“Reality Goes Beyond Physics,” and more

[aupmanyav]

"I seek her protection .."

More correctly: "She is my savior. .."
In other words, "Knowledge is my savior", not any God or Goddess.
Sarasvati is the embodiment of knowledge.

 

[bilby]

Literally nothing we have ever observed has started to (or ceased to) exist - We call this "The First Law of Thermodynamics".
Why should we expect the universe to be any different?

Have we observed everything?

No. Do we need to, in order to notice that the 1LoT has never been observed to be broken?

Sure, that could change tomorrow.

But you'd be crazy to bet your life savings on it.

Is existence a phase of non-existence?

No. By definition.

We might come across strange things, just like Relativity and Quantum Mechanics which surprised us.

Or we might not.

So far, a century or two of really hard work by the best minds on the planet has failed to find such a surprise.

Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen; Just that it would be ridiculous to assume that it will.

 

[aupmanyav]

But you'd be crazy to bet your life savings on it.

Yeah, I am, to some extent.

No. By definition.

I should have said, 'Existence and non-existence are two phases of energy'.

Or we might not.
So far, a century or two of really hard work by the best minds on the planet has failed to find such a surprise.
Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen; Just that it would be ridiculous to assume that it will.

That will leave us with the same problem - 'God/universe is eternal'.
It is equally ridiculous to bet on whether the surprise will happen or will not. 50-50. Just your choice or mine.

 

[bilby]

I should have said, 'Existence and non-existence are two phases of energy'.

You really shouldn't; To do so would be pseudo-profound horseshit of the worst kind.

 

[bilby]

Or we might not.
So far, a century or two of really hard work by the best minds on the planet has failed to find such a surprise.
Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen; Just that it would be ridiculous to assume that it will.

That will leave us with the same problem - 'God/universe is eternal'.
It is equally ridiculous to bet on whether the surprise will happen or will not. 50-50. Just your choice or mine.

The belief that an unknown with two possibilities is always a 50-50 bet is very common, and very badly wrong.

"Neither of us knows for sure" is NOT the same as "We both have an equal probability of being right".

It's the old girlfriend problem:

A man has two girlfriends. Every night, Monday thru Saturday, he leaves work, and waits for a train from Central at a completely random time between 17:00 and 18:00. One girl lives on the northbound line from Central; The other lives on the southbound line. Trains run every hour in each direction, so to be fair to both girls, he catches whichever train departs first.​

​

He finds that he sees the girl to the north five days a week, on average; And the girl to the south only once a week on average.​

​

How can that be explained?​

Solve this problem, and you will understand why you are mistaken.

 

[aupmanyav]

Solve this problem, and you will understand why you are mistaken.

Northbound train has an earlier departure time, sometimes it gets late.

 

[bilby]

Solve this problem, and you will understand why you are mistaken.

Northbound train has an earlier departure time, sometimes it gets late.

All trains run on time.

 

[steve_bank]

This would be another thread, no god or 'first case' is needed in an infinite universe with no beginning or end.

Is universe infinite or closed? Does universe has no beginning or end? Has science said the last word on it?

I do not think it is knowable. Based on basic physics and my technical work the idea that matter can come from and go to nothing seems unlikely. To me the only answer is an infinite unversed with no beginning and no end.

The Laws Of Thermodynamics only apply to a bounded system like the Earth or a human body or a car.

The universe may be a perpetual motion system in which no energy is lost. The form changes.

Noe of it is provable.

 

[pood]

When DBT repeatedly brings up “inner necessity” to claim we do not have compatibilist freedom, I simply ask again and again: What kind of “necessity” is he talking about?

It cannot be logical necessity, for reasons I have given. So what IS this necessity of which he speaks? I hold that it does not exist — that the only form of necessity is logical necessity.

But it is true, of course, that people use language in a loose and often slipshod manner, so we might say, for instance, that it is “necessary” to eat a big breakfast if you are doing to do a hard day’s work. But it’s not necessary at all; it’s just advisable.

I have explained what I mean by inner necessity multiple time: determinism. It just means that the brain as the means and mechanism by which decisions are made determines what is decided in any given instance of decision making.

