite clearly referenced several examples which do not directly involve Trump. But even if I had only done so, the fact that he became president at all, and maintains surprisingly high favorability among the U.S. right wing, shows the truth here.

And what kind of lunacy would the 'left' be, if the extremely aggressive college students promoting victimhood-culture, safe spaces who see microaggressions and racism everywhere would be considered to be the left? — ssu

Do you hear yourself? College kids being idiots (in the best case scenario for your argument) is being compared to Nationwide policies by Trump and the GOP that leads to people (including kids) being grabbed off the streets and in their homes and being thrown into cages, bans on a specific religious group entering the country and ongoing absurdity where government workers and contractors are essentially being made to hamper one's free speech (no boycotting the nation of Israel) if they want to do business with the government.

This is the kind of "off the planet" nonsense I was talking about. The actual lay of the land has been so obscured by hysteria from the right that we are comparing things of vastly different scale in terms of effect and occurrence, and then saying "both sides are the problem". Just... No.

Some models satisfy it, others do not quite do so. If I have one rock in a cup, and out another rock in that cup, now I have 2 rocks in that cup. But if I have 1 drop of water, and put it together with another drop of water, I still have 1 drop water. Albeit, a bigger droplet.

Isn't 2+2=4 just an instance of the law of identity, A=A? Any something is itself. How could it be that anything in actual physical reality could be not itself? — petrichor

That's not the law of identity... And besides which, there's some evidence that quantum objects are individuated so there is metaphysical leeway here.

Stepping on some toes without always saying whose. Sorry in advance.

As usual, this is just the typical right wing BS about "PC" stopping "problems from being solved" and such. What always always always turns out to be the actual motivation, the actual belief, is that the person complaining PC - never defined by them, notice - is they want to say something outlandish about another group or groups but don't want their words to be labelled as bigotry (notice the actual PC nature of this intention on their part). OP demonstrates this magnificently, tucked into their lengthy screed, with all the innuendo I'd expect:

The same people who call themselves feminists have been abetting the most viciously misogynistic ideology on the planet – Jihadist Islam. The same people who call themselves feminists have been excusing inner city thugs in their crimes against women. Of course they do not see the outcome of their policies; however the people who fund them and vote for them do. — Ilya B Shambat

Feminists have been abetting the Jihadists! Goodness.me, I wonder how they are doing that, and why? OP doesn't say of course, but I've seen the song and dance before. OP will reference Muslim rapes, probably in Sweden, and claim the stats are through the roof (and watch how poorly that will stand up to scrutiny), but PC Culture prevents them from saying it without being called unkind things. Naturally, others will point out the way OP and those inflating this to kingdom come are actually "addressing" this problem in both counter productive ways and lying about it to ludicrous extremes. "Teresa May invited all the Muslims here!", they will lie, ignoring the actual problem the EU was addressing and how they were going about trying to alleviate the numbers problem.

"The Muslims are invading!", they will say. No admission that the country(is) the asylum seekers came from were levelled by "freedom fighters" directly helped by (especially) the U.S. and often even directly by the U.S. military. Ah, but invading a country with their soldiers and missiles, and funding terrorists to overthrow the government, has no effect on people trying to flee to places they won't be attacked. I mean it's not like Libya had just been destroyed by U.S.. And Iraq. And Afganistan. Syria, though the government avoided toppling. Yemen in the process of it, though the Democrats have use the War Powers act so who knows how that will go. Iran has been in their sights for awhile, as overthrowing their previous democracy wasn't long lasting enough. Notice the constant build up to establish a pretext for invading. When Iranians begin fleeing en masse from a U.S. invasion they will be decried by the right.

Then OP and co. will say this is all irrelevant (imagine that, war irrelevant to people fleeing war zones), and that this is all about "the libs" not wanting to say there is a problem with a specific group of people (the Muslims, the blacks, the Mexicans, and so on; depends on the flavor of the week) because they don't want to sound racist. And so OP and co. conclude "the libs" are just being PC. It's not as if the problem trying to be evaded is the absurd way the right is trying to solve a some social problem (e.g. yelling at Muslims to go home), or the fact that they immediately drop into racist commentary about these people, or like about the nature, scope or even occurrence of the problem.

No, "the libs" just don't want to sound mean and so they team up with the mean, rapist Muslims thugs. That's definitely what's actually happening in reality and there couldn't possibly be any misrepresentation here.

