This is more a subject for Zen meditation. There one learns, or experiences one's "I" as a fabrication. Instead of "I am aware" there is only awareness. — jgill

Sartre must have been pretty zen. "Consciousness is consciousness of something." But one consciousness is consciousness that one is conscious of something.

"The self is not a relation, but the relation of the relation to itself." -- Soren Kierkegaard.

^ I read that line over and over for many years and never understood it until my partner pointed out that "relate" means tell/inform.

The self is the thing that tells you what you are being told. It is not consciousness of the moon, but consciousness that you are conscious of the moon.

I'm a big fan of Daniel Kahneman's System 1/System 2 model, and I wonder if that fits. System 1 is fast, eager, over-reliant on pattern recognition, and error-prone. System 2 is slow, lazy, algorithmic, and takes credit for everything. I suspect consciousness of the moon is System 1's job, and the relation is System 1's relation of that consciousness to System 2.

For instance, when we see a curtain that has fallen funny, System 1 sees it, does pattern recognition, matches a face to the folds, and tells System 2 there's a face in the curtain. We are only aware of seeing a face in the curtain, and duly freak out.

You are getting very confused:

1. The OP proves (assuming causality) that a timeless first cause is required. The OP has nothing to do with fine tuning and is IN NO WAY CIRCULAR.

2. I made the completely separate argument that the fine tuning argument implies it is very likely that there is intelligence behind the universe. This also is IN NO WAY CIRCULAR. — Devans99

Oh, now you've claimed it twice, it must be true! The caps lock helped too.

P.S. It was definitely circular.

Everyone deserves his inheritance because that is the will of the bestower. — NOS4A2

Does everyone deserve a punch because that is the will of the puncher?

Well I guess that depends on how you would define simplicity. Some would probably say a less complex mathematical model is more simple, while others might say less empirically unverifiable stuff is more simple. This doesn't seem like a question there is definite answer to. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes, another might be good old-fashioned inertia: we're sticking with the first thing that came along without empirical reason to abandon it. I suspect there's been a lot of that.

Yes of course. But the same is in principle true of basically everything. The objects that we infer to exist from our experiences are all models, and if we should come up with better models according to which we don’t need to posit the existence of such objects, we’re free to revise our beliefs and do away with supposing that they exist. — Pfhorrest

I get what you're saying, but this is qualitatively different insofar as it depends on undetectable things: it would be the first theory to be considered an empirically-verified scientific theory to do so tmk.

There is perhaps nothing stopping us from adding the new field by hand to the Standard Model, abandoning whatever physical considerations that yielded the model in the first place as now unscientific. I would imagine that would be an unpopular route (not least because the SM is itself symmetric, but nor is it completely ab initio, so...). This would then put the model in the same-place as Kaluza-Klein theory: admirably unifying, attractive, but no longer empirically-verifiable.

Or in other words, if a more reductive theory of the universe yielded observable phenomena but also unobservable phenomena, it might be justified to just incorporate the observable stuff into a less simple model of the universe at the expense of the otherwise perfectly viable, simpler theory.

And they do deserve the wealth because it is often at great sacrifice such a feat is accomplished. — NOS4A2

Can that be right? That Trump deserves his inheritance because someone else made sacrifices to bestow theirs?

Yes, please provide a ToE or otherwise your theory of causation!! — 3017amen

Either in favour of the very prejudice I was describing -- granting authority to those who claim to have answers instead of those who genuinely seek them -- or else you make very funny joke.

No. You are talking that you are working for someone else and don't admit that you get a salary, income, be it large or small, for that. — ssu

I did not say that, don't be silly. I said I labour for others to provide for my family. I don't think it's likely to be inferred I work for goods.