That decisions being determined by neural information processing are just as much a restriction on freedom of will as the external terms defined by compatibilism; being forced, coerced or unduly influenced.

So are you saying there is no distinction between a proposition like, “Today I chose Coke over Pepsi” and “all triangles have three sides”?

It's a false analogy.

The issue lies in the distinction between selection and choice.

That, given determinism, a distinction is to be made between decision making and choice. Whether a decision that is necessarily made - determined - is a matter of choice.

This has nothing to do with triangles.

Freely choosing requires the possibility of taking an alternate option in any given instance of decision making.
Determinism does not permit alternate actions in any given instance of decision making, consequently, decisions that are made within a deterministic system are not an example choice.

So it’s not logically necessary that I choose Coke over Pepsi?

 

[pood]

Composition fallacy. The fact that things in the universe have a cause does not imply that the universe as a whole must have a cause. And, since time is within the universe, there could be no “before” the universe in which there was “time” to create it. The observation that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed also supports a universe without beginning or end.

I did not say that there 'must' be a cause, I said there 'should' be a cause (normally expected). If the universe is without a beginning or end, then it must be proven. Till that time we cannot take it for granted. Is science sure that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed? I suppose is more to be found out.

I don’t know what you mean by “should.” In the normative sense? The descriptive sense?

We have never observed a violation of conservation.

In any case, it does not matter whether or not the universe extends infinitely into the past. It may, or it may not. It could have had a different form before the big bang, or not. If it did not, the universe is still eternal. This is because time began in the big bang, and time and space are fused. There is no sense, if the universe “began” at the big bang, in asking what happened “before” that. There was no before, any more that there is a direction north of the north pole. From the north pole, all spatial directions are south. From the big bang, all temporal directions are forward.

 

[pood]

This would be another thread, no god or 'first case' is needed in an infinite universe with no beginning or end.

Is universe infinite or closed? Does universe has no beginning or end? Has science said the last word on it?

I do not think it is knowable. Based on basic physics and my technical work the idea that matter can come from and go to nothing seems unlikely. To me the only answer is an infinite unversed with no beginning and no end.

The Laws Of Thermodynamics only apply to a bounded system like the Earth or a human body or a car.

The universe may be a perpetual motion system in which no energy is lost. The form changes.

Noe of it is provable.

The earth is an open system so it can have negentropy. However, any decrease in entropy on earth or in any other open system is paid for by a rise in entropy in the universe as a whole, because the universe is a closed system.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

You are saying that I don't make decisions, because I am a deterministic system, and so therefore cannot make decisions.

Were I a determinist, I would say you do not make decisions only because there are no decisions to be made. You will do what you will do, but nothing that you have done, do, or will do is a decision. The words decide, choose, select, and the like - in ordinary usage - refer to experiences as context. Specifically, those terms refer to the experience a person has of having the sense that there is physical and metaphysical (hence (meta)physical) unsettledness - indeterminateness - with regards to what the person will do given a situation in which the person senses that there are options/alternatives. When faced with a situation in which the person is thirsty and there are Pepsi and Coke available, the person has some sense of it being as yet undetermined as to whether the person will choose/select/decide to have Pepsi or Coke or even neither.

Determinism denies that it is ever as yet undetermined what the person will do; determinism denies the (meta)physical actuality of - but not the experience or sense of there being - human-level indeterminateness.

If, as per determinism, it is correct that there is no such actual indeterminateness as that which humans experience in being human, then there is nothing to decide. Compatibilists might counter something along the lines of: The compatibilist definition of decide, choose, select, and the like is different from that above given description. The compatibilist definition is ... well, I do not recall actually seeing one, and I cannot at the moment think of a compatibilist definition that would work against the above described context description for those terms. And this is relevant inasmuch as the compatibilist as determinist agrees that there is no actual (meta)physical indeterminateness with regards to the human-level context. After all, if the compatibilist denies denying that indeterminateness, then how is it that the compatibilist is a determinist?