I think the underlying problem is much more the polarization of the political discourse and the lack of even trying to engage the other side. This creates the current toxic environment — ssu

I think statements like this are both overstated in importance and is just an example "both sides are the problem" vacuousness. People don't really change their minds about politics through discussion with the other side, this is all for appearances sake in reality. To look open minded without ever actually showing one changes anything they believe in politics (aside from large ideology shifts).

Let's take a pretty huge example. The huge amount of people fleeing from countries like Syria was, in the U.S., promised by the then-President-elect Trump to be stopped with a (quoting) "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country". And lo and behold, he passed that with an executive order. The courts struck it down, so it was rewritten in an attempt to get the same effect without having the obviously group-directed language. The American left calling this bigoted isn't even comparable to the passing of this travel ban. And this generalizes, as often these kinds of actions are, often, either pointless (because by comparison to the EU, the U.S. has taken in much fewer in recent years) or they are based on absurd claims that can't possibly be taken seriously.

The liberals have their own vices, which is why I became disaffected with their wishy washy ideology. But the right live on another planet and no amount of me pretending this isn't right wing lunacy most of the time is going to change that. Claims of invading "Mexicans" and Muslims, claims that Obama wasn't actually an American citizen, that pulling out of the World Court was justified because the UN wants to genocide white people and hates America, that climate change is a hoax/a Chinese hoax in particular, ad infinitum. Those and innumerable cases like them are the chief causes of the toxicity. It's not about principles being different, people aren't usually directly arguing about principles (and even when they say they are, they're often hiding the ball about what they're disagreeing about). One side is not good, the other constructs a worldview that requires an incredibly level "believe absolutely anything suits me no matter how crazy".

I'm not interested in the liberal vs. conservative shouting match, unless it's going to be based on competing plans for how we reach some specific goal. Without such a goal on the table, it's just shouting for the sake of shouting. — Jake

You haven't shown that is the goal of immigration though. You said it was the goal, but outside of people very far to the right it's almost undiscussed. Make the case that immigration ought to be discussed with this in mind.

How many more then? 400 million? 900 million? 4 billion? Shouldn't we have some idea where we're trying to go before we all start prancing about pretending we're interested in immigration? — Jake

You're doing it again. Why are you thinking immigration is fundamentally about the number of people we allow in? You say you're not doing that but then you say the above. Considering how small the number of immigrants coming in actually are, it's just not a relevant question and so framing the immigration debate in terms of "How many should we let in?" is not a serious suggestion. There is not in any reasonably conceivable or likely scenario going to be a jump to 90p million from 350 million.

Well, you could speak about Climate change as it relates to this, given the large population movements it will cause, but the right has completely stalled this as a thing that can be discussed meaningfully in politics.

OK. I think what you're saying is that since social engineering is already taking place in the schools, there's no reason we shouldn't add more. — frank

I'm saying that you haven't made clear if you have a principled stance against social engineering in general. If you do, that would entail a commitment to changing the current educational system and policy to be "neutral" on some set of things (good luck with that). If you don't have such a principled stance such that you seek to change how things are currently structured, then I you're playing by a double standard.

And in any case, education is largely about social engineering. As I alluded to, trying to remove it seems to be a performative contradiction.

Ah ok then, so 84 billion people, or any other number, would be perfectly fine for America. — Jake

Um, no. Most conservatives don't ask that question period. To the extent that immigration is an issue to them it's to complain about it, not that they think there is a specific number or fairly understood range they want. They just don't like it, and some of their implied (sometimes explicitly stated) issues with it are rather insidious. This is particularly the case with the extreme right.

You're doing what everybody else is doing, chanting your preferred political dogmas on immigration while ignoring the larger question of what our population goal is. — Jake

Eh, no. The problem is you think the question you're asking is relevant. Florida is a fairly niche case in terms of space. The U.S. has a plethora of unused space on the whole. The immigration issue isn't centered on whether or not we've hit some number or range, and whether we're ok with it or not. In fact, currently immigration in the U.S. from illegal entries is almost net zero (about as many leave as enter) so the question is itself predicated on a false assumption.

The actual fear conservatives have - and they even voice it aloud at times - is that they (white Americans) will become minorities. And so the optimal number question is only relevant to them in the sense that "optimal" means "how many do we need to not have a non-white majority". And that's a pretty insidious and nonsensical idea that itself seems contrary to the claims about what America is founded on. There isn't supposed to be a racialized conception of what makes one an American these days but that's exactly what is behind these fears about immigration making whites a "minority in their own country".

