Dumaurier:
You saw what you saw, I'll give you that.
But reasoning that something must exist because we can conceive of it is just plain irrational. (Remember the Flying Purple People Eater? It was trying to make a point, by the way -- I'm sorry such a large and fiery creation flew by without turning your attention.)
To chew it out for you:
The 'alien craft' began appearing only since the public at large has been acquainted with the notion of extraterrestrial intelligence, and spaceships. I'm sure that earlier the strange apparitions were hailed as archangels or some such Godsend. And in a few centuries, they will probably think that the 'UFO's are the isadflk from aweoirujg. Don't ask me to explain what that is, I have no idea.
Until we can reliably and reproducibly make measurements of the phenomenon, it's just another pie in the sky. Don't think I'm discounting all the sightings (though I have never seen anything unusual myself). But I do think that the issue demands far more systematic study, and far less hysteria and mythology.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
You saw what you saw, I'll give you that.
But reasoning that something must exist because we can conceive of it is just plain irrational. (Remember the Flying Purple People Eater? It was trying to make a point, by the way -- I'm sorry such a large and fiery creation flew by without turning your attention.)
To chew it out for you:
The 'alien craft' began appearing only since the public at large has been acquainted with the notion of extraterrestrial intelligence, and spaceships. I'm sure that earlier the strange apparitions were hailed as archangels or some such Godsend. And in a few centuries, they will probably think that the 'UFO's are the isadflk from aweoirujg. Don't ask me to explain what that is, I have no idea.
Until we can reliably and reproducibly make measurements of the phenomenon, it's just another pie in the sky. Don't think I'm discounting all the sightings (though I have never seen anything unusual myself). But I do think that the issue demands far more systematic study, and far less hysteria and mythology.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
Boris, you write some objections as follows:
"But reasoning that something must exist because we can conceive of it is just plain irrational..."
I don't believe i said this. It could be that my words were misinterpreted (as is sometimes the case on these bulletinboards). Your words, above, imply, by extrapolation, that whatever can be conceived must exist. Indeed, this is irrational. My idea was the exact inverse: whatever exists can be conceptualized but if that which exists is beyond the conscienceness of an observer, although he cannot see it, understand it, or know that it exists, it nevertheless exists!
In your previous post, likewise, you seem to be injecting a meaning in my words which i never intended. You wrote: "..a gaping fallacy in your post: ...if something can be disbelieved, it therefore exists!"
This is what i would suggest to be circular argumentation in the sense that the head of the idea has been reversed to become the tail of which, snakelike, ate itself!
My meaning is this: "there can be no smoke without fire." Simple enough? But let me take you back to my own words quoted in that post to which you brought about your several objections (and please don't interpret any of this post as a challenge).
I wrote:
"...the fact of the consistent and persistent presence of the mere mention of a recurring phenomena proves there is some substance of truth there, though the non-eyewitness did not experience the phenomenon himself."
Note that i said "some substance of truth". Let us continue...
"The fact that an atheist disbelieves in God proves that He exists for one cannot disbelieve in an nonexistent thing!"
Now, this point i have brought to your attention in several posts. This is quite an intricate matter requiring more than a simple post in which to expound and explore its depth. Let us just say that Einstein's famous formula, prior to its conception, existed before a man grasped the notion and put it on paper. The outward is an expression of the inward. The outer world, and everything that man has brought into being, all his technologies, sciences, philosophies, are an expression of something that had to be conceptualized before it could be made manifest in the outer world. Of this there is no doubt. Thus, for example, the intricacies of the mathematical formula permitting a moving object to attain another moving object at great variances to mutual object velocity and interval commenced with a theory originating within thought--the mind of the thinker! The possibility of the theory's success depends on its outer expression in relative historical practicum. But such manifestation of immaterial concepts in the material world had their origin in the incorporeal, noumenal sphere.
I make a distinction between items of "imagination" which are figments thereof and naught else, and that sort of imagination that is illumined by intelligent reflection and true meditation. Thus, for example, a dragon is a figment of the imagination. Its concept progressively proceeded from the foundation of a truth culminating in exaggerated fantasy conjured by the ignorant. Originally there was substance there, however.
I also wrote:
"If a person has never seen nor tasted a banana certainly it would be beyond his awareness--he wouldn't be able to talk about it. Then, if i asked this person to tell me what a banana looked like he'd be confounded for he wouldn't have a clue as to what i was talking about. Likewise, if i asked him to tell me what a banana tasted like he would be at a loss to give an answer."
Now, in this arguement you must realize that the banana actually does exist in concrete form; it is the individual who lacks the direct experience with the fruit. I am not saying that the banana "must exist because we can conceive of it." On the contrary: the banana's existence is independent of our ability to acknowledge its existence, just as God is independent from His creatures whether they understand Him or not.
I further wrote:
"...disbelief in a thing does not prove it does not exist! The fact of the disbelief itself proves there is something because one cannot disbelieve in a non-existing thing."
That is to say that an arguement must first be presented before a person can voice agreement or disagreement. A proposition must be tabled before we examine its various angles. A product must come to our notice, our conscious minds, before we can cast a judgment and whatever judgment we cast has no bearing on the product itself for it is independent of our opinion.
What you say about man's progressive fashion of historically adapting his interpretation of phenomena according to the relative conditions of humankind's development, cannot be argued.
With regards your closing paragraph, i have voiced the exact same consternation at man's inability to bring about a systematic scientific study of the phenomena in question and, until we do, i'm afraid we'll have to tolerate the delirium tremens and mythopoetics
------------------
dumaurier
"But reasoning that something must exist because we can conceive of it is just plain irrational..."
I don't believe i said this. It could be that my words were misinterpreted (as is sometimes the case on these bulletinboards). Your words, above, imply, by extrapolation, that whatever can be conceived must exist. Indeed, this is irrational. My idea was the exact inverse: whatever exists can be conceptualized but if that which exists is beyond the conscienceness of an observer, although he cannot see it, understand it, or know that it exists, it nevertheless exists!
In your previous post, likewise, you seem to be injecting a meaning in my words which i never intended. You wrote: "..a gaping fallacy in your post: ...if something can be disbelieved, it therefore exists!"
This is what i would suggest to be circular argumentation in the sense that the head of the idea has been reversed to become the tail of which, snakelike, ate itself!
My meaning is this: "there can be no smoke without fire." Simple enough? But let me take you back to my own words quoted in that post to which you brought about your several objections (and please don't interpret any of this post as a challenge).
I wrote:
"...the fact of the consistent and persistent presence of the mere mention of a recurring phenomena proves there is some substance of truth there, though the non-eyewitness did not experience the phenomenon himself."
Note that i said "some substance of truth". Let us continue...
"The fact that an atheist disbelieves in God proves that He exists for one cannot disbelieve in an nonexistent thing!"