No. I say that the Native Americans saw it as their property too. I'm saying that property has existed, so when you argue that it has been stolen, where do you put the line where it wasn't stolen? I'm not sure why you don't get this. — ssu

Well, some tribes were well known for not having a concept of personal property of land, but that's fine. I'm glad we agree: land, and thus its means of provision, can be stolen from a people. And you would agree, then, that this did indeed happen in the Americas? And that the same land can be bought and inherited by the descendants of those thieves because of that theft? Because if so we're in violent agreement.

Is it possible to think of a model that would rely on an immaterial field that cannot be removed for the model to hold? Per definition the immaterial field doesn't effect anything material, so how could it then be necessary for the model if it doesn't effect anything? — ChatteringMonkey

I had in mind something like Kaluza-Klein theory, which fulfilled the first criterion (unifies known physical law) and also predicted a new field that was never found. Despite its attractiveness, it is deemed unscientific. But if it had predicted another field that was discovered, I imagine it would have been accepted, and would have had a big impact on our common understanding of the universe (e.g. that it is 5D, not 4D).

Things like other possible worlds fall into this category too. If the best explanation for the actual world involves there being infinitely many possible worlds of which the actual one is the only one we have experiential access to, then okay, it looks like there’s infinitely many possible worlds, even if we can’t experience them, because the negation of that fits worse with experience. — Pfhorrest

Yes, the thought didn't even occur to me. I suppose the difference is that the hypothesised field is still local, mooching around about, getting up to its undetectable mischief.

I take your point that we still know something about it through physics, that whatever would necessitate its co-existence with observable fields would constitute some kind of very indirect observation after-the-fact. However it is still only a model: we can seek another without recourse to undetectable fields that yields the same predictions, and if we find it apply Occam's razor without new empirical evidence. Does not finding such a model make undetectable fields more real to us, or is it simpler to assume we don't have the best model?

I'm mainly trying to figure out what it would take to convince me that something undetectable might exist. I'm gonna mull your argument, but I think I might agree: it is still detectable, albeit in a different way.

The first cause must be able to cause something whilst not being effected in anyway. So it must be self driven - capable of independent action - intelligent.

Then as a separate argument, fine tuning also implies an intelligent first cause.

There is really absolutely nothing circular about my argument. — Devans99

It wasn't a separate argument. You used it to dismiss the notion of a universe created without fine-tuning, itself an argument against an intelligent first cause. This is quite an epic logical error. But I dig that you choose not to believe it is a circular argument, despite all the evidence.

My argument in the OP is based purely on causality and is not at all circular. — Devans99

To defend the necessity that a first cause requires an intelligent agent, when presented with current theory that has no such agent, you argued that conditions for life imply an intelligent agent. I don't know how much more circular you could get.

Maybe the more obvious question would be, why are there laws of physics/patterns in the universe v. the unrestricted chaos of a lawless universe? — 3017amen

Ah! Quick question first: If I present to you a scientific theory that describes exactly how this happens, would you accept that the laws being as they are does not necessitate an intelligent creator?

The reason I ask is because if the answer to that is No, I may as well just make one up, say I don't know, or not answer, maybe just blow a raspberry or something. If the answer to that is Yes, then you base your position not on the truth but on an authority of certainty that is not guaranteed. You value being given an answer, be it true, false, wise or ignorant, above truth.

Before Darwin, science had no explanation for how humanity began. That ignorance is not evidence that God did it. Yet men of faith said "God did it" and people believed them. Before Hubble, we had no idea that galaxies formed from an earlier, hotter period when the universe was more dense. That ignorance is not evidence that God created galaxies. And yet men of faith said "God put them there" and people believed them.

The persistent response I hear to a scientific atheist position is: "Well, if God did not exist, how do you explain...?" Sometimes the questioner is not very scientifically literate and the question has a well-accepted scientific answer. Sometimes they are, and the question is chosen to put God in a gap somewhere.

I'm increasingly convinced that, whichever kind of question, the correct response is something like the one I'm giving. Having all the answers, and them not being true, is the province of religion and theology. Searching for the answers and getting them is the province of science and valid philosophy (i.e. philosophy where the conclusion is not aimed at but derived). In that light, if one were to choose between the person who says, "I know, for I have all the answers" and the person who says "I don't know, let's find out", it's a good thing to listen to the second person.