Generally speaking, more people participating in the economy is better for the economy. Immigrants play a huge role in that, especially in taking up jobs native born Americans will not. In a capitalist country especially, the idea that immigration is only about hitting some ideal range of immigrants that is OK does not pass scrutiny. No one is running the numbers on immigration, thinking "You know, if we let in these 5000 we will exceed our population goals". If the U.S. was anything like out of space that might be a concern. But as we are not, it is not. And it's certainly not a topic that conservatives are specifically concerned about because it's not remotely credible that the U.S. is overpopulated.

Per Jefferson, the point was to teach people to read so they can educate themselves prior to voting. — frank

Me:

Namely, for participating in the economy, in social interactions and in the political system in the appropriate ways. — MindForged

I'm strongly against adding anything to the curriculum that's meant to influence students one way or another. Make sure they have what they need to make their own decisions and leave it there. — frank

Unless you are arguing to change the current social engineering that already influences students one way or another I don't take this too seriously. It's exactly the blind spot I was pointing at.

How many human beings do we want living in America? — Jake

No one is asking that outside the right wing because it's a ridiculous question. (I'm not calling you right wing, that's just who actually asks this question in nearly all cases)

From a straightforward economic perspective, more people increases the amount of people contributing to the economy. The jobs these people are able to more easily attain are not jobs native born Americans tend to go for, so "we" aren't losing jobs to them and our economy is already hilariously dependent on them anyway. They cannot take out of programs like Social Security despite paying into them, so the "social parasite welfare queen" idea of bunk.

The wall itself is utterly useless. Not only would it cost stupid amounts of money just to start building ($60-$70 Billion in all likelihood, and that doesn't count upkeep), most of the border can't be feasibly walled off due to the terrain. It would also require eminent domaining the hell out of people's land, which will take an era to go through the courts for that alone. Add on the fact immigration is at a 20 year low and the commit fewer crimes on average than citizens, you're just looking at a "problem" that the wall is a idiotic and massively disproportionate response to, just like it has always been.

So no, it doesn't "work" because it's justification is based on lies and even if it were based on truths the wall doesn't stop people from borrowing a tall ladder and hopping it (or just going to an area known to be unsuitable for a wall and entering that way).

Probably not. Even writ large, Excluded Middle and Bivalence are always tricky when we see ideas that seem to challenge them. Category errors are a common example. You can call them false but that ends up not seeming quite right. They seem to be utterly incoherent, but in a logic with only truth and falsity (and where Excluded Middle holds), "incoherence" and "falsity" are the same thing.

Such logics, arguably, lack the resources to deal with something people deal with in a fairly straightforward manner.

I shouldn't be shocked at the weird reflexiveness in a lot of responses here. Being a reactionary doesn't seem very sensible for anyone. The notion that education does not inherently involve social engineering is so ludicrous a thing to say - especially from an American - that I have extreme doubts that anyone coming here regularly could believe it. The whole point of education it purportedly to prepare you for adult life in the society you are in. Namely, for participating in the economy, in social interactions and in the political system in the appropriate ways.

And of course, what "appropriate" means here is going to be defined in a rather top down manner and schools play a large role in creating a general idea in people's heads about how they she be and what to believe. Pledges of allegiance, emphasis on the ills of national enemies, correct codes of conduct in various settings, gender norms, etc. There's a reason the aforementioned reactionaries in this thread almost immediately jumped to complaining about socialism. That's a product of American social engineering in education and the media. For the latter, there's a reason you see people in the media, government and in the general populace call social Democrats "socialists". They've no conception of the actual range of political views (certainly not any further left than the center-right democrats in America), and so everything becomes socialism to them, just like the current structures tell them to think.

And if the claim is, as a user said earlier on this page, that they don't want any added social engineering to fix (what I take to be) the absurdities produced by American social engineering, then you don't actually care about social engineering in principle. What you actually care about is whether or not that engineering is done in such a way that it protects your ideological views. You don't care if kids are "protected" in this case because you're not suggesting we remove the obvious attempts to mold them into believing and assuming things you agree with.

It's a very convenient hypocrisy to have, I grudgingly admit. Rules for thee, not for me. Bad for you but good for we.

