Disturbing analogy.

Rude not to troll amongst trolls. — Varde

Ah, the rare cannibalism amongst trolls is a sight to be seen.

He seemed to be a nice fellow. I doubt he'd want to join again out of self respect. :eyes:

I don't believe anyone would object to dumping scrap iron into the oceans for algae to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere.

And, that's just one idea out of 100's others.

It's likely that humanity will take more active measures against climate change in terms of removing CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.

Such as dumping iron into oceans or planting more trees and so on.

The gravitational field is huge. — Elisabeth

Yes, and it seems as though gravity alone can induce ordered states, such as the supermassive black-hole at the center of our galaxy.

Yet, even then, over the span of billions of years if all that remains is a black hole from the remainder of the matter created during the big bang, then Hawking radiation would evaporate it away?

Do you think entropy or negentropy affects the passage of time through physical mechanisms?

I'd tell a doctor the same thing you said in the OP.

No point in suffering when there's help available.

Well, entropy always increases. — Fredastar

Yes, I keep on hearing that. But, doesn't it seem as though entropy decreases for supermassive objects? I.e a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy maintaining the GR gravitational potential field of the orbiting nebula, stars, and star clusters?

Of course, negative entropy has to be compensated for. — Fredastar

What do you mean?

So, God reduces to Nature whenever invoking the PoSR?

As a scholar of Spinoza, how do you reconcile the PoSR with Spinoza's necessitarianism given quantum mechanics?

What governs negentropy in our universe?

That's the gist of it. We don't entirely know what caused a non-zero-sum in antimatter and matter result; but, it's interesting to think that an observation was made during the annihilation. Was it God or an alien?

Edit:

Every fact is historical.

What do you mean? — 180 Proof

Its just a principle that has ramifications for either proving or disproving the existence of God.

Funny that it manifests in exploring (N)ature when trying to investigate God's workings.

I'm closer to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Yes, if you care @jorndoe elaborated on this if that's what you care to discuss.

Be nice to ask a dimensional analyst this question.

Hard to find those folk.

I don't understand this question. — 180 Proof

When reading sparingly Hawking, the idea of a creator is embodied with the first cause. In other words from nothing, something came to be. Therefore, God must have been the cause of everything that had proceeded from his choice for genesis of the universe.

Ah, nevermind.

https://time.com/5434659/halloween-pagan-origins-in-samhain/?amp=true

But at the same time, I can't see how the belief that life exists for no reason or that there is no cause for it to exist avoids nihilism. The belief seems to be something like the 'million monkeys' trope - given enough time, and a big enough universe, then it will simply happen - as if this amounts to any kind of understanding. — Wayfarer

There's nothing special about life and it's origins. The building blocks of life are here on earth as well as on Mars. I don't think it will come off as a surprise in the near future that Mars was once habitable for life, and actually had life.

The PSR lays the groundwork where Spinoza's God seemed to make sense to Einstein and others around him. It just seems as of late that science disproves the necessity that everything has a cause and effect. Which, to me, seems to imply that if you take the cause of the universe as a sufficient reason from the PSR, then a creator wasn't necessary. For all I know according to membrane theory two membranes might have collided or somesuch.

In a nutshell, it doesn't rule out enough. — Banno

How much is enough?

I'm just going to lay this out as I see it. The PSR is the bedrock upon which rationalism stands on, so why do away with it especially when it comes down to refuting the notion that ex nihilo doesn't 'obtain' when scrutinizing God's existence with respect to the PSR and scientific thought.

All I'm saying is that people are persuaded by the PSR due to its inherent reasonableness. The methodology of the PSR is sound even if the validity can be put into doubt.

Doesn't science come after the PSR anyway?

The next step in the analysis would be to have to use the same principle of 'The Necessary Existent' for God having to be, as the mandatory Existent, again because there can be no opposite; thus the principle is sound! — PoeticUniverse

But, ex nihilo and something from nothing doesn't have to be true, doesn't it, and we rely on the PSR through science to prove this!

That's because it demands more than is needed. — Banno

Isn't this question begging if you can't provide a better methodology?

I disagree. I think I've shown that it is misleading. — Banno

So, the added scrutiny of believing that everything in the world has a cause and effect is not good for how one ought to reason?

Let look at this historically. Never has anyone used the PSR in a manner that would legitimize God's existence, but rather to scrutinize it rationally.

In essence, what's wrong with rationalism?

Doesn't anyone else think that the PSR dissuades one from superstition or supernatural phenomena like creationalisms conclusions?

PSR is relied on by those who insist god is needed to explain all sorts of things. Drop PSR, drop those arguments. — Banno

It would seem rational to do so. But, consider that the reasonableness of the PSR shouldn't be swiped aside. It's a very useful tool in how we should think, even if QM or physicalism stipulates that in every instance the PSR isn't necessarily true.