And yet we so often go with the first.

If time is like a ruler, as per Eternalism, then there is no motion. — Luke

If <insert literally anything here>, then there is no motion. All you're proving is that you will assert the same thing no matter the course of the conversation. That wasn't even a rational statement.

Motion is an inevitable consequence of the geometry of 4D objects. Unless you address that, you're not even close to disproving motion.

Are you saying God caused something- just not everything? — 3017amen

is inconsistent with

I do not believe in God — Kenosha Kid

What is your existential definition of Causation? — 3017amen

Do I need one? Why? I may have a causal definition of existence. If I had an existential definition of causation, I'd be going round in circles.

My argument does not presume the existence of God; it deduces the existence of a timeless first cause from the assumption of causality - nothing circular about it at all. — Devans99

Alas no. Defence of your argument relied on the assumption that the physical constants of nature had been fine-tuned in order (teleology) to yield life, which is the action of an intelligent creator. It also relied on the more general argument that a first cause must be an intended cause. Neither are themselves derived.

Viz:

Multiple universe theories fail to justify the 'strong anthropic principle'. Do you suppose all such universe are made of radically different stuff to our universe or the very similar stuff? If its similar stuff, then all universes in the multiverse are fined tuned for life and all where created by God for that purpose. — Devans99

assumes the existence of God as a cause of similar universes, therefore cannot be used to answer a question about God's existence.

Hawking's last paper actually suggested tgat the possible range of physical constants might be much smaller than expected. He was an atheist.

Also, consider that with a multiverse, many of the parameters that must be fined tuned for life are actually multiverse level parameters rather than parameters applicable to single universes. So the actual multiverse (if such a thing exists) must be fine tuned for life. — Devans99

So even if every possible combination of laws in an infinity of universes existed, the existence of one inevitable universe with our laws is evidence that they were fine-tuned for life? :rofl: That's hilarious! You have a black box: put anything in, out comes "Proof that God exists!" I am eating an apple. "Proof that God exists!" It is Tuesday. "Proof that God exists!"

Yet you aren't a slave. You do get an income, I assume. — ssu

Yes. Slavery did not enter into my argument. Are you setting up a ridiculous dichotomy in which everyone is either a slave or works for themselves?

Someone has. Stealing MEANS that there is property. — ssu

Does it? So you would argue it was all well and proper that European settlers took the land of Native Americans because it belonged to no one in particular? How horrid.

The right to own property and that it cannot arbitrarily taken away from you is one of the basic institutions necessary for a functioning society. — ssu

This is begging the question. Capitalism is a system of private ownership; communism a system of group ownership. The tribe with its water hole was a group.

If this institution isn't upheld, like if I just can bribe a judge and come with a paper that the land that you have lived all your life is actually mine, there are huge problems in the society — ssu

But that was how land came into private ownership. Is your argument that it wasn't theft back then since you personally profit from it, but if someone were to do the same to you, well that would just be awful, wouldn't it?

Yours is a very confused argument. If you're perfectly in favour of men taking the land that fed and housed a people for themselves, I cannot see how you could object to me and my army taking your house. Very hypocritical.

If time is continuous, what else could change in temporal position of the object mean except that the object moves from one time to the next , i.e., temporal passage? — Luke

Ask yourself the same thing about the length of a ruler? Does it rely on the concept of a 'here' that moves from one end to another? In which case why treat time differently?

Very, very rarely, the computer program will generate a universe like ours that supports complex matter (elections and quarks make atoms - all 100+ elements from just two types of particle. And from that we have the amazing complexity of the almost infinite types of different molecules that are needed for life. The odds of such a universe occurring purely randomly are billions to one. — Devans99

Yes, and that might tell us something about our universe, for instance that it is one of a great multitude, or that its physical constants cannot have just any old value. It does not necessitate a fine-tuning, and it does not necessitate that life -- just one of the phenomena possible in this universe -- was desired. That comes from other assumptions, bad ones.