This seems like a general indictment of conservatism to an extend. I don't disagree with you, but might a conservative not say that keeping things slow to avoid too rapid social changes is the point? One legitimate reason for a conservative position is to wait for more data when the consequences of a change may be far reaching. — Echarmion

Perhaps the examples I gave weren't apt then, because the U.S. conservatives were not for introducing gay rights or interracial marriage slowly, they staunchly opposed it completely (the only noteworthy other view was the idea that it should be left to the states... Not hard to know what that actually means though). And in fact, it would sound rather odd for them to have argued the previous examples I gave would be OK if done slowly. Like are gay rights *really* going to have some terrible far reaching negative consequences if given quickly or is that more likely to be fear mongering against the idea itself?

One can come up with possible problems, but all of those depend on the practical implementation. It also depends on just how much common problems that are statistically linked to gender/sex are actually linked only to biological sex. — Echarmion

Well sure but you mentioned before that the conservative argument is that these gender neutrality policies are biased against traditional gender roles and expression with the intent to or resulting in suppressing them. By itself it's just a claim that falls in line with their general antipathy to social change of any sort beyond the usual, it doesn't have any inherent plausibility and so we need to actually to as dispassionate an analysis as we can, without giving undue credence to their complaints going in.

Like if their complaints really come down to "But things are/will be different" and we indeed find some small difference in the rate of certain sexes expressing their gender a certain way, that cannot be taken as validating their preconceived notion that they're being oppressed. Unless by "oppressed" we just mean "different". It seems to me that the claim of kids being made to act different is what would have to be borne out.

This of course assumes that gender neutrality policies are executed in such a manner as to not turn into distorting constraints themselves. The argument, as far as I understand it, of the "conservative" faction is that gender "neutrality" is biased against traditional gender roles, aiming to suppress them. In a gender neutral environment, there might be peer pressure not to overtly display attributes traditionally expressed with your biological sex. — Echarmion

The problem is there's just no reason to think so. U.S. conservatism in particular has a long history of endlessly saying that any attempt to change things at all is an "attack" on their traditionalist ways. It has the merit of being trivially true in the sense that if by "attack" or bias one means "not staying the same" then sure, it's an "attack. At the same time, it seems to be besides the point. As another example of this behavior, this was and is exactly the claim made against allowing homosexual marriages, that it represents an attack on the traditional concept of marriage, interracial marriage, women in the workplace, and so on.

From OP's Sweden example it certainly doesn't appear that there are any issues regarding peer pressure against overt displays of gender expression (whatever exactly 'overt' means in this context). I'm not saying you're agreeing with the conservative view on this, but I confess I find it very irritating to see an identical argument made for repressive views repackaged for every perceived sleight and then having to give any real consideration to the people making the argument. It's a boy who cried wolf situation. Eventually, at least when made by the group in question, it can't be taken to seriously on their word alone. An actual analysis of potential issues in practice would need to be done.

Which bit are you talking about?

Nomena = Unknown
Phenomena = Known

Having both is essential, as you cannot have complete knowledge of any one thing, but some knowledge of what it is. This prediction is a postulate of Gödel's Incompleteness theorem. . — Josh Alfred

Eh, that's a little much, even if it's close to correct. For one, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems are really only applicable to math formalisms and more strictly, to those expressive enough to form number theory. They don't apply, for example, to propositional and first-order logical systems. We know everything about those systems*, they're complete and consistent.

*I think first-order classical logic isn't entirely decideable though? Can't recall.

they're they same thing.

The OP sets out a few examples of logical fictions. That particular absurdity is one that I've not seen any common school of thought avoid without asserting that propositions are somehow independent of language. I've noticed you've taken that route as well. — creativesoul

Well yes, it's (probably) why many do not posit propositions as linguistic. Most don't, I suspect.

Yeah, that makes little to no sense to me. I mean, I acknowledge the issue that you're trying to avoid, but do not see how you have.

"The content of these terms"

What is that?

The referents? The meaning?

Are propositions equivalent to meaning?

I reject the last claim. There are all sorts of way to use language that are not communicating meaning. — creativesoul

It's the meaning. They have the same content because they express the same proposition. Just because there are other ways of communicating meaning in language does not negate this view of propositions. After all, the standard view is that only decideable declarative sentences have a corresponding proposition.

Meaning is not equivalent to a proposition to begin with. It doesn't follow from the fact that meaning transcends an individual speaker that propositions are not existentially dependent upon language. — creativesoul

I didn't say meaning was equivalent to a proposition, I said the content of a proposition is it's meaning. My argument in no way assumed that idioms and such are to be understood literally. However, the understanding of many idioms will translate to some proposition, and it's the meaning of those which is not dependent on language because it's not (necessarily) making a proposition regarding the language itself.