Now, this point i have brought to your attention in several posts. This is quite an intricate matter requiring more than a simple post in which to expound and explore its depth. Let us just say that Einstein's famous formula, prior to its conception, existed before a man grasped the notion and put it on paper. The outward is an expression of the inward. The outer world, and everything that man has brought into being, all his technologies, sciences, philosophies, are an expression of something that had to be conceptualized before it could be made manifest in the outer world. Of this there is no doubt. Thus, for example, the intricacies of the mathematical formula permitting a moving object to attain another moving object at great variances to mutual object velocity and interval commenced with a theory originating within thought--the mind of the thinker! The possibility of the theory's success depends on its outer expression in relative historical practicum. But such manifestation of immaterial concepts in the material world had their origin in the incorporeal, noumenal sphere.
I make a distinction between items of "imagination" which are figments thereof and naught else, and that sort of imagination that is illumined by intelligent reflection and true meditation. Thus, for example, a dragon is a figment of the imagination. Its concept progressively proceeded from the foundation of a truth culminating in exaggerated fantasy conjured by the ignorant. Originally there was substance there, however.
I also wrote:
"If a person has never seen nor tasted a banana certainly it would be beyond his awareness--he wouldn't be able to talk about it. Then, if i asked this person to tell me what a banana looked like he'd be confounded for he wouldn't have a clue as to what i was talking about. Likewise, if i asked him to tell me what a banana tasted like he would be at a loss to give an answer."
Now, in this arguement you must realize that the banana actually does exist in concrete form; it is the individual who lacks the direct experience with the fruit. I am not saying that the banana "must exist because we can conceive of it." On the contrary: the banana's existence is independent of our ability to acknowledge its existence, just as God is independent from His creatures whether they understand Him or not.
I further wrote:
"...disbelief in a thing does not prove it does not exist! The fact of the disbelief itself proves there is something because one cannot disbelieve in a non-existing thing."
That is to say that an arguement must first be presented before a person can voice agreement or disagreement. A proposition must be tabled before we examine its various angles. A product must come to our notice, our conscious minds, before we can cast a judgment and whatever judgment we cast has no bearing on the product itself for it is independent of our opinion.
What you say about man's progressive fashion of historically adapting his interpretation of phenomena according to the relative conditions of humankind's development, cannot be argued.
With regards your closing paragraph, i have voiced the exact same consternation at man's inability to bring about a systematic scientific study of the phenomena in question and, until we do, i'm afraid we'll have to tolerate the delirium tremens and mythopoetics
------------------
dumaurier
Dumaurier:
Let me try once more to get through to you. With respect to science, theories, math and formulas: they did not arise out of our minds, nor out of meditation, nor out of any kind of thought. They indeed arose out of the physical reality which preceeded them. They arose by careful observation, cataloguing and classification of reproducible phenomena. Our minds can, and have, conceived of far more theories than are actually valid. It is reality that, through experiments, has filtered the wheat from the chaff. Einstein's famous formula stems from the assumption of constancy of lightspeed, which Einstein would have never made were it not for Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, which in turn stemmed from sheer empirical observation. But no scientific theory is a true representation of reality; all are only approximations, getting better with time, but unlikely to ever reach perfection.
Absolutely all concepts that we can manipulate originate in nature, not in some divine source. We learn everything we know from our senses. We can then re-combine the concepts we obtain in various ways, to build novel ideas. For example, the idea of a Creator stems from the fundamental observation of causality, and subsequent deduction that something must have caused the universe's existence. However, such reasoning is faulty because it ignores the problem of origins of the creator himself. A more reasonable position is that nothing could have ever caused a universe to exist -- by necessity the universe has to have existed forever, and must continue to exist forever. The universe might have changed its nature, transitioned between various states, branched off into sub-universes, but as a whole it is timeless, because it simply cannot be conceived in terms of a beginning and an end (i.e. what came before the beginning, and what comes after the end?)
Finally, let me direct you to another contradiction in your statements. If you claim that God is unfathomable, then how come we can discuss God? After all, according to your claims, there must have been a perceptual basis for our concept of God -- just as there must have been a basis for our concept of the banana. So, then, God is not unfathomable after all; we can perceive at least a small portion of what God is. Then, I would ask you, what is it exactly that we perceive, that we attribute to God? Is it our sentience? That can be explained through evolution. Is it our emotions? That also derives from evolution. Is it our existence? But as I just showed, our existence in itself does not constitute evidence for, nor against, a sentient originator. This is the point: contrary to your recurring claims of evidence for a creator, such evidence has never existed, nor will ever exist.
Similarly, the evidence for alien visitors on Earth cannot include the mere fact that we discuss it. You know, a few centuries ago they also discusses werewolves, and flying witches on broomsticks. The number of constructs our brain can generate by far outnumbers the number of constructs embedded in actual reality. That includes God, earth-stalking aliens, and a slew of infinitely many other things. Therefore, it is my position that without systematic study, reproducible and redundant evidence, and cause-effect theories, we have no business discussing extraterrestrial presence on Earth to begin with -- we might as well be discussing elves at this point.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
Let me try once more to get through to you. With respect to science, theories, math and formulas: they did not arise out of our minds, nor out of meditation, nor out of any kind of thought. They indeed arose out of the physical reality which preceeded them. They arose by careful observation, cataloguing and classification of reproducible phenomena. Our minds can, and have, conceived of far more theories than are actually valid. It is reality that, through experiments, has filtered the wheat from the chaff. Einstein's famous formula stems from the assumption of constancy of lightspeed, which Einstein would have never made were it not for Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, which in turn stemmed from sheer empirical observation. But no scientific theory is a true representation of reality; all are only approximations, getting better with time, but unlikely to ever reach perfection.
Absolutely all concepts that we can manipulate originate in nature, not in some divine source. We learn everything we know from our senses. We can then re-combine the concepts we obtain in various ways, to build novel ideas. For example, the idea of a Creator stems from the fundamental observation of causality, and subsequent deduction that something must have caused the universe's existence. However, such reasoning is faulty because it ignores the problem of origins of the creator himself. A more reasonable position is that nothing could have ever caused a universe to exist -- by necessity the universe has to have existed forever, and must continue to exist forever. The universe might have changed its nature, transitioned between various states, branched off into sub-universes, but as a whole it is timeless, because it simply cannot be conceived in terms of a beginning and an end (i.e. what came before the beginning, and what comes after the end?)
Finally, let me direct you to another contradiction in your statements. If you claim that God is unfathomable, then how come we can discuss God? After all, according to your claims, there must have been a perceptual basis for our concept of God -- just as there must have been a basis for our concept of the banana. So, then, God is not unfathomable after all; we can perceive at least a small portion of what God is. Then, I would ask you, what is it exactly that we perceive, that we attribute to God? Is it our sentience? That can be explained through evolution. Is it our emotions? That also derives from evolution. Is it our existence? But as I just showed, our existence in itself does not constitute evidence for, nor against, a sentient originator. This is the point: contrary to your recurring claims of evidence for a creator, such evidence has never existed, nor will ever exist.
