“Quantum objects exhibit strange behaviours as a consequence of lacking existential properties conferred on matter at the causal focus.” — counterpunch

I’m not sure what that means. What do you regard as ‘the causal focus’? — Gary Enfield

At the macroscopic level - where we live, and stuff is made out of atoms, and events can be described in terms of cause and effect - I posit, that there's a nexus of forces - gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong interactions, acting on things at the atom plus scale, and conferring existential properties: mass, location, velocity etc.

Below the sub-atomic scale, those forces have less, or no effect on quantum objects - and so existential properties are not conferred, and quantum phenomena exhibit strange behaviours, like passing through both slits at the same time. Causality pertains universally, but quantum objects are so small - they are only partially effected.

There are 16 fundamental particles known, and proof of my theory, I imagine, would be had from examining how the four forces interact with different kinds of particle. I cannot do the math!

Are you aware of other challenges to Determinism - like chaos theory? Have you seen a video of a double jointed pendulum? I'll Bing it:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube%2c+double+jointed+endulum&view=detail&mid=B40D889E34DF3DF0B3A9B40D889E34DF3DF0B3A9&FORM=VIRE

Causality and randomness!

Hello Gary,

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Thanks for your well considered responses. — Gary Enfield

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Welcome to the forum!

And from this we can deduce that giving morons free will was a bad move on God's part!

Apparently not! Thus disproving your argument!!

I wondered how long it would be before the bibleos came along and started discussing the God of the bible rather than thinking for themselves. This thread is about whether an all powerful being can do anything - which is a philosophical question that can't be settled by appeal to the bible or anything else. — Bartricks

I thought we'd agreed that discussion between us is pointless. I hoped you might learn that if you're a jerk - and you are, people won't want to play with you! I don't want to. I've shown that an all powerful Creator God is unable to do anything - at all, because he is aware of the long term consequences of his actions, and intervening in the Creation must necessarily have implications that contradict his perfect moral goodness, eventually!

Allow me to pre-empt your response so you don't have to type it:

"No, he's all powerful, he can do anything!"

But...

"No, he's all powerful, he can do anything!"

Can he get you to leave me alone?

We broadly agree. I applaud your knowledge. Do I detect a hint of Max Weber - the Protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism?

You're right, that after the fall of Rome in 410 AD, there was a rediscovery of Roman and Greek knowledge, but that was largely a consequence of the Crusades from around 1000 AD to 1250 AD.

Generally dated from 1300 to 1700, the Renaissance brought an end to the Dark Ages. And by the time Galileo wrote Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - in 1632, the Renaissance was at its height.

It's true that the Church had supported the feudal system - but serfdom was effectively ended in Britain by 1500, and finally made illegal in 1574. It was not that much different across Europe.

The banking houses of Lisbon and Amsterdam, the spice trade with the East and the Silk Road belay the idea that commerce was forbidden. Rather, the Church had a prohibition against usury - that is, lending money. Jews had no such prohibitions, and that set the subsequent tone of Christian attitudes towards Jews. We borrowed money from them and weren't particularly gracious about paying it back.

The Protestant reformation began about 1500, and drove a great deal of European colonialism, particularly to the Americas. Which brings us back to Max Weber's classic. The Protestant ethic played out in the US, while wars of religion raged across Europe for hundreds of years.

Galileo wrote Dialogue in 1632 and was received by a Church challenged on multiple fronts; and Galileo - while incredibly smart, was not terribly smart about how he presented his findings. He put the position of the Church:

1 Chronicles 16:30: Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Psalm 93:1: The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and armed with strength; indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Psalm 96:10: Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.” The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.
Psalm 104:5:He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Job 9:6: He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble.
Psalm 75:3: When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm
1 Samuel 2:8: “For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s; on them he has set the world.

...in the mouth of Simplicio - a pun in common Italian, on Simpleton. One could argue that Galileo made it impossible for the Church to accept his proof that the earth orbits the sun, particularly given all the other challenges they faced. But it was a mistake; and one that effectively divorced science as an understanding of reality from science as a tool - used for military and industrial power.