You can communicate the same meaning in different languages. If meaning were bound to a language, this wouldn't be possible.

I agree - but if the universe is finite. By definition it had a first moment. so also by definitnon there was nothing before that. So there was nothing - than there was something. How? — Rank Amateur

This is what I was saying when I said whatever answer you pick there's an exception we're making because we're at a limit case where our usual standards break down. There cannot be a "how" the beginning of existence, because "how" implies something like causality, but we've agreed there couldn't be anything so no cause and effect. But if you take an eternal universe you have to ditch the assumption that there's a reason for everything as well, because there's no explanation for why the sequence of cause and effect doesn't terminate.

Your answer seems to be, is something cant come from nothing, but it did, so it didn't - I am lost in you logic. And pretty sure it is my fault. — Rank Amateur

I didn't say something could not exist uncaused (I do not accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason). What I'm saying is that the reason we are stumped by the idea that something can't come from nothing is that we're generalizing from the behavior of parts of the universe and assuming that applies to the set of everything that has ever existed. And I think that assumption has absurd consequences like I mentioned earlier.

I think I would basically agree with TP here, just pick one because it's obviously going to be one of these answers, counter-intuitive as they may be in their own right:

Or in other words, as I've pointed out before, and as should be obvious, no matter what we posit, we're stuck on either with "something coming from nothing" or something always existing. There's no way to circumvent that problem, so we might as well just stick with the obvious stuff instead of making up things that don't necessarily make any sense--"god," "quantum fluctuations," whatever. — Terrapin Station

I didn't rule out God as a possibility, I said a finite past does not lend any more credence to one. Something doesn't come *from* nothing. You can call it uncaused if you wish, but notice how absurd the idea is if something is caused to exist at all. If "somethingness" is caused to exist, it has to be caused to exist by something. But that means something already existed. Then the whole question of "How does anything exist?" has been answered by the framing of the question. There was no beginning in virtue of the framing of "X caused to exist by Y".

No matter how you slice it some rule that applies to existing phenomena is going to go in this limit case for the existence of anything existing. All I've said is that whichever one it is - eternal or finite - doesn't really seem to be in the favor of God being the explanation. If the past is finite, there was a first moment of time and the notion of there being a cause is incoherent because it's a category mistake.

Carroll is wrong. The BGV theorem proves there was a creation event, given a rather broad, realistic, and empirically established criterion. — Inis

Carroll was quoting one of the authors of the theorem. You have no idea what the BGV theorem actually says, nor its limitations (namely, that contrary to what basically every physicist believes, spacetime is treated classically so it runs short of the whole picture). Alan Guth's statement was thus:

"I don't know if the universe had a beginning. I suspect the universe didn't have a beginning. It's very likely eternal but nobody knows."

Don't speak with such certainty, one of the authors of your own source (the BGV theorem) disagrees with your assessment.

It's not an exception. Cause and effect are temporal processes, and more to the point, refers to something about existing things. If there indeed was a first moment of time, it cannot have been caused because there's nothing (as it, there isn't anything) "before" time because "before" is a temporal concept, it cannot exist unless time does. It's just a category mistake. You might want an explanation for why the universe exists, but there may well not be one. Or if there is, it won't be of the sort you expect.

Why would it lend it weight? All that can actually be derived from a finite past is that there's a first moment of time. There's nothing to really justify assertions of that sort about a type of event we have no other examples of, so generalizations from the kinds of events that happen within the universe don't bubble back to the universe's existence.

Check Sean Carroll's debate with William Lane Craig. Carroll shows one of them (Guth I think) saying it's a misuse of the theorem.

OK? Aside from the broad misuse of that theorem, "there was a first moment of time" doesn't lend anymore weight to there being a God or not.

That depends on if cause and effect still have meaning outside of time; they might do in which case we could have an eternal (outside of time) God and an eternal universe he created. — Devans99

I don't know how this is even supposed to be conceptualized. Time is a crucial aspect of cause and effect for an obvious reason: These terms are defined in terms of temporal sequences during which some event Y follows some event X given some state of affairs. No time means no cause and effect.

Eternal Inflation is usually presented as an atheist model... — Devans99

I think the real point is that it's a model that does not require anything god-like to explain any particular aspect of it. Atheism-compatible, in other words.