Similarly, the evidence for alien visitors on Earth cannot include the mere fact that we discuss it. You know, a few centuries ago they also discusses werewolves, and flying witches on broomsticks. The number of constructs our brain can generate by far outnumbers the number of constructs embedded in actual reality. That includes God, earth-stalking aliens, and a slew of infinitely many other things. Therefore, it is my position that without systematic study, reproducible and redundant evidence, and cause-effect theories, we have no business discussing extraterrestrial presence on Earth to begin with -- we might as well be discussing elves at this point.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
Dave,
I have to disagree with your postings. I'd hate to see what this forum would look like if the skeptics left it alone, it would be completely insane. I think we all need to settle down on this topic and take a look at it from a logical and skeptical perspective.
MaTTo
I have to disagree with your postings. I'd hate to see what this forum would look like if the skeptics left it alone, it would be completely insane. I think we all need to settle down on this topic and take a look at it from a logical and skeptical perspective.
MaTTo
I think you guys talking against ufos are unbelivably nuts man. i've got freiends that seen these weird things and ya should look at their eyes when they talk. unbelivable! you guys here like to talk your heads off but none of yas has seen anything so what the heck talk about them the way ya do? if these things landed in your livingroom you'd piss your pants. your talk ain't gonna solve anything. man ya guys should go back to college or something. at least there ya can rap all ya want.
------------------
ufo
------------------
ufo
Boris wrote:
"With respect to science, theories, math and formulas: they did not arise out of our minds, nor out of meditation, nor out of any kind of thought."
Nature has no use for understanding. She is. But for man it is an inward need to have sciences, theories, math, formulas. He has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Nature did not give us "sciences," "theories," "math," "formulas." These are inventions by creatures with rational minds whose object it is to discover the outer universe. You are playing with words.
The realities which in time come to the awareness of man's comprehension are, indeed, already in existence, but they could only be comprehended by the human mind which formulates systematic concepts in order to correlate, relate, substantiate, in brief, to understand. These theories that man builds do not exist in physical reality. Thought and physical reality are two separate entities.
I would like to ask you, what is the purpose of this understanding? Why does mankind strive so diligently to formulate sciences? Why even bother for, you see, it is not Nature which formulates these but man!
Boris wrote,
"...no scientific theory is a true representation of reality; all are only approximations, getting better with time, but unlikely to ever reach perfection."
This is very true. The Creator is perfect and in His wisdom created a perfect universe that is much too vast for man to comprehend for it is a reflection, a mirror, of His own greatness. Were man capable of perfecting anything, he would be equal to his Creator and this is impossible.
Boris wrote,
"Absolutely all concepts that we can manipulate originate in nature, not in some divine source. We learn everything we know from our senses. We can then re-combine the concepts we obtain in various ways, to build novel ideas."
Nature has no power of conceptualizing anything! The senses are limited. The mind can grasp concepts immesurably beyond what the senses can grasp. When one is asleep and dreams, the senses are completely dormant. Yet the mind (or soul) travels in worlds far removed from this physical universe. In meditation, one sometimes receives enlightenment to a difficult problem. Such a process is far removed from having any relationship with the senses.
Guidance, in whatever form or shape, originates in He Who created this magnificent universe and all that exists therein. Such guidance is never delivered through the senses but through the faculty of understanding. Understanding is never through the senses. All Holy Scripture has made clear that God the Creator is immeasurably exalted above the strivings of mortal man to unravel His mystery, to describe His glory, or even to hint at the nature of His Essence. They further illucidate the truth that whatever such human strivings may accomplish, they never can hope to transcend the limitations imposed upon the creatures, inasmuch as these efforts are actuated by His decree, and are begotten of His invention. The deepest wisdom which the most learned of men can utter in their attempts to comprehend the nature of this universe, all revolve around the bidding of the Revealer of God's Word and all is wholly subjected to His sovereignty. It is the Word which adores His Revealer, and is propelled through the movement of His tongue. Such is the power of a Creator Who transcends all senses.
Boris wrote,
"For example, the idea of a Creator stems from the fundamental observation of causality, and subsequent deduction that something must have caused the universe's existence. However, such reasoning is faulty because it ignores the problem of origins of the creator himself.
Not so. We have ample proof that for every effect there must be a cause. It is no mere theory or untested hypothesis. These words i write had a writer. I am the cause. The words are the effect. This is not a theory. There is a universe. It must have had a cause. There is a fire in the forest. Someone, something, must have caused it. A star explodes and becomes a supernova. It must have had a cause. One and one equals two. It does not equal three!
With regards God's origin, this has already been discussed in detail and intelligent arguements have been presented with regards man's impossibility of knowing his Creator. Refer to the post, Proofs & Evidences of the Existence of God where we discussed the painting and the painter.
Boris writes,
"A more reasonable position is that nothing could have ever caused a universe to exist..."
But this would be a contradiction to the scientifically acknowledged principle that for every effect there must be a cause. You seem to be saying that this very real observation of causality makes no sense and is a product of the imagination. Then are you to deny that you had a mother and father? Would this be satisfactory argumentation to you?
Boris wrote,
"--by necessity the universe has to have existed forever, and must continue to exist forever....as a whole it is timeless, because it simply cannot be conceived in terms of a beginning and an end (i.e. what came before the beginning, and what comes after the end?)"
Man's comprehension is limited. It is not because man can or cannot conceive of something which renders that something true or false.
Most Holy Scriptures affirms that God is infinite, timeless. He neither had a beginning nor will have an ending. Such concepts are human and cannot be attributed to God for this would be like bringing Him down to our level and this is impossible to do if we are to adhere to reality. We are limited, finite, circumscribed. Such questions regarding the origins of the universe and who created God, are, to a degree, beyond our understanding. We will never know but we can infer certain things. By the effects we witness all about us we can testify to His majesty and grandeur and reach certain conclusions (such as, He is the Unknowable Essence).
Boris wrote,
"...If you claim that God is unfathomable, then how come we can discuss God? After all, according to your claims, there must have been a perceptual basis for our concept of God..."
The concept of God comes not from any normal man. It comes from Abraham, Moses, Zoroastre, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Mohhamad. Each and every one of these blessed Beings has acknowledged the existence of a Creator. They have claimed that their Revelations were not of themselves, even as Christ says, "These things are not of Me, but from My Father which art in heaven."
Mohammad said: "...Adore your Lord, who created you and those who came before you, that ye may have the chance to learn righteousness; Who has made the earth your couch, and the heavens your canopy; and sent down rain from the heavens; and brought forth therewith Fruits for your sustenance..."
I will spare you the many quotes. God revealed Himself through these "Manifestations of God." It is through these Divine Teachers that we know of God.
Boris wrote,
"...So, then, God is not unfathomable after all; we can perceive at least a small portion of what God is. Then, I would ask you, what is it exactly that we perceive, that we attribute to God? Is it our sentience? That can be explained through evolution. Is it our emotions? That also derives from evolution. Is it our existence? But as I just showed, our existence in itself does not constitute evidence for, nor against, a sentient originator. This is the point: contrary to your recurring claims of evidence for a creator, such evidence has never existed, nor will ever exist."