The point of all this is not to look back in anger, but rather - to understand the causes of the challenges we face, and so, understand how to secure the future. Our mistake is simply this; we used the tools but didn't read the instructions. We need to recognise that a scientific understanding of reality is an instruction manual for the application of technology.

It's not a conspiracy theory. Data collection ended in 2012 - the year before Black Lies Matter was formed. The statistics do not support the narrative Black Lies Matter fostered through social media. Police are not killing black people in any greater proportion than one might expect - given that significantly more crime is committed by black people.

For example, black people - 13% of the US population, committed more murders than the entire white, 76% of the US population. 95% of black people murdered are murdered by black people. So, if Black Lives Matter, perhaps black people should be protesting themselves rather than the police!

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ( John 1:1 )

The implication of these two passages together, seems to be that the Word, the Creator and the Creation are inseparable - and consequently, it would have been open to the Church to accept Galileo's "hypo-deductive methodology" (scientific method) as the means to discern the word of God made manifest in Creation.

Had they done so, a scientific understanding of reality would have been pursued, and had the moral authority of God's word. Technology would have been applied in accord with a scientifically valid understanding of reality, and we would have made a paradise of the world.

Instead, science was decried as a heresy, even while technology was used to drive the industrial revolution. So science and technology was applied for military and industrial power and profit - with no regard to a scientific understanding of reality. We applied the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons, and are now barrelling toward extinction.

I cannot see the purpose of posting that. Or indeed, the point in continuing a discussion with someone who isn't honest. You represent and typify the left; intellectually dishonest - which was my point from the beginning.

I prefer the words reality and science. Any implication to God is pure speculation. But if reality is Created, it follows that science is the word of God. Or logos!

The question we should ask is - what does this apparent lack of cause represent? — Gary Enfield

The assumption that there's some sub-level to reality that is more fundamental, and that macroscopic, causal effects are the consequence of random quantum phenomena, I think is mistaken.

I posit that the nature of reality is causal and focused at the macroscopic level; such that QM is essentially, the science of the frayed edge of reality. Quantum objects exhibit strange behaviours as a consequence of lacking existential properties conferred on matter at the causal focus.

That so, causality is universal, but quantum objects are so small - they are variously effected by existential forces. Quantum objects actually have velocity but not location. They pass through both slits at the same time, or rather, don't quite pass through either - being, not entirely here nor there.

Mathematicians can only give a probability that an object is in a particular place, or travelling at a particular velocity - because it has in fact, not been determined. It's not an epistemic problem; it's the frayed edge of reality, on a scale so small that existence bleeds into nothingness.

You have to make your own reasons for living. There's some help; first, not being asked if you wanted to be born. It's a fait accompli; you're here now so you may as well make the best of it. Second, fear of death. Dying may hurt, and no-one knows what comes after. If it's nothingness - then this is the only time you'll ever have to do your dance. Or, it could just be the beginning of the dance - and how you dance now might matter later. Either way, you have to make your own reasons for living; and make them good reasons - and live them out until the very end.

On the meaningful level - it seems like "the law of the excluded middle."

Tertium non datur ("a third is not given")

Oh, at last! I was hoping someone would prove the existence of God!!

5000 years of philosophical head scratching - and this guy's cracked it. Nice one mate!

So...erm, where is He then?

Was He hiding behind the moon?

The disparity is between the statistics, and the idea fostered by BLM through social media, that there's a racist killing spree being conducted by the police. It's just not true!
— counterpunch

Indeed, no one is claiming there’s a racist killing spree being conducted by the police. — praxis

Seriously, praxis? Is that the level of debate? Do I have to prove both sides of the argument to you?

What are BLM saying then - when protesting outside city halls, with long lists written in blood, of - exclusively, black people who have died in custody?

Why has a racist motive has been attributed to Chauvin - the officer in the George Floyd case, with absolutely no supporting evidence for that? The implication is perfectly clear.