Different languages can say much the same thing because they can use different designators to pick out the same entities and/or draw the same correlations between these things. — creativesoul

You're not really making the case for your conclusion though. If propositions were somehow dependent on language, then as I said you would be committed to the view that before language existed humans had no beliefs. You said beliefs are Propositional in nature in your OP ("All thought/belief are propositional in their content."), so I don't see how you are supposed to be avoiding the absurd conclusion that humans once lacked beliefs entirely.

If different designators can pick out the same entity, then the content of these terms are not linguistic in nature because they transcend any particular utterance as they can be picked out by any appropriate one. Whether "The Sun is red" or "Taiyo wa akai", the same meaning is expressed. Meaning is not identical to language. Language is a vehicle by which to communicate meaning.

I'm confused as to how propositions are dependent on language. The standard characterization of a proposition is as the content of a well-formed sentence given some set of linguistic rules. This is why it is often said that the same proposition can be expressed by different sentences, even ones in different languages. Otherwise you'd end up in the really silly situation where you're committed to saying that pre-language humans couldn't have had beliefs because they had no language, as beliefs are generally understood as propositional in nature.

Well I just don't understand why you're so upset about the world changing climate. So what the world rises a few degrees. — AppLeo

This is exactly what I was talking about. You're not an honest actor. You prove repeatedly that you haven't read up on these topics at all and yet you seem fine making such blaise and unjustified (and false) statements. A few degrees rising here equates to substantial jumps in artic and Antarctic temperatures, causing ice caps melting. That's an absurd amount of ice to melt, and not surprisingly leads to substantial sea level rise globally. Something you cannot stop at all. As I said before, even putting pointless fencing across the southern U.S. border is stupidly expensive and ineffective. Now scale trying to put up sea barriers around the entire landmass of all the continents of the world. Many island Nations are already pleading with the U.N. to help them right now because they're losing land.

And you know what happens as coastlines start disappearing? People move inland, flee really. There comes space shortages, resource shortages and a dramatic increase in violence because of general xenophobia, fights over what remains once the global population heada inland, and so on. And that's just from sea level rise, it doesn't even factor in the increase in natural disasters in both intensity and occurrence, mass species die offs and how parts of the world will become uninhabitable. I mean really, this is the kind of callousness and stupidity and reality divorcement that extreme right wingers like yourself breathe like the air. No one can debate with you because reality doesn't matter, only idealized scenarios divorced from the unfortunate restraint of externalities and actually engaging with other ideologies.

Well do you know why I'm saying what I'm saying? I have good and valid reasons for my points. — AppLeo

Your reasons thus far have boiled down to their terrible "Climate change is a leftist religion and we can't mitigate it", claims that groups don't exist (though thankfully a more patient user has tried to walk you through the absurd and untenable consequences of that view, and (as I said) the usual conservative and libertarian complaints about anyone who isn't a straight white guy wanting the "privilege" "forced" down your throat to be treated as equals under the rule of law.

Pffft... — AppLeo

Buddy, you compared the disabled being given easier access to entering a business location to the Nazi regime, you had such brilliant insights as "Can't try to save the world by weaning off fossil fuels because it might 'hurt' the economy" (I don't think you understand the multiple absurdities of this claim of yours) and have betrayed a lack of understanding of how capitalism works and when it works best. You thought it was OK for monopolies or near monopolies to exist because "It only happened through free exchange, which makes it good". I mean it's not like capitalism's main selling points and fertile ground is when there are high levels of competition which is the antithesis of monopolies (which, not coincidentally, use their power to control the government through means I mentioned earlier).

You could not have shown your own ignorance on these matters more. It betrays every sign of someone who got into a political ideology with little understanding of where that ideology came from, how it has functioned in reality when implemented (take a look at Kansas under Republican control, for instance) and shows a fundamental lack of knowledge about competing political philosophies. You are almost entirely spewing talking points and giving your ideological affirmations instead of arguing for your view.

Maybe it's just me but I think it's clear this is just someone puking out bog-standard conservative and libertarian talking points. The poor are bad because the social safety net (I wonder why Rand used SS then???), affirmative action is bad because who knows why those uppity blacks couldn't get into university (what is racism???), and the gubment is bad because not free.

This feels like someone who hasn't engaged in any broader political discourse, has no knowledge of any non-trivial aspects of sociopolitical history (race relations, ideological developments and shifts) and is not at all familiar with the underlying philosophy and consequences of their own views.

Most lefties believe it and they sound like Christians when they talk about it. That's just my opinion, but I'm not saying it's the truth for all of them. — AppLeo

I pray to the Mother Earth that she with drop a natural disasters on your head while you make an exchange totally divorced from outside influence.