Again, i must repeat that
***FOR EVERY EFFECT THERE IS A CAUSE!***
But that Cause, God, is beyond our understanding just as the baker is beyond the understanding of a loaf of bread. We may have glimpses of the attributes of God for these attributes must, of necessity, belong to Him, as explained in other posts. So, for example, we know you are a man because of the attribute of thought which you are capable of demonstrating in these posts. Now, thought is not a physical thing. It is reflected in the material world through our will (immaterial) which has at its disposition a physical body at its command. Thus, the spiritual is made concrete. God is spiritual, not material. But all things spiritual are meaningless if not manifested in action within this existence (cause & effect). Therefore did God manifest His bounty through the creation of this material universe. And this is one of the proofs; that out of nothing He created a material universe wherein the highest expression is the human creature who is capable of discerning some of God's spiritual attributes. For if this were not so, there would be no purpose in man's existence; that is to say that the purpose God created man is so that man may attain that awareness of God's Will brought to our awareness through His Mouthpieces (Christ, Mohammad, etc.). And God's Will, according to these Mouthpieces, is that man reach that state where he manifests spiritual attributes through his being. God is all virtue. He wishes us to be a mirror reflecting this goodness. After all, does not the father take pride in the son who reflects part of himself? Only man, out of all contingent beings, is capable of reflecting or manifesting virtues which are attributes of God. Let us not be redundant here.
Boris wrote,
"Similarly, the evidence for alien visitors on Earth cannot include the mere fact that we discuss it."
But we would not be discussing it if no mention had ever been made. Again, simply put: there is no smoke without fire.
Boris wrote,
"Therefore, it is my position that without systematic study, reproducible and redundant evidence, and cause-effect theories, we have no business discussing extraterrestrial presence on Earth to begin with -- we might as well be discussing elves at this point."
Then, why are you discussing it?
=============================================
Now, our good friend Dave wants to discuss "UFO's and Extra-terestrial beings, sightings of UFO's, Abduction experiences and the like..." I must ask Dave to forgive me if i have digressed from the topic of his post. But i would like to mention here, Dave, that i am extremely interested in UFO cases, especially those dealing with actual contact.
In my mind there is no doubt that an All-Powerful Creator created more than just human life as we know it on this planet. I have no doubt, also, that there are intelligent beings in the universe besides us. All planets have life of some sort for we know that even a rock is built of atoms and life is built of atoms. Some life forms are more evolved than others. SETI and other observers of the heavens have already discovered many planets around sun-like stars. It is certain that before long we will witness a breakthrough of some sort in this type of research.
When one reads such stories as "Incident at Exeter" where reliable witnesses actually saw huge metallic ships land and take off, we can only be downhearted in the sense where we were deprived of the magical experience. This is true also of the many well-researched cases by credible investigators that leave no doubt in most people's minds that something unusually strange actually took place. But most people want direct evidence such as a piece of metal or an extraterrestrial spacesuit or some such thing!
Suffice it to say that for one to believe does not always require material evidence. It is enough to listen to a friend recount his extraordinary experience and pass onto the level of belief.
I happened on Exoscience by accident. I was not seeking to debate the existence of God. I wished to find where we had reached with the UFO phenomena since i had been away from the issue for several years.
It is my hope that those who diligently seek answers and to share their experiences relative to this phenomena find this Exoscience discussion group.
------------------
dumaurier
"With respect to science, theories, math and formulas: they did not arise out of our minds, nor out of meditation, nor out of any kind of thought."
Nature has no use for understanding. She is. But for man it is an inward need to have sciences, theories, math, formulas. He has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Nature did not give us "sciences," "theories," "math," "formulas." These are inventions by creatures with rational minds whose object it is to discover the outer universe. You are playing with words.
The realities which in time come to the awareness of man's comprehension are, indeed, already in existence, but they could only be comprehended by the human mind which formulates systematic concepts in order to correlate, relate, substantiate, in brief, to understand. These theories that man builds do not exist in physical reality. Thought and physical reality are two separate entities.
I would like to ask you, what is the purpose of this understanding? Why does mankind strive so diligently to formulate sciences? Why even bother for, you see, it is not Nature which formulates these but man!
Boris wrote,
"...no scientific theory is a true representation of reality; all are only approximations, getting better with time, but unlikely to ever reach perfection."
This is very true. The Creator is perfect and in His wisdom created a perfect universe that is much too vast for man to comprehend for it is a reflection, a mirror, of His own greatness. Were man capable of perfecting anything, he would be equal to his Creator and this is impossible.
Boris wrote,
"Absolutely all concepts that we can manipulate originate in nature, not in some divine source. We learn everything we know from our senses. We can then re-combine the concepts we obtain in various ways, to build novel ideas."
Nature has no power of conceptualizing anything! The senses are limited. The mind can grasp concepts immesurably beyond what the senses can grasp. When one is asleep and dreams, the senses are completely dormant. Yet the mind (or soul) travels in worlds far removed from this physical universe. In meditation, one sometimes receives enlightenment to a difficult problem. Such a process is far removed from having any relationship with the senses.
Guidance, in whatever form or shape, originates in He Who created this magnificent universe and all that exists therein. Such guidance is never delivered through the senses but through the faculty of understanding. Understanding is never through the senses. All Holy Scripture has made clear that God the Creator is immeasurably exalted above the strivings of mortal man to unravel His mystery, to describe His glory, or even to hint at the nature of His Essence. They further illucidate the truth that whatever such human strivings may accomplish, they never can hope to transcend the limitations imposed upon the creatures, inasmuch as these efforts are actuated by His decree, and are begotten of His invention. The deepest wisdom which the most learned of men can utter in their attempts to comprehend the nature of this universe, all revolve around the bidding of the Revealer of God's Word and all is wholly subjected to His sovereignty. It is the Word which adores His Revealer, and is propelled through the movement of His tongue. Such is the power of a Creator Who transcends all senses.
Boris wrote,
"For example, the idea of a Creator stems from the fundamental observation of causality, and subsequent deduction that something must have caused the universe's existence. However, such reasoning is faulty because it ignores the problem of origins of the creator himself.
Not so. We have ample proof that for every effect there must be a cause. It is no mere theory or untested hypothesis. These words i write had a writer. I am the cause. The words are the effect. This is not a theory. There is a universe. It must have had a cause. There is a fire in the forest. Someone, something, must have caused it. A star explodes and becomes a supernova. It must have had a cause. One and one equals two. It does not equal three!
With regards God's origin, this has already been discussed in detail and intelligent arguements have been presented with regards man's impossibility of knowing his Creator. Refer to the post, Proofs & Evidences of the Existence of God where we discussed the painting and the painter.
Boris writes,
"A more reasonable position is that nothing could have ever caused a universe to exist..."
But this would be a contradiction to the scientifically acknowledged principle that for every effect there must be a cause. You seem to be saying that this very real observation of causality makes no sense and is a product of the imagination. Then are you to deny that you had a mother and father? Would this be satisfactory argumentation to you?
Boris wrote,
"--by necessity the universe has to have existed forever, and must continue to exist forever....as a whole it is timeless, because it simply cannot be conceived in terms of a beginning and an end (i.e. what came before the beginning, and what comes after the end?)"