It seems that God exists outside spacetime and choose the parameters of spacetime and then created spacetime. So the argument is not circular. — Devans99

It is circular since it presumes the existence of God -- the thing it seeks to prove -- be he inside or outside of spacetime.

I think people understand that you need more to be in the situation that people are willing to pay for your services. — ssu

It's still a myth.

I assume you labour for yourself to eat. — ssu

No, I labour for others, as the majority of people do.

Hence, when you argue that capitalism is based on theft (meaning stealing), it should not be any wonder to you how I or Judaka interpret your thoughts the way we do (and now naturally speaking just on my behalf). There is someone you stole from if you steal something. And I've asked you again and again, who or what is the thief here and who is the one whose property has been stolen? — ssu

It is illogical to say that if I say there has been a theft, it follows I personally have been stolen from. You say you've asked again and again but I've stated it again and again. Ignoring the answer is not the same as not having received it.

Or is then inheritance theft? Should the wealth you poses be given to the state or what? — ssu

I have also answered this at least twice.

Or, was ownership a way for two tribes to live peacefully side by side with mutually agreeing on that this watering hole is yours and that watering hole is ours? — ssu

You imagine it was peaceful? If you gotta believe it, you gotta believe it I guess. I'd think a glimpse at the natural world would disillusion you.

You understand that ownership of property by a social group is not capitalism, right?

Either the object moves from t to t' and there is temporal passage (not B-theory).
Or the object does not move from t to t' and there is no motion. — Luke

Then your definition of motion depends on temporal passage, which kinematics does not. As I have said many times, motion in 4D is straight geometry. If you are happy with a ruler having length without changing position, you have no reasonable objection to a 4D object having duration without changing temporal position. Simply insisting it is different is itself contra to eternalism.

And you've agreed that the object has moved from t to t'. — Luke

No. The above does not depend on anything moving from one time to another, merely that the position at t' differs from that at t.

There are about 20 parameters of the standard model and Big Bang that are fine-tuned for life. — Devans99

No, they're not. The particular values allow for formations of the kinds of atoms we have, which allows for the kind of chemistry we have. They are not "fine-tuned", and certainly not fine-tuned for life.

Your argument for God ends up being circular. You are supporting the existence of God with the argument that God chose the parameters of the universe such that you could exist. A proof of God's existence cannot assume he exists already.

Yes, representing a change in temporal position of the object. That is, the object has changed its temporal position. — Luke

That's it! You've described motion!

Do I think taxation is theft? No, I don't. — ssu

That was not the question or anything like it.

No, as long the poorest don't get in absolute terms poorer. — ssu

At the time during which a person who could self-provide suddenly discovered they had to labour for others in order to eat, did they become richer, poorer, or stay the same?

You think only 0,5% of entrepreneurs are successful? — ssu

A fallacious argument, equivalent to saying, in response to the hypothetical "Fred and Sally were walking down a street...", "You think all women are called Sally?" The numbers were not the point. The point is that the will to become a successful entrepreneur making you become a successful entrepreneur is a myth.

I think you didn't get my point but anyway. You were the one saying you are a peasant, so... — ssu

Yes, insofar as I labour for others to eat. I do not hold inheritors of wealth responsible for the theft any more than I would hold a baby of European stock responsible for the near-genocide and theft of two continents. You seem to share Judaka's view that to say 'Y happened because of X' it follows that 'Y is responsible for X'. Capitalism is based on a theft; it did not perform the theft, rather it inherited from it.

So you bring up this "someone who suddenly claimed that land was his". Who are you talking about? I think that it will go further than just our historical time as animals can be territorial also. — ssu

Sure, tribalism precedes feudalism, one difference being that a group that that took a watering hole by force was on a level playing field with the next group that wanted to take that watering hole by force, another being that social groups as a whole controlled that watering hole, which sounds a bit too commie, doesn't it.