More seriously, that was an excellent Dodge of my main point. You are a climate change denier of the worst sort. We know climate change is real and largely made worse by humanity.

Like I said, can we stop this from happening? No. — AppLeo

YES, yes we can. The possibility is there, especially with nuclear energy being workable and scalable, not to mention improvements in solar. What's stopping it? Mindsets like yours where "Well, we're making profit off it and what's good for me just has to be good for everyone. I exist in a vacuum, as do the choices I make." Climate change denier and their useful sycophants have made the situation so dire.

Right, because government regulations make buildings stand right, not the people who were hired to come up the ideas to build the buildings. — AppLeo

As it happens it's the government that figures out these sorts of things and sets them as regulations that private businesses have to follow on pain of fines or losing their ability to build. People Don't come up with these ideas alone, and even on the rare occasion that they do, they don't follow them out of the good of their heart because often doing things right means making less money. You don't seem to have been involved in or knowledgeable of just normal issues that come up with building homes due to contractor and worker malfeasance.

No one here is an expert on anything. But that doesn't mean we can't argue about it and determine what is actually true about the subject.

A deadline of what? The world will end like it should've in 2012? — AppLeo

You claimed, on no basis, that climate changes was a leftist religion. You literally have nothing that even comes close to a fraction of what would be required to overcome the agreement of nearly every climatologist with respect to the facts about climate change. That was my point.

No one said the world would end in 2012 due to climate change, don't be a juvenile right winger. If we do not act within the next couple of years to drastically reduce our CO2 emissions, in about 12 years we will not be able to avoid the 1.5 degree increase in temperature. The effects of that alone are terrible, and worse if we can't even avoid that it's likely we'll hit 2 degrees change in which case that's catastrophic for the climate and life on Earth. As I said, imagine the Middle East but as an uninhabitable zone. That's the kind of ridiculous fallout of your false view of things applied to reality.

Well yeah, people resort to socialism and government control over the economy when they want other people's money and don't want people to be free. And they'll use things like climate change as an excuse to force people to participate in economic transactions that they do not agree to. — AppLeo

You are not arguing here, you are parroting conservative talking points and jumping into hilariously idealized scenarios that don't represent how people actually engage in the world. It's not my choice to participate in an economic transaction that ruins the climate for future generations, and yet that is the inevitable, known result of reliance in fossil fuels.

Can you imagine a world without running on fossil fuels? If we even quit using fossil fuels would that stop climate change?

That is, if it's an actual problem... — AppLeo

Again, idealizations that don't represent reality. Yes, I can imagine a world with greatly reduced fossil fuel. Plant based plastics, nuclear energy (fission and fusion based), solar energy, electrical cars, large scale public transportation fueled by the previous methods, etc. That you think capitalism can solve the issue despite having completely failed to have done so *in reality* is telling. It's exactly the mindset like yours that has made it virtually impossible to fight. You deny it exists and then fight tooth and nail to prevent changes that would actually alleviate it. Yes, dropping fossil fuels would be the number 1 way of combatting CC. How is this a mystery? Go watch the climate change video someone linked earlier.

We have no viable alternatives to climate change. And as I've said, I disagree that fossil fuels have been responsible for it. I think the earth goes through shifts. — AppLeo

Then I'm done. I don't care if you disagree. No one cares if the random fool on the street thinks engineering is bunk. Buildings, Bridges and homes generally stand upright (when they abide by government regulations anyway!) regardless. Climate change is based on decades of empirical research and is based on some well understood physics. That you had the audacity to say "But greenhouses are good for plants" shows the childlike mindset at play.

You know what else greenhouses do? They warm things up. Writ large in a planetary scale, that distorts ecosystems (hooray, even more rapid extinction of many species), melts the ice caps (hooray, hundreds of millions must flee inland causing untold disasters as people pile into each other and kill because of resource shortages), and rapidly distorts weather patterns resulting in an increase of even worse storms at a greater frequency.

You are seriously a living parody of how people say conservatives misrepresent and desperately try to deny climate change because they want to perpetually continue their own selfish lifestyles irrespective of what damage it does to other people. I mean it's bad enough to have the nearly untenable view that groups don't exist, but to relegate hundred of millions to death because you baldly refuse well attested science on grounds of greed? Props, that takes mountain sizes balls.