Man's comprehension is limited. It is not because man can or cannot conceive of something which renders that something true or false.
Most Holy Scriptures affirms that God is infinite, timeless. He neither had a beginning nor will have an ending. Such concepts are human and cannot be attributed to God for this would be like bringing Him down to our level and this is impossible to do if we are to adhere to reality. We are limited, finite, circumscribed. Such questions regarding the origins of the universe and who created God, are, to a degree, beyond our understanding. We will never know but we can infer certain things. By the effects we witness all about us we can testify to His majesty and grandeur and reach certain conclusions (such as, He is the Unknowable Essence).
Boris wrote,
"...If you claim that God is unfathomable, then how come we can discuss God? After all, according to your claims, there must have been a perceptual basis for our concept of God..."
The concept of God comes not from any normal man. It comes from Abraham, Moses, Zoroastre, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Mohhamad. Each and every one of these blessed Beings has acknowledged the existence of a Creator. They have claimed that their Revelations were not of themselves, even as Christ says, "These things are not of Me, but from My Father which art in heaven."
Mohammad said: "...Adore your Lord, who created you and those who came before you, that ye may have the chance to learn righteousness; Who has made the earth your couch, and the heavens your canopy; and sent down rain from the heavens; and brought forth therewith Fruits for your sustenance..."
I will spare you the many quotes. God revealed Himself through these "Manifestations of God." It is through these Divine Teachers that we know of God.
Boris wrote,
"...So, then, God is not unfathomable after all; we can perceive at least a small portion of what God is. Then, I would ask you, what is it exactly that we perceive, that we attribute to God? Is it our sentience? That can be explained through evolution. Is it our emotions? That also derives from evolution. Is it our existence? But as I just showed, our existence in itself does not constitute evidence for, nor against, a sentient originator. This is the point: contrary to your recurring claims of evidence for a creator, such evidence has never existed, nor will ever exist."
Again, i must repeat that
***FOR EVERY EFFECT THERE IS A CAUSE!***
But that Cause, God, is beyond our understanding just as the baker is beyond the understanding of a loaf of bread. We may have glimpses of the attributes of God for these attributes must, of necessity, belong to Him, as explained in other posts. So, for example, we know you are a man because of the attribute of thought which you are capable of demonstrating in these posts. Now, thought is not a physical thing. It is reflected in the material world through our will (immaterial) which has at its disposition a physical body at its command. Thus, the spiritual is made concrete. God is spiritual, not material. But all things spiritual are meaningless if not manifested in action within this existence (cause & effect). Therefore did God manifest His bounty through the creation of this material universe. And this is one of the proofs; that out of nothing He created a material universe wherein the highest expression is the human creature who is capable of discerning some of God's spiritual attributes. For if this were not so, there would be no purpose in man's existence; that is to say that the purpose God created man is so that man may attain that awareness of God's Will brought to our awareness through His Mouthpieces (Christ, Mohammad, etc.). And God's Will, according to these Mouthpieces, is that man reach that state where he manifests spiritual attributes through his being. God is all virtue. He wishes us to be a mirror reflecting this goodness. After all, does not the father take pride in the son who reflects part of himself? Only man, out of all contingent beings, is capable of reflecting or manifesting virtues which are attributes of God. Let us not be redundant here.
Boris wrote,
"Similarly, the evidence for alien visitors on Earth cannot include the mere fact that we discuss it."
But we would not be discussing it if no mention had ever been made. Again, simply put: there is no smoke without fire.
Boris wrote,
"Therefore, it is my position that without systematic study, reproducible and redundant evidence, and cause-effect theories, we have no business discussing extraterrestrial presence on Earth to begin with -- we might as well be discussing elves at this point."
Then, why are you discussing it?
=============================================
Now, our good friend Dave wants to discuss "UFO's and Extra-terestrial beings, sightings of UFO's, Abduction experiences and the like..." I must ask Dave to forgive me if i have digressed from the topic of his post. But i would like to mention here, Dave, that i am extremely interested in UFO cases, especially those dealing with actual contact.
In my mind there is no doubt that an All-Powerful Creator created more than just human life as we know it on this planet. I have no doubt, also, that there are intelligent beings in the universe besides us. All planets have life of some sort for we know that even a rock is built of atoms and life is built of atoms. Some life forms are more evolved than others. SETI and other observers of the heavens have already discovered many planets around sun-like stars. It is certain that before long we will witness a breakthrough of some sort in this type of research.
When one reads such stories as "Incident at Exeter" where reliable witnesses actually saw huge metallic ships land and take off, we can only be downhearted in the sense where we were deprived of the magical experience. This is true also of the many well-researched cases by credible investigators that leave no doubt in most people's minds that something unusually strange actually took place. But most people want direct evidence such as a piece of metal or an extraterrestrial spacesuit or some such thing!
Suffice it to say that for one to believe does not always require material evidence. It is enough to listen to a friend recount his extraordinary experience and pass onto the level of belief.
I happened on Exoscience by accident. I was not seeking to debate the existence of God. I wished to find where we had reached with the UFO phenomena since i had been away from the issue for several years.
It is my hope that those who diligently seek answers and to share their experiences relative to this phenomena find this Exoscience discussion group.
------------------
dumaurier
Dumaurier:
You ask why it is that we form theories and seek knowledge. The answer lies within the acquisition of knowledge itself -- a process by which a more intelligent organism gets an evolutionary edge. Intelligence was generated through evolution, and it is nature that has forced living organisms to generate more and more complex facilities for representing their surroundings. Our need to know is a simple extension of that natural trend, and our theory-forming ability is a mere extension of the inductive process by which generalizations from observations are formed by any animal. What truly separates us from other animals is our capacity for symbolic representation of concepts, and subsequent ability to manipulate the symbols -- language, in other words. This greatly compresses the workload, and enables us to manipulate many divergent schemas within the same working memory space -- thus enabling complex thought. We are not unique in this capacity; higher apes also share a limited aptitute for symbolic language (their brains are much smaller, so they can only manage so much.)
So it is indeed natural laws that give rise to both us and our theory-making, and our knowledge-forming.
Now, you also claimed that we possess knowledge unattainable through the senses. With regard to that, I would like to hear you speculate concerning the knowledge you would have obtained if you were abandoned deep in a forest and grew up with no human company whatsoever. But let me save you the trouble, and describe the actual observed results (yes, Maugli was real, though it wasn't his real name.) What happens is that the resulting human is completely incapable of speech or any complex, abstract thought. Not only does the human have no idea of God, he/she doesn't even fathom the idea that other minds exist. If restored into society at a sufficiently late age (past about 12 years old), the human will never learn to speak, nor comprehend, even a single word of any language. The human will form no theories whatsoever, and will seek no knowledge at all -- beyond simple generalizations of the sort you see other animals make.