How is capitalism responsible for colonialism or land ownership? — Judaka

Did I say it was?

I've only ever been talking about the motion of 3D objects in the 4th dimension; that is, 3D parts of the 4D object. — Luke

If so, are you satisfied that a 3D part at time t' may differ from the 3D part a time t? If so, that is motion.

Here's your argument: " God did not cause everything and I don't believe in God therefore I don't believe in causation". Is that logic correct? — 3017amen

No, still the same fallacy.

"I do not believe in God, therefore I do not believe that God caused everything." That logic is correct.

But if all the circumstances are deterministic, including our values, then why claim that we have free will at all? — Samuel Lacrampe

Point to your definition of free will that is inconsistent with it. Is it still "I" doing the deciding? Yes. That I am a reasonable person who a) can determine the best outcome and b) will choose the best outcome does not mean I am not choosing, even if the best outcome is obvious and well-defined.

Or better to have that state plumber to fix your pipes at your home, who comes 5 months from now? — ssu

That rather appeals to contingent qualities of a particular communist country, doesn't it? Which is irrelevant anyway, since my stated position is on the capitalist side of the argument. Or is your point that, since capitalism gets me a plumber more quickly, I have to concede that a moron who inherits half a billion dollars -- enough to buy a Presidency, say -- deserves that inheritance more than a Projects kid who could change the world if only he could stop his stomach from rumbling and hurting long enough to focus on class? It's difficult to join the dots on that one.

Yes, you do need things like a free market, the ability to choose a profession and be an entrepreneur in the field you want. — ssu

It's not a question of merely making the landscape correct. This is a psychological malfunction called the illusion of expertise. 200 people try to become successful entrepreneurs. Due to a thousand factors outside of anyone's control or consideration, one person makes it.

"Wow, that guy did something right! We should get him to write a book on how he did it, then we can read it and do the exact same thing and become rich!"
:D :D :D :) :) :) :| :| :|

Original theft or original sin? It's correct actually to put it in religious terms as the issue is quite religious in my view. The viewpoint comes more from a religious aspects than from practical measures of making the World better. — ssu

Yes, I'm sure the Romans thought so to, without particularly strident religious views too, and certainly without the concept of original sin. If it makes sense to you, though, you and you can talk in those terms. I am not obliged to entertain such silliness.

What is so utterly wrong in the fact that the seller of a service and the buyer of a service can reach an agreement what the price of the service is? — ssu

You mean what is so wrong that we went from a condition where we could walk the land and hunt and gather to one where, if we wanted to eat, we had to labour for someone who suddenly claimed that land was his? Just that it's theft. Ask the Native Americans how they feel about it.

However, if an object does not actually change its temporal position, then it cannot actually change its spatial position either. And if an object does not actually change its spatial position, then it doesn't actually move. According to the above definition of motion, that is. — Luke

And that is why secretly you're a presentist. It is not a condition in eternalism that a 4D object need move within a 4D space to have motion, since that would be a new kind of motion (hypermotion, I guess) in an even higher-dimensional space that would be hard to conceive of. All that matters is that the geometry of a slice at time t' differs from the geometry of a slice at t of the same 4D object. This, by definition, gives the object a gradient in space with respect to time, which means it moves. According to the above definition of motion, that is.

As I stated ages ago, you need to show that nothing is time-dependent in eternalism in order to disprove motion. Figuring out different ways of verbally forcing presentist ideas into eternalism isn't going to cut it.

No; you clearly seem to be saying you don't believe in causation and therefore causation doesn't exist. — 3017amen

That's a variant of the same fallacious argument: "God caused everything, you don't believe in God, therefore you don't believe in causation."