Again, there are 10 million arrests per year. 0.01% end with the death of the suspect. Approximately 1000 people per year die in custody. 32% of those are black people. So there's around 320 black people die in custody every year.

The long list written in blood is a false narrative. The number of deaths is a tiny percentage of the number of arrests - and the proportion of black people killed is proportionate to the number of crimes committed by black people; which is significantly above average.

I cannot dispute the existence of your quote on the website - but that's not correct. Look at this:

Home | Data Collection Detail
Data Collection: Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD)
Status: Inactive
Frequency: Annually from 2003 to 2012
Latest data available: 2012

https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=428

The latest data available is 2012. I examined statistics for the period 2003-2012. I know I did.


Arrest-Related Death Report (CJ-11A)
2012 PDF (150K) | 2011 PDF | 2010 PDF | 2009 PDF | 2008 PDF | 2007 PDF | 2006 PDF | 2005 PDF | 2004 PDF | 2003 PDF
Quarterly Summary of Arrest-Related Deaths (CJ-11)
2012 PDF (961K) | 2011 PDF | 2010 PDF | 2009 PDF | 2008 PDF | 2007 PDF | 2006 PDF | 2005 PDF | 2004 PDF | 2003 PDF
Reporting Materials
2012 CJ-11A Question-by-Question Guide (150K) | 2012 Reporting Information (190K) | 2012 Frequently Asked Questions - State Reporting Coordinators (168K)

If the program wasn't shut down until 2014, where's the data for 2013? Practically speaking, data collection was shut down in 2012 - the year before BLM were formed. There's something very strange here. Woodward and Bernstein would be intrigued!

So you came to a thread entitled "How is Jordan Peterson viewed among philosophers? and posted your own question "What was the original left?" because, and I quote:

Hurling insults about at hypothetical interest groups and power groups is rather what I want to get away from. — unenlightened

Do you think you're going about that in the right way?

According to BJS ARD data collection was suspended in 2014 because of challenges related to under-reporting and the program was redesigned and data collection resumed in 2015. That’s what I found with a quick search anyway. If this is inaccurate perhaps you could provide links or other verification of your claims. — praxis

No. Data collection was shut down the year before BLM were formed. Not the year after. They were formed in 2013. Shockingly, I don't keep a record of everything I've read, in case I need to provide a link later - but you've just been there. You could produce the link from your browser history - if you would contradict me.

What’s the disparity? — praxis

The disparity is between the statistics, and the idea fostered by BLM through social media, that there's a racist killing spree being conducted by the police. It's just not true!

They were nominated, though they did just win Sweden's Olof Palme human rights prize for 2020 for promoting "peaceful civil disobedience against police brutality and racial violence" around the world. — praxis

Okay, nominated for a Nobel peace prize for inciting riots with lies and burning and looting businesses, killing and assaulting people and attacking police!

In a post truth era - faced with the impossibility of reason, people can only pick a side, and stick to it no matter what!

Everyone (I assume) wants to conserve what is good and progress to what is better. — unenlightened

Everyone (I assume) purports to want to conserve what is good and progress to what is better - but it's as you imply, better for whom?

If you are able to use machines to increase your productivity, you will probably support that change, whereas if I can do that and you cannot, and you lose your livelihood as a result, you might well think my machines a bad thing. — unenlightened

You're the one asking:

What was the original left? — unenlightened

So how can you assume "everyone wants to conserve what is good and progress to what is better" - when the left wing, politically correct agenda is so clearly contrary to the interests of those the party was established to represent, and not assume dishonesty of purpose?

So working class conservatism typically seeks to maintain traditional jobs in mining and heavy industry, restrictive practices, job demarkation, union dominance, skill hierarchies, male and white dominance — unenlightened

Racist - sexist bastards - thinking themselves deserving of political representation! Twitter mob them into bankruptcy!

Add in the authoritarian/liberal dimension and you start to get something a bit more nuanced by which to understand the varieties of political commitment. — unenlightened

Nuanced? Have you read the Communist Manifesto? They wanted the working man to rebel against his own livelihood, steal everything from those that built it, and give it to them along with absolute power! That didn't work, but now, they're really into racism!