I have seen incompatibilist determinists say that the person MUST do what the person does, and I have even seen self-described incompatibilist determinists say that they DECIDE/CHOOSE/SELECT. But such semantic inconsistency is easily rectified. MUST gets replaced by WILL, and the indeterminateness-related terms get re-expressed simply by reference to the person doing something. For example, QUESTION: Does the person choose the Pepsi or the Coke? ANSWER: The person picks up (will pick up or did pick up, obviously depending on further context details) the Pepsi and drinks it. And the semantic inconsistency is erased/avoided. Of course, that leaves determinism as incoherent with regards to a rather basic experience of human being. And that just leads to further discussion.

As I said, I am not a determinist. I have tried to present the determinist perspective fairly and accurately. I think I have succeeded. But I leave that for determinists to challenge. I am not a determinist, but I also hold that determinism is possibly true. I am willing to regard compatibilist determinism as possibly true, but I just have not yet found a way to express that compatibilism in a way which is consistent with what I previously referred to as determinism simpliciter. Also as noted previously, I see no reason for an incompatibilist determinist to disagree with the compatibilist determinist with regards to a person not being coerced/made to do what the person does, but that is just a reiteration of the incompatibilist determinist being able to substitute WILL for MUST without in any way affecting the determinism of the incompatibilist determinist. Being free from (coercion or control, for instance) can be a necessary condition for being free to, but being free from is not a sufficient condition for being free to. Indeterminateness is also a necessary condition for being free to.

 

[pood]

You are saying that I don't make decisions, because I am a deterministic system, and so therefore cannot make decisions.

Determinism denies that it is ever as yet undetermined what the person will do; determinism denies the (meta)physical actuality of - but not the experience or sense of there being - human-level indeterminateness.

PRE-determinism denies that it is as yet undetermined that …

Pre-determinism is not the same as determinism.

An event is “determined” at the time it happens — although, as I argued above, it is perfectly OK for future contingent propositions to be true in advance of the event they describe.

But, now, say, the block universe theory is true, and the future exists along with the past and the present. In such a case, it is, so to say, “already” determined what I will do tomorrow, next week, next decade, what have you. To which I say, so what? It is still YOU doing the determining, at those times. Is it possible to CHANGE, somehow, what you will do in the future? No, anymore than it is possible to change what you already did in the past, but free will, as I discussed earlier, does not require you to be able to change anything, only to make things be, as they actually are.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

PRE-determinism denies that it is as yet undetermined that …

Pre-determinism is not the same as determinism.

If pre-determinism is not the same as determinism, or if pre-determinism is not a variety of determinism, then is the distinction supposed to be that according to determinism (at the level of and in the context of human experience) there are matters that are (meta)physically undetermined? Does undetermined mean something other than not determined? If something is (meta)physically undetermined, does that mean there is - and it is an instance of - (meta)physical indeterminateness? Is the (meta)physical indeterminateness which humans sense ever an actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism? If that sensed/experienced indeterminateness is not actual according to determinism, then how is the determinism/pre-determinism alleged distinction at all relevant? If the sensed/experienced indeterminateness is actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism, then what is determinism other than the claim that what humans do is undetermined - a (meta)physically indeterminate matter - until humans resolve the indeterminateness?

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Click to enlarge the images

The fact that the universe exists is the proof that no cause is required, because if a cause required then the universe wouldn't exist, even though logically it can't not exist (it is proven that non-existence is impossible).

Who proved that? Can you give me the reference? Just as existence is possible, non-existence too could be possible.

Buddha said (Message to Kalamas - Kesamutti Sutta, to get out of a hair-hold):
"Do not go by 1. Oral history, 2. Tradition, 3. News sources 4. Scriptures or other official texts, 5. Suppositional reasoning, 6. Philosophical dogmatism, 7. Common sense, 8. One's own opinions 9. What experts say and 10. Authorities or one's own teacher.
Kalamas, when you yourselves know 'These things are good; these things are not blameable; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them."

Kesamutti Sutta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is not annihilation but total conversion to energy, and matter and energy are equivalent, so overall conservation of energy occurs.