So where does that leave you? We do not need PSR to do logic and science. — Banno

No, we do not.

Hence we are not committed to the supernatural or creationism? — Banno

But, that's a conclusion that addresses the very human need to justify God's existence (according to physicists like Hawking).

And back tot he OP: without PSR, can't we now dispense with god? — Banno

Ok, so your saying that the PoSR enables one to consider God as an actual existent in this world? Im somewhat different here and consider the PoSR and Spinoza's Nature as God as true (without the necessitarianism or hard determinism).

I think I've shown that this is not an assumption of science. — Banno

Your right. I think I'm running in circles.

Here is what I should have said:

Is it a methodological notion? Does it tell us what we might do, is we are to act in a scientific fashion? In that case, isn't it too strong? — Banno

Yes, it's a methodological notion.

Yes, it is too strong. So, what?

I'm not sure what this says.

Are you now arguing that while PSR is not needed for logic nor for science, it is needed for god?

Then do away with god. — Banno

Out of my dealing with reading a little of Spinoza and his necessitarianism or Schopenhauer and his haunted world, it seems to me that the PoSR is a hinge proposition upon which beliefs are better scrutinized, especially when confronting notions of God's existence.

Please keep in mind that just because nature might not obey the PoSR, actually implies that our understanding of it is imperfect. But, science has done very well with assuming that there is a cause and effect for every phenomena in nature and at the heart of it that's just human intelligibility at it's core. Unless, we come up with a better way (if intelligible to deal with how we rationalize things in the World).

It is not necessary to present an example of an uncaused event to carry my case. That there are scientific considerations which do not rely on PSR is sufficient to show that PSR is not a principle on which science relies. — Banno

Yes, I agree. But, at a more fundamental level logic relies on the PoSR, doesn't it?

Look at general relativity. It explains the world as interactions of reference frames. But what connects one consciousness to another is the spiritual side of us, otherwise GR leads to solipsism — Gregory

I'm not quite interested in invoking unique theories to rationalize away. It's not of concern to me that QM is not subject to scrutiny under the PoSR.

I'm more concerned with working methodologies for examining the phenomenon whether God is necessary to explain existence itself.

SO it's not an empirical notion. — Banno

The PoSR is not an empirical notion, you say?

So, what methodology would you propose instead of assuming the PoSR in science?

Either way, if you assume that Nature has uncaused events such as the birth of the universe, then it doesn't seem logical to assume the existence of a creator.

Hence it seems to me that PSR is not needed for either science nor for logic. — Banno

But, when encountering all encompassing beliefs of notions such as God, it seems necessary to attribute the PoSR to explaining the notion that God is not needed to explain why there is something rather than nothing or ex nihilo arguments alike.

The world makes little sense without a center. — Gregory

Well, going down that path, many people believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe or that the sun orbited the Earth. Strange and ungrounded beliefs.

Yes true. But that's one instance where the definition of the PoSR was not fully fulfilled.

That something can come from absolutely nothing. We cannot conceive of how this could be possible, but it may.

But this would move us from your OP. — Manuel

I seem to think that even with this fact considered, there are grounds for believing that what Hawking meant with his estimation that God need not be invoked to account for the fact that there is something rather than nothing is intriguing. So, additionally, the ex nihilo argument seems satisfied if there are indeed uncaused events ascribed to Nature.

Better to claim that science thinks "everything in this world has a cause and effect" — Banno

Yes, I agree.

But I don't see that as a scientific principle. Indeed, it is not hard to find uncaused events. — Banno

I believe that Quantum Mechanics, which you allude to, isn't a sufficient reason to do away with the PoSR altogether. It's a powerful tool in estimating the soundness of beliefs subject to reason.

Am I mistaken on this?

But what if God is purely an internal thing and is not above, below, alongside, and in any sense outside the world. The sufficient reason isn't outside things. Science can explain just fine how the world came to be (Hawking's hypothesis, ect)
2m — Gregory

Along this line of reasoning, if one assumes that God is the World, then it seems to me that the definition logically becomes that God is Nature.

So, I leave it up to you to decide whether God has to exist in everything that we call the World or just utilize what science empirically explains as the phenomenon of Nature, etc.

That's a telling objection. Today's culture will always posit this question as a conflict between 'secure, rational science' and 'obscure, superstitious mysticism'. They are the horns of the dilemma. — Wayfarer

:up:

So, I take it your not a fan of the PoSR?

The PoSR:

The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground. This simple demand for thoroughgoing intelligibility yields some of the boldest and most challenging theses in the history of philosophy. In this entry we begin by explaining the Principle and then turn to the history of the debates around it. We conclude with an examination of the emerging contemporary discussion of the Principle.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/#PSRContPhil