1) There is no such thing as the Laws of Nature. It is a made up please with no definition. It is precisely equivalent to God and has its roots in religion. — Rich
2) Science says that events are non-deterministic. If they were we could throw out Schrodinger's equation and replace it with Newton's. But, alas, science decided 100 years ago that Newton's Laws do not correspond to experimental evidence including Bell's Inequality which demonstrate non-locality. — Rich
Determinism has zero evidence. There is absolutely nothing to support the notion that everything is determined or anything it's determined and the choices we make are either governed by some supernatural God or Laws of Nature which in turn are mystically creating the illusion of choice. — Rich
In 1920's 'they' found out that the idea of determinism is not right due to the discovery of quantum physics. So how do quantum physics give the Universe 'free will'? Or is quantum physics just an other thing we have yet to fully understand and is determinism still right? — FMRovers
I doubt that most Quinians or Wittgensteinians would say that it is a benign regress and would reject it, given it's similarity to the Modus-Ponen's infinite regress paradox of Lewis Carroll, as used by critics of truth-by-convention to attack the idea that the notion of logical necessity is representable or derivable from a finite supply of community conventions. — sime
One variety of vicious infinite regress could be when trying to justify some proposition, p, and justifying p is done with (or requires) a different proposition, p1, which, in turn, depends on p2, ..., ad infinitum, where pn diverges. — jorndoe
On the other hand, if all propositions/claims can be shown to collapse into one (like pn+1 = pn), for example, then it's not a vicious infinite regress. — jorndoe
Democracy's weakness and strength is the stability it gives. With totalitarianism you can actually have really good times if your leader is benevolent and knows what he is doing. (Example: See Singapore/Lee Kuan Yew, or Korea/Sejong the Great). But unfortunately most of history has been the exact opposite. Democracy avoids this but makes actually fixing issues a slow and sometimes impossible task. — yatagarasu
P2: Time and space emerged at the moment of the big-bang.
P3: Before the big-bang, there was neither time nor space.
P4: It is probable that there was a reason, or a cause, for the big-bang (for, the universe is magnificent and even contains conscious human beings with remarkable minds). — Brian A
Premise-1: Everything in the world has a cause. — Brian A
Premise-2: If we trace the causes back, we arrive at the big bang, and the cause of the big bang. — Brian A
Premise-3: Even if God was not the cause of the big-bang, and something natural was, still, it is very improbable that there is an infinite chain of causes going back forever. — Brian A
Conclusion: Therefore, it is very probable that a non-contingent first cause exists; and this must be God, since there is nothing greater than the non-contingent first cause. — Brian A
I am on record for saying that the distance between any two events (points in spacetime) can be expressed by pure spatial separation or by pure temporal separation, or if right on the edge between the two, then undefined singularity. That assertion contradicts my denial of existence of things not in our reference frame. — noAxioms
Any designation of one would render over 99% of the universe nonexistent since only a tiny percentage of matter exists in any particular frame. Most of it is increasing its distance from that frame at a pace considerably faster than light and thus can never ever interact with the matter reasonably stationary in the frame.The bulk of all matter is nonexistent in any given frame. — noAxioms
If the definition of Atheism is merely lack of belief, both of these diagrams make no sense whatsoever. — WiseMoron
I also have a counter-argument against the definition of Atheism being merely lack of belief as well. Given that someone has the opinion that God doesn't exist and yet says s/he is an atheist, in the sense that s/he merely lacks belief, isn't that a contradiction in a way? What I am saying is, "having an opinion requires believing." If you merely lack belief in God, then you ought to be under the title of agnosticism than atheism because logically that makes more sense and is less misleading. I know that atheism isn't a religion, but how can you have an opinion on the same subject that you have no belief nor disbelief in? That makes no sense to me. Also, beliefs aren't only in the systems called religions, anyways. It makes more sense to me that atheism is disbelief and not merely lack of belief. — WiseMoron
Based on what? — Coldlight
I never said that a fact stated as absolute with certainly is to be believed without thinking. — Coldlight
We can go further by claiming that no absolute truth can be known, and that nothing metaphysical can be proven. I think that this view is wrong because it puts agnosticism itself as an absolute truth, as something we can know with certainty. — Coldlight
Another problem is why would some things be brute when most things are not? What makes God, or Quantum Mechanics, or Daisen brute? What distinguishes the brutally existing things from the non-brutal ones? Is it just being brute? Is there a brute property? How does brute existence result in contingent existences? — Marchesk
Of some kind, yes. But the spatial relation that exists between the Earth and the Moon is not it, nor is it the temporal relation between an ice cube and that cube melted an hour later. — noAxioms
Worlds have positions?? Can I say which is left of the other? Can these four identical worlds be put in some kind of order? — noAxioms