Baryon asymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry

The proof that there is no nothingness is this:
Assume nothingness did exist, and that then something came from it. The only way something can arise from nothing is if the nothing contained the potential to become something, but if it did then it would not be true nothing. Therefore the universe which does exist could not come from nothing, therefore there was never nothing.

That wikipedia article is not about collision of two particles but about formation of the universe.

 

[pood]

PRE-determinism denies that it is as yet undetermined that …

Pre-determinism is not the same as determinism.

If pre-determinism is not the same as determinism, or if pre-determinism is not a variety of determinism, then is the distinction supposed to be that according to determinism (at the level of and in the context of human experience) there are matters that are (meta)physically undetermined? Does undetermined mean something other than not determined? If something is (meta)physically undetermined, does that mean there is - and it is an instance of - (meta)physical indeterminateness? Is the (meta)physical indeterminateness which humans sense ever an actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism? If that sensed/experienced indeterminateness is not actual according to determinism, then how is the determinism/pre-determinism alleged distinction at all relevant? If the sensed/experienced indeterminateness is actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism, then what is determinism other than the claim that what humans do is undetermined - a (meta)physically indeterminate matter - until humans resolve the indeterminateness?

Determinism means events reliably follow causes. This means an event is determined at the time of its cause. How else could it possibly be?

I mentioned somewhere that the hard determinist and biologist Jerry Coyne, at his blog, once recounted how he told an improv jazz musician that he didn’t compose his piece — hard determinism did. As Coyne relates it, the musician got so angry at this that he nearly attacked Coyne, until Richard Dawkins intervened to prevent fisticuffs.

I repeatedly cite this example because it is difficult for me to believe how anyone can believe what Coyne believes. If the improv jazz musician did not compose his piece, who or what did? Was it composed by the big bang, at the big bang?

How?

The hard determinist owes an answer to that question.

Of course it was composed by the composer, based on deterministic inputs that offered him a vast menu of options to choose from in composing the piece. You can say he composed just that piece because of just those antecedents, and — so? How else is he to compose the piece, except from determined antecedents? Out of thin air? By flipping a coin? Sure, had antecedents been different, he would have composed differently, because of different inputs, different choices offered, etc. But he composed the piece the way that he did, because that is how he wanted to compose, based on the antecedents that actually prevailed.

 

[pood]

PRE-determinism denies that it is as yet undetermined that …

Pre-determinism is not the same as determinism.

If pre-determinism is not the same as determinism, or if pre-determinism is not a variety of determinism, then is the distinction supposed to be that according to determinism (at the level of and in the context of human experience) there are matters that are (meta)physically undetermined? Does undetermined mean something other than not determined? If something is (meta)physically undetermined, does that mean there is - and it is an instance of - (meta)physical indeterminateness? Is the (meta)physical indeterminateness which humans sense ever an actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism? If that sensed/experienced indeterminateness is not actual according to determinism, then how is the determinism/pre-determinism alleged distinction at all relevant? If the sensed/experienced indeterminateness is actual (meta)physical indeterminateness according to determinism, then what is determinism other than the claim that what humans do is undetermined - a (meta)physically indeterminate matter - until humans resolve the indeterminateness?

To respond more directly to this, let us suppose that the most extreme case, the block universe of Minkowski spacetime, is true, that the the past, future and and present all exist — are all “ontologically on a par.” If this is the case, you can say that all my future acts are “already” in a manner of speaking (our tensed language has difficulty in dealing with the concept of the block universe), determined. But if so, as I argued earlier, very little changes, if anything, for compatibilism on this view. All my future acts will still be mine, decided at the time they are decided, even if, in a sense, they are already “metaphysically” decided in advance. It will still be the case that I don’t HAVE TO do, what I do, at any time, I just WILL do these things I want, based on determined antecedents. And it will logically remain the case that nothing in this picture means I must be able to CHANGE anything — past, present, or future — to keep compatibilist free will. Such free will only requires that it is within my power to ACTUALIZE past, preset, and future, and not CHANGE them.