Everything we are as individuals, we owe to our upbringing, and to our human company. Everything you know, Dumaurier, you have obtained from either direct sensory observation, or through discourse with other people. There is absolutely nothing you know that you did not obtain through your six senses, plus introspection. All of your earthly concepts -- shape, color, smell, taste, touch, circularity, linearity, largeness and smallness, brightness and dimness -- absolutely every single basic concept in your mind, are derived from your sensory experience. Your entire knowledge of social interactions, happiness, sadness, friendship, feud, fairness, judgement -- is obtained from your ability to consciously register your emotions.
It has long since been convincingly demonstrated that we are inductive machines. We learn exclusively from experience, and obtain knowledge through no other means. We generalize from observations. The sort of 'immaterial' knowledge you are referring to, is more widely known as 'armchair philosophy'. It involves simply taking the concepts that you already possess through your world-experience, and recombining them in new ways. Even in the most abstract thoughts, you never stray from this pattern, and indeed never possibly could. The abstract theorizing that you attribute to God is rather akin to a computer randomly recombining words, and producing a coherent sentence by accident every now and then. Our thoughts are a little more ordered than that because the ways we recombine concepts are not entirely random, but driven by experience. However, we stand about the same chance of forming valid theory through armchair philosophy that a computer stands of generating War and Peace by randomly recombining words. It is the empirical testing of theories that drives knowledge, not meditation; it is the sensory observation and accompanying inductive generalization that builds our vocabulary, which is necessary to even form theories in the first place.
By the way, you skillfully managed to skip around my mention of flying witches on broomsticks, when you promoted the 'no fire without smoke' supposition. This supposition in itself is an excellent example of inductive generalization -- although in this case, it is clearly an <u>over</u>generalization.
With your claim that our knowledge of God derives from special messengers, I could eagerly argue for the need to relapse into monarchy, indentured servantry, and slavery -- since all of these things have been endorsed by messengers who claimed to commune with God. Note that God is not a concept that cannot arise out of our experience (no such concepts exist!); on the contrary, the Judaic God is just a father-figure of family life, extrapolated to the world as a whole.
Finally, you don't need to explain the principle of causality to me! It is an undisputable fact that our universe is built on the principle (did you notice that point in my arguments?) This, by the way, obviates divine interference, since our particular universe has obviously evolved on its own ever since the beginning. However, it is awfully bold of you to extend the principle to even the inconceivable realms outer to our universe. Not only could the other physical laws be different there, but the principle of causality might not even exist -- implying that time wouldn't exist either, at least as we understand it.
The debate concering painters and paintings, as well as bakers of bread, has attempted to show you, just as I am trying to show you now, that the complexity you observe now indeed was not explicitly present in the starting conditions of the universe. I.e. the sophistication of the human brain was nowhere to be found before the Big Bang, or whatever it was that gave rise to the physical reality we inhabit. It is a faulty supposition to assume that the complexity we witness now must have had a prior representation elsewhere before its physical implementation. While that is one possible scenario (i.e. creation), it is not the only one.
Complexity arises in systems that start out in a relatively homogeneous state, but are governed by complex laws and are allowed to evolve in time. The science investigating this change is called Chaos Theory. The complexity comes about entirely due to these laws, and needs no help from any source that is external to the system, or intelligent, or goal-driven in any way. The universe started out quite uniform -- a hypervolume of pure energy. However, due to tiny imbalances at the very beginning, and due to the complex laws governing behavior of energy, the universe evolved elementary particles, which then generated primitive matter, which formed astronomical objects, which baked more and more complex forms of matter, which began to recombine into complex agglomerates that eventually gave rise to life, which then evolved to bring us to this stage. This entire process, and all of the paintings, loaves of bread, and literary works that have resulted form it, has been driven by the very same set of fundamental laws, which did not apriori contain all this; the information was contained within the initial state of the universe, as well as possibly within the subsequent states of the hyperuniverses within which ours may be embedded. In fact, if you consider an time-extrapolation of our universe into the far future, you will see, based on the current known laws, that all the complexity you observe will be reduced to nothingness; all matter will decay and turn back into radiation, and space will be more and more perfectly empty with each passing age. Thus, the complexity you currently perceive cannot even be properly regarded as information directly embedded in the initial conditions; rather it is only a snapshot of the internal state of a computer, where the computer is the universe, and the computaton consists of applying the physical laws to all units of matter/energy. However, because the computation is deterministic (i.e. reversible) -- according to the known laws, anyway -- the initial conditions coupled with the laws did indeed contain the complexity equivalent of any snapshot of the universe in time -- and that includes the snapshots which lacked humans or any of their creations. Therefore, it is only an illusion to think that the ways in which we transform the world add any new information; all the paintings, recipes, religions, and indeed all thoughts that ever existed were direct derivatives of time-evolution of the physical reality. In that sense, a painting is no more sophisticated than a pile of atoms of the same weight, ordered to a comparable degree. Only in our minds do our creations stand out as something special, because they contain certain Gestalt features that our brains have evolved to efficiently perceive and be stimulated by.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
You ask why it is that we form theories and seek knowledge. The answer lies within the acquisition of knowledge itself -- a process by which a more intelligent organism gets an evolutionary edge. Intelligence was generated through evolution, and it is nature that has forced living organisms to generate more and more complex facilities for representing their surroundings. Our need to know is a simple extension of that natural trend, and our theory-forming ability is a mere extension of the inductive process by which generalizations from observations are formed by any animal. What truly separates us from other animals is our capacity for symbolic representation of concepts, and subsequent ability to manipulate the symbols -- language, in other words. This greatly compresses the workload, and enables us to manipulate many divergent schemas within the same working memory space -- thus enabling complex thought. We are not unique in this capacity; higher apes also share a limited aptitute for symbolic language (their brains are much smaller, so they can only manage so much.)
So it is indeed natural laws that give rise to both us and our theory-making, and our knowledge-forming.
Now, you also claimed that we possess knowledge unattainable through the senses. With regard to that, I would like to hear you speculate concerning the knowledge you would have obtained if you were abandoned deep in a forest and grew up with no human company whatsoever. But let me save you the trouble, and describe the actual observed results (yes, Maugli was real, though it wasn't his real name.) What happens is that the resulting human is completely incapable of speech or any complex, abstract thought. Not only does the human have no idea of God, he/she doesn't even fathom the idea that other minds exist. If restored into society at a sufficiently late age (past about 12 years old), the human will never learn to speak, nor comprehend, even a single word of any language. The human will form no theories whatsoever, and will seek no knowledge at all -- beyond simple generalizations of the sort you see other animals make.
Everything we are as individuals, we owe to our upbringing, and to our human company. Everything you know, Dumaurier, you have obtained from either direct sensory observation, or through discourse with other people. There is absolutely nothing you know that you did not obtain through your six senses, plus introspection. All of your earthly concepts -- shape, color, smell, taste, touch, circularity, linearity, largeness and smallness, brightness and dimness -- absolutely every single basic concept in your mind, are derived from your sensory experience. Your entire knowledge of social interactions, happiness, sadness, friendship, feud, fairness, judgement -- is obtained from your ability to consciously register your emotions.