The correlation vs causation dichotomy is one that has occupied my mind a fair bit over the last couple of years. I used to think there was a clear distinction between the two, but now I am not so sure. — andrewk
When consciously experiencing the world, we seem to always be aware that we are doing so. — JulianMau
Yes, of course. Do you know of any other way to experience something? — Luke
You address my concerns by complaining that I have not addressed your concerns? — Luke
Time is considered to be a space-like dimension under eternalism, not "another dimension of space". Time is not considered to be a dimension of space. — Luke
I have experiences (or an experience) at a particular time. I don't agree that this must necessarily be a part of some larger experience, which I can only take you to mean something like the rest of my life. Please correct me if you are referring to some other "larger experience" than this. To be clear, I consider an experience to be a part of my entire life, I just take issue with calling my entire life "an experience". — Luke
I think that a worm is a representation of a person/object's lifetime/existence. I don't think that a representation or a lifetime can have its own experiences. I believe that a person can have experiences over their lifetime, however. — Luke
Suppose that Jones made a decision that he would wake up early in the morning. However, some seconds later, his decision does not exist. This scenario is based on presentism. — quine
Presentism will delete your every experience occurred in the past. — quine
I've explained it several times and you continually fail to address it: I find it peculiar to consider two distinct, temporally-distant experiences (e.g. decades apart) to be referred to as a singular experience. How do you justify this unusual use of the term? — Luke
I've already granted that a person can have more than one experience at a time, and I provided the example of having a conversation and hearing background noise simultaneously. — Luke
The relevant difference being that we don't experience our lives all at once, or have every experience of our lives available to us "in full" at a single glance. For example, two distinct experiences might be had decades apart, where they do not form a combined, singular experience. — Luke
I don't know, should it? Why should it? You are attributing the experiences that you actually have (in the real world) to the eternalist model, and then subsequently make the assumption that the eternalist model has implications on what we should experience. Sounds backwards to me. — Luke
No, I think that your talk of worms having experiences is nonsensical. Also, how you seem to think that it is unproblematic for a worm to have a combined experience of two distinct experiences which may be years or decades apart. Worms don't have experiences of a person's entire lifetime; people have experiences throughout their lifetime, and in a particular sequence. — Luke
I believe that it is a general feature of a single conscious subject to be continually ageing and moving forward in time. — Luke
How do objects "change" their position over time without a flow of time? You need to implicitly assume a flow of time for the concept of change to make any sense. Changing where I focus my attention on the static timeline does not constitute any real change, it's just an attempt to smuggle in change via my attention (which really does change!). And I'm pretty sure that if (e.g.) blood doesn't flow through our veins, if our brain impulses don't fire, and if we don't continue to breathe in and out, then we will soon lose consciousness. — Luke
I thought that was the point in contention? — Luke
An experience of x and an experience of y need not be a combined experience, as they can be two distinct, separate, temporally-distant experiences. Although you could refer to them as a singular experience, I take you to mean that the experience of red on my left and blue on my right are not temporally-distant experiences. If they were, then it would be peculiar to refer to them as a single experience, instead of two individual experiences. — Luke
Besides, if any two (x and y) experiences must be combined into a single experience, then all experiences must be combined into a single experience. — Luke
How, then, can you distinguish, or even speak about, one experience as distinct from the rest? It then all becomes just one big experience. This seems to create some problems for your OP, where you speak of having more than one experience.. — Luke
How does it have implications on what we should experience? — Luke
I don't know what beings you are talking about, but I'm talking about normal human beings and the way that we actually have experiences. You are talking about some abstract nonsense which has little to do with human beings. — Luke
Charitable or not, I find it impossible for us to have consciousness or experiences, or for there to even be the illusion of a flow of time, in a static, motionless universe. I don't think that beings in an eternalist world would be zombies, because even that suggests some sort of motion. If the eternalist theory proposes that the universe is truly motionless, then why be charitable about it? Advocates of the theory are welcome to explain it. — Luke
You misrepresent the point in contention. The point in contention is whether the fact that a person has an experience of x and an experience of y means that they have a combined experience of x and y. My going to Disneyland when I was five years old and my going to Disneyland last week do not constitute some "combined experience" - they are separate and distinct experiences. I suppose I could talk about the singular "experience" of my entire life, but this strikes me as a virtual misuse of the word, and it is not the same meaning of "experience" as you have used when describing our 'point in contention' above. Also, you are not referring to the experience of a person, but of a person's worm. — Luke