The coincidence of so many features - parameters that are fine tuned for life in the universe - that all effect a single purpose - the support of life - is noteworthy — Devans99

But they're not fine-tuned for life. That's just arrogance. The universe doesn't care that you exist. The fact that something can exist in the universe doesn't give it a teleology.

Well, either "dt" represents a length/duration for comparison purposes only (is "not something an object does"), or else it represents a change in temporal position. You can't have it both ways. — Luke

This seems more an objection to terminology than the necessity of motion arising from 4D geometry. I think the point is well covered, quite circularly, in our preceding conversation.

The past can't be infinite - do you believe the past is longer than a finite number of days long? — Devans99

Actually even without inflationary theory that's fine. Good old-fashioned "where did that come from?" Big Bang gives you an infinite past, from a point of view. (An older, simpler BB model is just a black hole in reverse. When you fall into a black hole, from an outside perspective you approach the event horizon and vanish. But from your point of view you freefall forever. Except for the dying bit anyway. This is because gravity warps space-time so much. Chuck a minus sign on that, and you've got a BB that's both finite in time from our perspective and infinite from the perspective of something emerging from it.)

Pulsars and supernovas are side effects of gravity — Devans99

Awesome. So you're happy in principle with the idea that a feature of the universe does not necessitate a purpose. Just keep applying that and you're golden.

But surely you would wish to maximise the informational content (=interest) of the universe? Else it would be sort of dull? — Devans99

Oh yeah, it's dull until the answer pops out, that bit's fun. Maximising is difficult. Even if you did want to maximise something, it's easier to, say, divide one by it and minimise that. In this case, I want to maximise fitness, but that's the same as minimising unfitness, which is an easier number to deal with. I haven't entirely sorted the details of the cost function, a lot of environmental factors, but I've got until Monday before I need to kick this stuff off. Hopefully should finish by the following Saturday then the rest of the week's my own.

I see. So you concede that, in terms of classical kinematics at least, objects do not move? — Luke

Okay you kinda edited out the bit that was clearly talking about lengths. A ruler does not change in position between one end and the other. A mountain does not change in position between the foot and the apex. A body does not move temporal position from one point to another.

That does not mean one end of the ruler cannot change position as I throw it, or the apex of the mountain cannot move as the Earth rotates. That, in 4D, is gradient in its geometry with respect to time.

You're approaching this as an exercise in catching someone out, taking a response out of context if necessary. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how I explain it to you: the gradient of a 4D object with respect to the time dimension is motion. That is inescapable. There's no space to wiggle into there, no clever angle from the outside that changes it. You're still left with v = dx/dt, and as long as you have that, you have motion.

The inflation field must have a start. — Devans99

Why? If it is infinite and expanding, then in the past it was still infinite and expanding. No start required.

Supernovas and pulsars are a result of gravity which is a absolute requirement form life. — Devans99

Gravity is a requirement for life, true. However this value of gravity is not essential to pulsars and supernovas. Is it your feeling that pulsars are perhaps an incidental symptom of the laws of physics, and that the universe was not created for them? That is good, because it means you get the idea that just because something exists in nature, it does not mean the universe had it in mind.

How would you (imagine yourself as God) go about creating life? Design or brute force? — Devans99

Good question! I actually do this sort of thing for a living. I would create an optimisation algorithm, one that would reward features that minimise some kind of cost function in their environment and punish ones that maximise it. You can solve the Schrodinger equation this way, or find the minimum of a curve. Let me think it through a little more...

1. I don't want to just be stuck with the initial test answer I put in. It would be good, if I have two semi-decent candidates, if I could merge them somehow and try different combinations of different features of both. I shall call this inheritance.

2. We need some measure of saying this thing is better than that for a given environment, and some way of killing off candidate features that don't cut the mustard. It would be best if the environment itself dealt with the fitness measure, then we could just get rid of the chaff every now and then. I'll call this competition.