It has long since been convincingly demonstrated that we are inductive machines. We learn exclusively from experience, and obtain knowledge through no other means. We generalize from observations. The sort of 'immaterial' knowledge you are referring to, is more widely known as 'armchair philosophy'. It involves simply taking the concepts that you already possess through your world-experience, and recombining them in new ways. Even in the most abstract thoughts, you never stray from this pattern, and indeed never possibly could. The abstract theorizing that you attribute to God is rather akin to a computer randomly recombining words, and producing a coherent sentence by accident every now and then. Our thoughts are a little more ordered than that because the ways we recombine concepts are not entirely random, but driven by experience. However, we stand about the same chance of forming valid theory through armchair philosophy that a computer stands of generating War and Peace by randomly recombining words. It is the empirical testing of theories that drives knowledge, not meditation; it is the sensory observation and accompanying inductive generalization that builds our vocabulary, which is necessary to even form theories in the first place.
By the way, you skillfully managed to skip around my mention of flying witches on broomsticks, when you promoted the 'no fire without smoke' supposition. This supposition in itself is an excellent example of inductive generalization -- although in this case, it is clearly an <u>over</u>generalization.
With your claim that our knowledge of God derives from special messengers, I could eagerly argue for the need to relapse into monarchy, indentured servantry, and slavery -- since all of these things have been endorsed by messengers who claimed to commune with God. Note that God is not a concept that cannot arise out of our experience (no such concepts exist!); on the contrary, the Judaic God is just a father-figure of family life, extrapolated to the world as a whole.
Finally, you don't need to explain the principle of causality to me! It is an undisputable fact that our universe is built on the principle (did you notice that point in my arguments?) This, by the way, obviates divine interference, since our particular universe has obviously evolved on its own ever since the beginning. However, it is awfully bold of you to extend the principle to even the inconceivable realms outer to our universe. Not only could the other physical laws be different there, but the principle of causality might not even exist -- implying that time wouldn't exist either, at least as we understand it.
The debate concering painters and paintings, as well as bakers of bread, has attempted to show you, just as I am trying to show you now, that the complexity you observe now indeed was not explicitly present in the starting conditions of the universe. I.e. the sophistication of the human brain was nowhere to be found before the Big Bang, or whatever it was that gave rise to the physical reality we inhabit. It is a faulty supposition to assume that the complexity we witness now must have had a prior representation elsewhere before its physical implementation. While that is one possible scenario (i.e. creation), it is not the only one.
Complexity arises in systems that start out in a relatively homogeneous state, but are governed by complex laws and are allowed to evolve in time. The science investigating this change is called Chaos Theory. The complexity comes about entirely due to these laws, and needs no help from any source that is external to the system, or intelligent, or goal-driven in any way. The universe started out quite uniform -- a hypervolume of pure energy. However, due to tiny imbalances at the very beginning, and due to the complex laws governing behavior of energy, the universe evolved elementary particles, which then generated primitive matter, which formed astronomical objects, which baked more and more complex forms of matter, which began to recombine into complex agglomerates that eventually gave rise to life, which then evolved to bring us to this stage. This entire process, and all of the paintings, loaves of bread, and literary works that have resulted form it, has been driven by the very same set of fundamental laws, which did not apriori contain all this; the information was contained within the initial state of the universe, as well as possibly within the subsequent states of the hyperuniverses within which ours may be embedded. In fact, if you consider an time-extrapolation of our universe into the far future, you will see, based on the current known laws, that all the complexity you observe will be reduced to nothingness; all matter will decay and turn back into radiation, and space will be more and more perfectly empty with each passing age. Thus, the complexity you currently perceive cannot even be properly regarded as information directly embedded in the initial conditions; rather it is only a snapshot of the internal state of a computer, where the computer is the universe, and the computaton consists of applying the physical laws to all units of matter/energy. However, because the computation is deterministic (i.e. reversible) -- according to the known laws, anyway -- the initial conditions coupled with the laws did indeed contain the complexity equivalent of any snapshot of the universe in time -- and that includes the snapshots which lacked humans or any of their creations. Therefore, it is only an illusion to think that the ways in which we transform the world add any new information; all the paintings, recipes, religions, and indeed all thoughts that ever existed were direct derivatives of time-evolution of the physical reality. In that sense, a painting is no more sophisticated than a pile of atoms of the same weight, ordered to a comparable degree. Only in our minds do our creations stand out as something special, because they contain certain Gestalt features that our brains have evolved to efficiently perceive and be stimulated by.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
Boris,
Because of the length of our posts, and the breadth of our discussions, i would appreciate it if you include within the body of your reply to me my own words to which you are responding. You will understand the wisdom in this, i am certain.
Thank you.
------------------
dumaurier
Because of the length of our posts, and the breadth of our discussions, i would appreciate it if you include within the body of your reply to me my own words to which you are responding. You will understand the wisdom in this, i am certain.
Thank you.
------------------
dumaurier
Dumaurier, about CAUSALITY :
I 'm afraid I have some bad news for you. I don't know if you are familiar with quantum mechanics, it is the study of the atomic and subatomic particles and their behavior. This theory is one of the pillars of twentieth century physics and has had many verifications since its conception in the nineteen twinties.
Here the rules of causality as they exist in classical Newtonian mechanics, are set on lose shakles. For example the decay of an unstable nucleus. We have a pretty good understanding why the nucleus is unstable and 'wants to' decay, we also know what happens during such a decay event but we fundamentally are unable to predict the exact moment of it's decay. This is due to the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. So as far as we are concerned when we observe a nucleus decay, the is no cause what so ever to makes it decay at that instant, it just does...
Same story with vacuum fluctuations, they can be overserved in bubble baths and become more frequent in very stong magnetic fields. There is however no explantion why they appear on that specific time on that specific place, no cause, no creator, no god...
------------------
we are midgets standing on the backs of giants,
Plato
I 'm afraid I have some bad news for you. I don't know if you are familiar with quantum mechanics, it is the study of the atomic and subatomic particles and their behavior. This theory is one of the pillars of twentieth century physics and has had many verifications since its conception in the nineteen twinties.
Here the rules of causality as they exist in classical Newtonian mechanics, are set on lose shakles. For example the decay of an unstable nucleus. We have a pretty good understanding why the nucleus is unstable and 'wants to' decay, we also know what happens during such a decay event but we fundamentally are unable to predict the exact moment of it's decay. This is due to the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. So as far as we are concerned when we observe a nucleus decay, the is no cause what so ever to makes it decay at that instant, it just does...
Same story with vacuum fluctuations, they can be overserved in bubble baths and become more frequent in very stong magnetic fields. There is however no explantion why they appear on that specific time on that specific place, no cause, no creator, no god...
------------------
we are midgets standing on the backs of giants,
Plato
Plato,
i understand what you propose. However, as you know, the hypothetical medium formerly believed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves is yet to be empirically proven. Yet we know that light, which makes sight possible, is capable of causing a visual sensation and which has wavelengths from about 380 to 780 nonometres, is carried in ether, a medium which in the wave theory of light is believed to permeate all space, transmitting transverse waves. We have yet to prove the existence of this ether! But we know it exists for its effects on lightwaves are implicit!