 

[pood]

Actually, with my latest post, I think I just more or less restated when I had already said a few posts upthread, lol.

 

[steve_bank]

This would be another thread, no god or 'first case' is needed in an infinite universe with no beginning or end.

Is universe infinite or closed? Does universe has no beginning or end? Has science said the last word on it?

I do not think it is knowable. Based on basic physics and my technical work the idea that matter can come from and go to nothing seems unlikely. To me the only answer is an infinite unversed with no beginning and no end.

The Laws Of Thermodynamics only apply to a bounded system like the Earth or a human body or a car.

The universe may be a perpetual motion system in which no energy is lost. The form changes.

Noe of it is provable.

The earth is an open system so it can have negentropy. However, any decrease in entropy on earth or in any other open system is paid for by a rise in entropy in the universe as a whole, because the universe is a closed system.

You have to understand how thermodynamics is applied, I used it. It is not just idle theory.

Imagine a bubble around the Earth. Matter and energy leave and enter the bubble. Radiation from space comes in, radiation leaves the bubble. Matter such as meteors co me in, atmosphere escapes.

Conservation says the energy and mass leaving, the energy and mass entering. and the energy and mass stored in the bubble have to always add up, like a checking account.It is as simple as that.

A car starts. The mass of the air going into the engine, the mass of gasoline burned, and the mass of gasses and combustion products leaving the car must always add up.


Saying mass and energy can not be created or destroyed means as you drive the gas gauge is not going to go up.

As you increase a bubble around the Earth to infinity thermodynamics breaks down. It only applies to a finite volume and a boundary across which work, mass, energy go in and out.

Entropy says that within a boundary there is energy which can not be used to do useful work. That work in a boundary creates a cosmic debit does not necessarily hold true. There s no way to demonstrate it.

If work done decreases total available energy in the universe, then universe has to run down, thermal death.

Then comes if the universe can run down how did it run up?

Open or closed applies to a system with a finite volume.

Our observation is milted by our ability to detect photons. The edge of detection ability is not neccesarily the edge of the unverse.

 

[pood]

This would be another thread, no god or 'first case' is needed in an infinite universe with no beginning or end.

Is universe infinite or closed? Does universe has no beginning or end? Has science said the last word on it?

I do not think it is knowable. Based on basic physics and my technical work the idea that matter can come from and go to nothing seems unlikely. To me the only answer is an infinite unversed with no beginning and no end.

The Laws Of Thermodynamics only apply to a bounded system like the Earth or a human body or a car.

The universe may be a perpetual motion system in which no energy is lost. The form changes.

Noe of it is provable.

The earth is an open system so it can have negentropy. However, any decrease in entropy on earth or in any other open system is paid for by a rise in entropy in the universe as a whole, because the universe is a closed system.

You have to understand how thermodynamics is applied, I used it. It is not just idle theory.

Imagine a bubble around the Earth. Matter and energy leave and enter the bubble. Radiation from space comes in, radiation leaves the bubble. Matter such as meteors co me in, atmosphere escapes.

Conservation says the energy and mass leaving, the energy and mass entering. and the energy and mass stored in the bubble have to always add up, like a checking account.It is as simple as that.

A car starts. The mass of the air going into the engine, the mass of gasoline burned, and the mass of gasses and combustion products leaving the car must always add up.


Saying mass and energy can not be created or destroyed means as you drive the gas gauge is not going to go up.

As you increase a bubble around the Earth to infinity thermodynamics breaks down. It only applies to a finite volume and a boundary across which work, mass, energy go in and out.

Entropy says that within a boundary there is energy which can not be used to do useful work. That work in a boundary creates a cosmic debit does not necessarily hold true. There s no way to demonstrate it.

If work done decreases total available energy in the universe, then universe has to run down, thermal death.

Then comes if the universe can run down how did it run up?

Open or closed applies to a system with a finite volume.

Our observation is milted by our ability to detect photons. The edge of detection ability is not neccesarily the edge of the unverse.

The universe may be spatially infinite but it’s not clear to me why increasing entropy and heath death would fail to apply to an infinite universe.