3. I don't want to be stuck with my initial feature space. I'm not very thorough and algorithms like this can be so sensitive to starting conditions if you're not careful. I'll need to add some noise into equation, so that new features I didn't think of can be evaluated. I'll call this mutation.

So God had no choice but to evolve rather than design us. So we are not perfect beings... we are the product of evolution ... which was God's doing. — Devans99

He seems kind of unnecessary then. I don't want to get the guy fired or anything, but he's not really pulling his weight.

The astronomers can't even agree on the speed of the expansion of the universe, and the speed has changed in the past - so it could change - contract - in future. — Devans99

Well, the rate was unknown in the past, and now it is known. Different hypotheses for the speed were put forward, some leading to big crunches, some to steady-state, some to eternal expansion. Not knowing and finding out is not the same thing as changing.

What is your view (biocentric/ecocentric)? Cosmologically, do you have a theory about what was happening before the Big Bang ( a timeless first-cause)? — 3017amen

I've mentioned one in every post, yes! It'd be most fraudulent to say it was mine though. I am agnostic on it too.

It is a fallacy that I can reject a silly theory only if I have a good one. It isn't true. I can reject a silly theory and not know. "I don't know, let's find out!" is what science is all about.

If so, what is your theory about how self-awareness evolved from a piece of wood? — 3017amen

My theory is that self-awareness did not evolve from a piece of wood. For a start, a piece of wood cannot procreate.

Meaning, I believe you have the burden of precluding conscious existence from the human condition/equation, no? — 3017amen

No, this is also a fallacy. "I conceive of conscious existence as a divine soul, created by God, breathed into us at birth/conception/day after I'm okay with abortion until. If you do not believe in God, you must disbelieve in conscious existence!" That's the gist of it, right?

You could be the most annoying type of person to communists, social democrats and trade unions: namely an entrepreneur, a plumber or carpenter working for yourself. — ssu

Plumbers and carpenters do work for someone else for the money they need to feed their families. It's just nicely abstracted now. Communists have plumbers, it's just that their ability to survive is not based on finding enough work to stay afloat. There aren't many self-employed plumbers left here, don't know about where you are.

As for entrepreneurs, it's a myth that you can just decide to become a successful entrepreneur. I was going to list lucky bastards in my enumeration of bastards, but they're only really lucky if they get rich, so I guess rich bastards covers it.

It is without doubt much more fair than the feudal system, which is why I'd prefer to be an honest capitalist than a communist. But all of this is still based on that original theft. People who inherent wealth believe they deserve it, but they don't. They are no more deserving of their inheritance than a trouserless scally playing in a gutter in a street, not entirely sure if its mother is home or not.

Welfare is a partial repayment of that theft, but UBI would be better. Perhaps because this is the world I have grown up in, as we all have, and therefore it seems to me to be reasonable, but a system that guarantees you will not starve because of that theft is actually better than the theft never having occurred, in which case we'd merely starve through our own incompetence. I am sure of one thing: when the zombie apocalypse happens and its down to personal survival, I am absolutely screwed!

The first cause must be able to cause something, so it is self-driven, which suggests intelligence. — Devans99

The inflation field can cause something and is self-driven. That's rather why I mentioned it.

Everything in the universe seems fine tuned for life. Just think about the atom - its an incredibly delicate balancing act - in most universes, matter would simply bounce of itself endlessly or clump together - our universe, we have the balancing act of atoms, and molecules - the absolutely necessary ingredients for life. — Devans99

Your body is fine-tuned as a walking bacterium habitat. Do you suppose you were created to house bacteria? The universe is as it is. Lots of things happen in it that have nothing to do with life: supernova, pulsars, neutrino oscillations, the quantum Hall effect, the Casimir effect, the orbit of Mercury, ad infinitum. Life is one of the things that can and did happen. There's no reason, beyond anthropocentrism, to suspect that the universe is specifically for life any more than it is specifically for pulsars. It's sheer arrogance, and a failure to even start to comprehend the scale of the universe, to think it's all about you and yours.