It seems we agree - I don't know by how much. But I view science as valid knowledge of reality/Creation. I don't know if God exists - but if he does, understanding the Creation in which we are placed, and acting according to true knowledge of Creation is surely the path to God, for reality is, in effect - God's word made manifest. And worse case scenario - we'd make the world into a paradise and secure a prosperous sustainable future!

Not sure how to parse "the conservative left."

Do you mean Conservatives, but to the left of the Conservatives? Or do you mean lefties into conservation?

I know the Diggers and Levellers were earlier, but I like Luddites as a pejorative, because their practice of throwing sand into the machinery seems to typify a left, that likes to think itself progressive but has regressed into identity politics - to throw sand into the machinery of society.

I'm inclined to agree that the working class are conservative deep down; they have never 'cast off their chains' - which is a problem for the left. But then, Marx was always a middle class idea of the working class interest - just as political correctness is now, a champagne socialist's idea of fairness. In reality, it's a pernicious dogma that seeks to cause the divisions it purports to abhor. Luddites!

I saw 'All the President's Men' recently, about Nixon and Watergate, and it was apparent, as the reporters - Bernstein and Woodward, drilled toward the truth, that there was a universal expectation that putting the truth in the public domain would matter. And it did. Nixon was forced to resign. Such naivety seemed incredibly poignant to me in contrast with the post modern day post-truth era; wherein the message is everything.

Well that's left wing philosophy - and it's like with Trump, the right have woken up to the game being played against them. I'll give you a for instance. In 2012, Obama shut down the collection of data on Arrest Related Death by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2013 Black Lies Matter was formed. Just before the 2020 election, BLM kicked off - and I wanted to know what the truth of the matter was, so I looked up the stats.

There are around 10 million arrests per year - as an average of data from 2003-2012. There are around 1000 Arrest Related Deaths. That's 0.01% of arrests result in death. Of those, 32% were black. So that's one third of 0.01% of arrests results in the death of a black person. 320 people per year, in a country of 320 million. It's literally one in a million. So, here's my question. If this terrible loss of life was of such concern that forming BLM was necessary - why did Obama shut down data collection?

In the Nixon era - it might have raised some eyebrows. In an era in which truth mattered, the disparity between the statistics and the social media generated narrative; a false narrative that incited riots and looting causing hundreds of millions in property damage, and spiking a Presidential election - that might have been something Woodward and Bernstein would have dug into, and dug and dug - in the expectation that truth would matter. Instead, BLM got a Nobel fucking prize!

The Luddites were a secret oath-based organization of English textile workers in the 19th century, a radical faction which destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest. The group are believed to have taken their name from Ned Ludd, a weaver from Anstey, near Leicester. They protested against manufacturers who used machines. Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry. Over time, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation, or new technologies in general. The Luddite movement began in Nottingham in England and culminated in a region-wide rebellion that lasted from 1811 to 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed with legal and military force.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

I don't think the Factory Act was widely honoured. There were only four factory inspectors for the whole country; and many of the factories would pay their workers in truck - tokens that could only be redeemed at the company store. See the Truck Acts 1831 - 1910.

It's easy now, to project modern moral sensibilities onto the past and identity slavery as a moral horror - but moral horror was the order of the day. If you can differentiate between slavery, and having to send your nine year old out to do a 9 hour day in a dangerous factory - to keep body and soul together, you have a finer tuned moral sensibility than I.

My grandfather was born in 1910 - failed his 11-plus exam, and was taken out of school and put to work in a coal mine. He was conscripted to fight in World War II, survived that - and died in 1990, in a rented house with barely enough in the bank to cover his funeral.

White privilege!

Slavery was ended by Britain in 1830. In 1833, Parliament passed the Factory Act, the provisions of which were:

No child under 9yrs was to work
Age certificates should be kept by employers
9-13yr olds were to work no more than 9hrs a day
13-18yr olds were to work no more than 12hrs a day
No children were to work at night
All children were to receive 2hrs of schooling a day
Factory inspectors would be used to enforce the law

So yeah, great demand for slave picked cotton in the mills. Huge!