What's wrong is a bunch of large firms controlling everything? If they bought all the other small businesses, they did it out of free trade. They didn't steal anything. — AppLeo

I'll never understand how a capitalist of all people could argue that one or a handful of firms controlling everything is good for the economy. It's one of the most diametrically opposed things to that kind of economic system working well. It stifles creativity because the bar to entering the market skyrockets to impossible levels for newcomers (goodbye competition) and it gives those firms the incredible ability to manipulate the government (campaign contributions, threats of moving some significant portion of their business out the country, and just general fear of politicians at upsetting crucial parts of their economy). Further, the idea that all business, or even most, is just them winning at free trade is so laughable a statement that its a near guarantee that the person has never taken a few economics courses. Theft isn't the only way to cheat in an economy, though businesses do lots of theft anyway.

It's not even debatable at this point. These are pure ideological affirmations you're giving us. Gubment sucks, monopolies are great (what is capitalism???), individuals exist not groups, etc etc. This is supposed to be the stereotype of Randians and other right wingers who go full weird. Anyway, I'm being rude so I'll duck out before the mods come down on me. Heh.

Climate change is fear mongering and left-wing religion if you ask me

[...]

Whatever problems that arises from it, we should take steps to fix it. If rising sea levels are a problem, for example, then we need to figure out ways to counter the sea levels. I don’t that will really be a problem.

[...]

Maybe. If we didn’t, then who cares, let’s just start working on countering the problems with climate change. If we did create climate change with fossil fuel usage, does that mean we should stop using fossil fuels? Well no, because our economy and livelihood depends on fossil fuels. So it wouldn’t make any sense to stop using fossil fuels. Abandoning fossil fuels for other energy alternatives isn’t cost effective or productive.
— AppLeo

Good thing we ask the community of climatologists and not you then. You are an expert on nothing relevant here, while those who are your betters and mine on the matter say in near uniformity that all current models project a very near future deadline (technically 12 years, but since this escalates the later they're addressed, it's likely more like 5 or 6 years if we don't act now) within which to actto avoid catastrophic climate damage in the coming decades (if you think the Middle East is a shitshow now, just wait until it's uninhabitable).

It's this kind of nonsensical, even idiotic, response to the dangers of climate change that makes so many people even consider socialism in the first place. There will be an obvious problem presented (e.g. climate change) which is in large part caused or made worse by the behavior and operations certain sectors of the economy. People like you will show up, complain about faults being pointed out about the economic system worsening the issue because the negative effects not a market force, and then either do what you're just short of doing (denying climate science as a lefty religion... Great argument) or will just say a variation of "Nothing we can do in practice cause we need fossil fuels". And so these people conclude that, well, if that's capitalism and it requires such mental gymnastics to avoid admitting any fault or failure with it, then I'm against that. You are you're own worst enemy.

Because of the very well established problem between capitalism and market externalities that can't be easily (if at all) be made monetizable, we know there is more keeping civilization going than this ridiculous idea that "Well herp de derp, since we require fossil fuels right now we can't even bother weaning ourselves off them". It's exactly this unthinking response that got us stuck in this rut. We've known for certain that climate change had a huge man made component to it for decades. Large areas of business knew it existed even longer and some even buried their research regarding it in the 50s and 60s (again, if it's not profitable capitalism will deny it or fight it even if it's self destructive).

The suggestion that we can combat these issues individually because you have a nakedly unjustified view that groups don't exist is laughable. I mean yeah, sure my dude, show me the obvious and feasible solution to global sea level rising. You can't put up a seawall around the entire world landmasses, it's friggin huge. We can't even put a border wall on the southern border of the U.S. because it's both incredibly impractical, stupidly expensive and it doesn't solve the problem. And you know what that means? People will inevitably flee inland and boy doesn't that bring with ita host of other enormous problems to solve? It's almost like some problems are a result of others

It would be many orders of magnitude larger to try and "individually" target sea level rising caused by CC in any case. You know what would slow down sea level rise? Attempting to end climate change. It's like the textbook example of many giant problems having a narrow range of causes that we can attempt to alleviate. But the peddlers of economic magic that you are part of (note I am not a socialist) have made this impossible because underneath every out they give themselves is just one fundamental view.

What's good for me won't hurt anyone else. The individual is supreme.

But, hey, I'm sure you just have the inside knowledge on why leftists are just trumpeting up climate change despite it being the case that massive captains of industry are directly funding campaigns and politicians to fight any non trivial attempt at diminishing the impact of CC because it would mean they couldn't make all the money in the world. This is your brain on Objectivism.

That's a picture, what it represents doesn't exist. ;)