Eternalism (and the worm conception of time) is an ontological theory of existence, not experience. You are importing your own bizarre assumptions about experience. — Luke
Presentism is a theory of time which is consistent with the way we have experiences and apparently move forward in time. It is up to eternalism to try and account for why it seems this way to us. You can presume that a temporal worm has experiences, and has all of the experiences that an individual will have across their lifetime, but this still won't account for (temporally-speaking) the main issue: why does time appear to flow and why do we appear to have these experiences in a presentist way, moving forward in time from one moment to the next? It's not being uncharitable to eternalism that it cannot account for this; that's just the problem with eternalism. — Luke
I agree that it is reasonable to believe that temporally extended beings, like us, can have experiences. However, I disagree that some aggregate of our entire existence, unlike us, can have its own consciousness or experience, including any meta-experience (or "larger experience") of two distinct, temporally-distant experiences at once. — Luke
Personally, I have never had a "combined experience" of two distinct, temporally distant experiences, and I'm pretty sure that nobody else ever has, either. — Luke
Why you are so intent on attributing experience to a hypothetical aggregate of your temporal existence (i.e. your temporal worm) is beyond me. — Luke
It is a fact about English that things stated in the present tense are anchored to the speech time (for the most part – it's more complicated than that). A theory that denies this cannot be correct. I don't have any views on whether eternalism is committed to such a thing. My guess is they would plead that they are using 'exists,' if they're inclined to do so, in some technical sense that differs from how it's used in ordinary English. I would also be skeptical, however, that they have a coherent notion of the sense in which they are using it. — The Great Whatever
It may be a potentially convincing premise infelicitously worded. But I think any felicitous wording of it would make it mean something like 'Right now, I only find that I have the experiences I have right now.' — The Great Whatever
If they are using the English language, that's all that sentence can mean. It's not up to them to decide what it means.
...
That is what "now" means. It is not a question of what I mean by it. — The Great Whatever
Good. Then let's drop references to eternalism altogether and just talk about P3. So no more saying "but on an eternalist view..." etc. That is simply irrelevant. — The Great Whatever
Apparently you mean only the experiences that exist. Okay, but the word 'exist' is inflected for the present tense, such that for an experience to exist is for it to be happening (or being undergone) now. But you've said this is not what you intend. — The Great Whatever
They did exist. — The Great Whatever
If you mean in the ordinary sense, of course I believe in the passage of time, because time passes. — The Great Whatever
But if you require this to be an argument contingent on eternalism, as it seems to be in your OP, it seems you can just as easily convert any such notion into there just being distinct times at which things happen. I mean, I think eternalism is stupid, but that isn't my point, I'm just focusing on your argument, which has an unconvincing premise. — The Great Whatever
I can't parse this clause. — The Great Whatever
If I think about my total experiences, I find that I have had some, have some now and will have others later. So clearly they aren't limited to a single time. Why would I believe P3, then? — The Great Whatever
I asked you to use a new word because you were abusing the English word 'now' by using it incorrectly. — The Great Whatever
When did they happen? If they both happen in the past, I would say they both existed. — The Great Whatever
I think a more sensible thing to say about past events is that they happened. Asking whether they exist seems infelicitous to begin with, but to the extent I can make sense of it, it seems to be a matter of asking whether they're happening, which of course they aren't, but they did happen. — The Great Whatever
So why use the word NOW? Can you just reword your claim using the word 'exists' instead? — The Great Whatever
Are you asking if I have both experiences while I exist. Of course – I have to exist to have an experience. — The Great Whatever
What does it mean to generally exist? Is that different form existing? — The Great Whatever
I think that there's a time t1 at which I have an experience and then later another time t2 at which I have another. Is that the passage of time? — The Great Whatever
No. — The Great Whatever
What do you mean by the passage of time? It requires that there be different times, with each of the experiences had at different ones. — The Great Whatever
If I have an experience of getting up and going to work, that experience might both involve sitting in my room, and then letter being on the train, yes. — The Great Whatever
You also want to say that there is some sort of eternalist way to have experiences. I reject this claim, and your example of simultaneously seeing a red and a blue patch (at the same time!) does not help to address how one can possibly have some "larger experience" of two different experiences that are temporally distant from each other. — Luke