Ah, go be benevolent unto thyself!

You can't sidestep my argument by condescending to me. The answer is no. God can't do anything.

omnibenevolence
[ˌɒmnɪbəˈnɛv(ə)l(ə)ns]
NOUN
(with reference to a deity) perfect or unlimited goodness.

So now we both know what it means, I make the same argument.

God can't do anything...at all, because he would know the consequences of his actions, or the consequences of the consequences would be non-benevolent in some way, eventually. — counterpunch

No. They. Don't. — Bartricks

You said he was an omnibenevolent being, or God, which is to say he created something to be benevolent toward, or created the universe. One cannot be omnibenevolent alone, however you define it.

He cannot redefine what is good and bad because it's established in the act of Creation.

So, the answer to the question "Can God do anything?" - is no.

God can't do anything because he would know the consequences of his actions, or the consequences of the consequences would be non-benevolent in some way, eventually.

Omnibenevolence is an absolute limitation on his omnipotence.

Values. have. no. meaning. to. someone. who. is. alone.

So if this omnipotent being, or God, or whatever - hasn't created anything, how can he be benevolent?

He might behave in a way that God categorically disapproves of. — Bartricks

Then he's not alone. Again, Robinson Crusoe is on a desert island alone. How can he be immoral?

So Robinson Crusoe is stuck on a desert island, alone. How can he be immoral?

Didn't someone post this same thread before?

it is not inconsistent with his being omnipotent that he created nothing at all. — Bartricks

Then who is he benevolent toward? Himself? That sounds like a euphemism for masturbation!

Good points! Ambiguity is part of philosophy. That's what seperates it from science. A pjilosophical computer would realize that and make use of it in debate. — Don Wade

Yeah! Maybe your philosophical computer can also make remarks dripping with obvious sarcasm! That's always good in a debate!

I can’t speak for the UK but Jim Crow laws that were enforced up until only around 55 years ago institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans. Deeply engrained societal norms don’t change quickly, you may have noticed, especially when there is a strong conservative population that resists progressive reform. — praxis

I can't speak for the US, but it does seem they didn't handle ending slavery very well. If only the colonies had been returned to rightful rule of Her Majesty - all this could have been avoided! Still, now - it's not being handled very well by progressives either.

Lol, yes, Trump is a rather inconvenient truth for the shit that you’re trying to sell so let’s put him aside. — praxis

Not really. Trump's election was a demonstration of anger at the left - that wasn't simply discontent with equal rights. Trump's election tactics were a parody of left wing techniques - identity politics played for political advantage, divide and conquer, post truth deception, and so on. Trump gave the left a taste of their own medicine, and that was a departure for the right.

A play on words? — Don Wade

No, it's a dialogue typical of a Turing test - and an indication of what you're up against trying to program a computer to do philosophy. A great deal of what is meant is unspoken; or ambiguously expressed, and a computer doesn't have the real world embodied experience to be able to discern that buying a puppy is something someone might do, whereas, buying a shop window is not.

On the basis of their disadvantage, rather. — praxis

Disadvantage someone is assumed to have, on the basis of their arbitrary characteristics. Reversing that, making those arbitrary characteristics an advantage through positive discrimination is not fair to the majority. It's discrimination against people like me - a white working class straight man with no 'ism' card to play, whose identity - allow me to assure you, confers no particular advantages, less yet privilege!

Your "argument" is essentially that because liberals hold institutional beliefs they don't value truth any more that Trumpers. — praxis

Is it? Thanks for telling me what my argument is. That's very helpful - for you. It's called reframing the argument - or setting up a strawman to knock down. Thing is, I've never used the phrase "institutional beliefs."

What I have sought to point out; Trump aside as a somewhat unique character, is that the right devalue scientific truth in the context of freedom - that seeks to accommodate the diversity of belief and opinion. The left devalue scientific truth to force their dogma on people.

Nihilism upholds no value that requires one accept nihilism!