Now, as to the decay of an unstable nucleus, the mere observation of its tendency toward decay proves there is a cause although we do not understand that cause yet. Our inability and incapacity to predict does not bear on the principle of causality inasmuch as we are not as yet familiar enough with quantum mechanics (or wave mechanics) and all the intricate possibilities inherent within the mathematical interpretations of the structure and interactions of matter. It may appear that the nucleus decays for no apparent reason, but i think what scientists really are saying here is that they have yet to discover the underlieing force which causes the decay and not that the principle of causality is inoperative. This would also be true with regards vacuum fluctuations; because we do not know as yet why they appear at a specific time and place, this does not annul the universal principle of cause and effect. It is simply that we have still to find the cause. Research continues.
------------------
dumaurier
i understand what you propose. However, as you know, the hypothetical medium formerly believed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves is yet to be empirically proven. Yet we know that light, which makes sight possible, is capable of causing a visual sensation and which has wavelengths from about 380 to 780 nonometres, is carried in ether, a medium which in the wave theory of light is believed to permeate all space, transmitting transverse waves. We have yet to prove the existence of this ether! But we know it exists for its effects on lightwaves are implicit!
Now, as to the decay of an unstable nucleus, the mere observation of its tendency toward decay proves there is a cause although we do not understand that cause yet. Our inability and incapacity to predict does not bear on the principle of causality inasmuch as we are not as yet familiar enough with quantum mechanics (or wave mechanics) and all the intricate possibilities inherent within the mathematical interpretations of the structure and interactions of matter. It may appear that the nucleus decays for no apparent reason, but i think what scientists really are saying here is that they have yet to discover the underlieing force which causes the decay and not that the principle of causality is inoperative. This would also be true with regards vacuum fluctuations; because we do not know as yet why they appear at a specific time and place, this does not annul the universal principle of cause and effect. It is simply that we have still to find the cause. Research continues.
------------------
dumaurier
Dumaurier,
Aloysius is very right I'm afraid. The ether theory has died when special relativity became accepted trough testing and investigation. I'm sure Boris is reading this with extreme care so I'll be very carefull and I won't mention absolute frameworks and relative frameworks I will just refer to our discussion in the "speed of gravity thread"
About the so called hidden variables in quantum mechanics that you are referring to and that Einstein searched for so desperatly during the last part of his life (in vain I must add) they are part of a possible explanation of quantum mechanics but can never be veryfied. You see this uncertainty is not there because we don't know enough of quantum mechanics but because it is intrinsic to nature as we observe it. There is no way around it, we can speculate what 'really' happens inside a nucleus but it is impossible to test this speculation because the very test itself disrupts the system and erases all information about the original settings. It's like running to the food of a rainbow, our running makes it move away.
------------------
we are midgets standing on the backs of giants,
Plato
Aloysius is very right I'm afraid. The ether theory has died when special relativity became accepted trough testing and investigation. I'm sure Boris is reading this with extreme care so I'll be very carefull and I won't mention absolute frameworks and relative frameworks I will just refer to our discussion in the "speed of gravity thread"
About the so called hidden variables in quantum mechanics that you are referring to and that Einstein searched for so desperatly during the last part of his life (in vain I must add) they are part of a possible explanation of quantum mechanics but can never be veryfied. You see this uncertainty is not there because we don't know enough of quantum mechanics but because it is intrinsic to nature as we observe it. There is no way around it, we can speculate what 'really' happens inside a nucleus but it is impossible to test this speculation because the very test itself disrupts the system and erases all information about the original settings. It's like running to the food of a rainbow, our running makes it move away.
------------------
we are midgets standing on the backs of giants,
Plato
Hey, the ol' team is back together again.
I agree with Plato about the current state of knowledge concerning hidden variables. However, I am an agnostic when it comes to those darned variables. This is because I suspect that much of what current experiments statistically filter out as 'noise' actually contains information potentially even about the hidden variables. However, without a predictive mathematical model we are unable to discern the pattern in the noise (and the pattern might indeed be complex...) And I indeed hope that is so; otherwise we are faced with the conundrum of why the seeming violations of causality in the quantum world are so limited and moderate, and how it is that they translate to causality in the macro world (i.e. how it hangs together and behaves predictably, despite total uncertainty underlying it at the most smallest of scales). I mean, if there is not even a tiniest modicum of order present at sub-Planck scales and energies, then differential ordered behavior, repeated innumerably at large scale, seems an unlikely consequence, statistically speaking.
But I think we're beginning to digress...
The point is, one can't go postulating causality ad infinitum, because then infinitum is exactly what you get. A totally causal universe without a beginning? The acausal causes of that beginning, if any? Nah, I think the linear causal thinking we are so used to will not work all that well outside certain confines...
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
I agree with Plato about the current state of knowledge concerning hidden variables. However, I am an agnostic when it comes to those darned variables. This is because I suspect that much of what current experiments statistically filter out as 'noise' actually contains information potentially even about the hidden variables. However, without a predictive mathematical model we are unable to discern the pattern in the noise (and the pattern might indeed be complex...) And I indeed hope that is so; otherwise we are faced with the conundrum of why the seeming violations of causality in the quantum world are so limited and moderate, and how it is that they translate to causality in the macro world (i.e. how it hangs together and behaves predictably, despite total uncertainty underlying it at the most smallest of scales). I mean, if there is not even a tiniest modicum of order present at sub-Planck scales and energies, then differential ordered behavior, repeated innumerably at large scale, seems an unlikely consequence, statistically speaking.
But I think we're beginning to digress...
The point is, one can't go postulating causality ad infinitum, because then infinitum is exactly what you get. A totally causal universe without a beginning? The acausal causes of that beginning, if any? Nah, I think the linear causal thinking we are so used to will not work all that well outside certain confines...
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
Aloysius,
as you know, there are different schools with regards lightwaves and the ether; some physicists believe in one thing and others believe in another. It has not been proven that the ether does not exist but there is stronger evidence of its existence. I lean toward the belief of its existence and as having an effect on lightwaves.
------------------
dumaurier
as you know, there are different schools with regards lightwaves and the ether; some physicists believe in one thing and others believe in another. It has not been proven that the ether does not exist but there is stronger evidence of its existence. I lean toward the belief of its existence and as having an effect on lightwaves.
------------------
dumaurier
Meaning no disrespect for the profoundness of the above posts but, what the heck are you talking about? I thought this was an Aliens & Extraterrestrials forum. It was interesting until the ultra-hyper-phylosophists took over. Go away and let some brain swizzled posts happen.
I believe that one day my people will come back for me.
I believe that one day my people will come back for me.
Atreides, Why not make the subject at hand relative to this forum? (while you are waiting for your club employees in their nice white uniforms to custom fit your jacket so they can take you back... )
Could this ether be used as a medium for space travel?
Regards,
dave.
[This message has been edited by Dave (edited July 14, 1999).]
Could this ether be used as a medium for space travel?
Regards,
dave.
[This message has been edited by Dave (edited July 14, 1999).]