Nothing can go on forever, it would be without end. Then the length of the future would be end-start=UNDEFINED. Spacetime must have an end or it cannot logically exist. Probably a Big Crunch will happen. — Devans99

The accelerated expansion of the universe has rather ruled out a big crunch, which required gravity to overcome what was supposed at the time to be a linear or diminishing expansion. And there's no reason why it can't go on forever. The shape of the universe suggests that eternity is on the cards, a heat death most probably, but even if it does end, the inflaton field that might have created it can carry on and on and on.... In fact, quantum mechanics suggests it will do precisely that unless someone measured it or something.

Actually that's a better justification. If this is the only universe and if the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, someone must have observed the inflaton field in order for it to have collapse to a hot vacuum... and we call that someone God!

If you say YOU are a peasant, then really, do you or your family own the land?

As subsistence farming has long gone except in Third World countries, fewer and fewer people actually farm. Or are genuinely saying that you now farm rented fields without any fields of your own? Renting land a profession for few farmers and mainly large company-like farms. The 2 million farms in the US employ only 2,6 million people. Agricultural production is really transforming to an industry just like others. — ssu

Yes, technology is not kind to peasants. No, I'm a peasant only insofar as I must labour for someone else in order to feed and house my family. I may not take what the world has given us all as my ancestors did because The Man took it from them, gave it to his friends, and said we owed him for some reason.

The first cause must be able to cause something, so it must be capable of independent action, meaning it is self driven, therefore very likely intelligent. — Devans99

Again, according to the creationist mindset which ascribes agency to anything it doesn't understand. There is still no reason why a first cause needs or even wants a intelligent causer.

Plus the obviously signs of fine tuning for life in the universe point to intelligence, plus the enormous, suspicious looking explosion of the Big Bang seems like it would require intelligence to orchestrate. — Devans99

Which is again a creationist's anthropocentric view: I am here, therefore it must all be for me. Meanwhile the universe seems quite ambivalent about us. I would actually agree that if the purpose of the universe was to create life, an intelligent creator would be likely. But since there's no evidence or reason for it other than to console the egos of some hairless apes, we need not consider it.

If you say something will expand without end, you are describing the topology of future as some object without end - that is impossible - all objects require a non-zero length to exist and length=end-size so the length for something without end is UNDEFINED - IE not something that could actually exist. — Devans99

You needn't even go that far. The universe could quite happily be infinite and expanding now. It is not the boundary of the universe that is expanding: every point is moving away from every adjacent point. If it was just that the universe was getting bigger, that would not explain the fact that every galaxy is moving away from every other galaxy right now.

I think we are splitting hairs here: the first cause must be capable of independent, intelligent, action and be capable of starting time. — Devans99

A creationist may not be able to abide the lack of an intelligent first cause. That does not necessitate an intelligent creator.

And where did it start? If its expanding, it has a start. It cannot have been strictly permanent if it's expanding - there are places it has not been to yet. You really are talking nonsense with that last paragraph! — Devans99

Yes, something can be infinite and expanding. The hypothesised inflaton field is such a thing and, unlike God, we can not only hypothesise it, but we can describe exactly how it creates universes if it exists. One-nil to inflatons.

One problem is the speed of light - parts of the universe are moving apart at faster than the speed of light - so this regions are causally disconnected from each other. — Devans99

You do realise this is the same inflationary model of the universe you just described as nonsense :rofl:

Aquinus' God btw was causal. When he hears of sodomy, he sends angels. When he tires of humanity, he sends floods. We must go back further, to God's first cause: a stone age human trying to make sense of a world he had not the technology or knowledge to rationalise.

Burglary is experienced as a violation almost like an assault - almost like rape. Entering my home without my permission is like entering me — unenlightened

I think this is less about property, though, and more the way we personalise space as extensions of ourselves. It is because the burglar was in my home that I feel violated, whatever home that might be, not because he took the TV.