General Philosophy

Some believe the universe has always existed in some form. This is about getting around the idea of something coming from nothing. I have a problem with the idea. How did we get to now? An infinite amount of time is impossible to cross just as an infinite amount of space is impossible to cross. And yet people believe there is an infinite amount of time before this point we call NOW. How did we get to NOW? Seems to me that if you figure in an infinite past then no event can ever happen because it can always be set back infinitely. Not my idea but the idea of a greek philosopher.

I am not going to commit suicide. This is not a plea for help. Please stay on topic for the question I am asking. I already know life is meaningless, and when I was younger I used to suffer from "dark" depressions where the thought of living was unbearable. I got older, learned a lot about Buddhism, and Stoicism, and they helped give me a lot of perspective. It took me a long time to come to accept how inherently bad the world is, and not want to just fall apart under the thought. Now, I can deal with the thought of getting up every single day without anything in my life improving (which is saying a lot because I have literally nothing I care about), and still get up ever…

What would happen if the theory of everything that physicts are looking for proved the universe had a design (but no designer). How do you think scientists would react?

Can someone please explain exactly what, if anything, this term means? I've been having a debate on Sodahead with a theist (and a troll as well) who keeps on making the claim that if there was no god, there could be no 'ontological grounding' for objective morality. I do not really know how to respond to that because it doesn't even make sense to me. I do believe in objective morality, but whether or not a god exists has nothing whatsoever to do with that so far as I can tell. Is he simply misusing the word 'ontology' to try and throw me off, or am I missing something here?

I just came across the following intriguing passage in Elliott Sober's "The Nature of Selection" (page 175): The first claim -- "the theory [of natural selection] makes the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible" -- seems perfectly sensible to me. The second -- "the doctrine of special, divine creation does not [make the existence of imperfect, though serviceable, adaptations comprehensible]" -- is less obviously tenable. But first a parable... The Chinese word for contradiction or paradox is mao-dun (矛盾). The former character (矛 - "mao") means spear; the latter (盾 - "dun") means shield. The story goe…

I want to share with you my hypothesis about spacetime, time and observers. What do you think about my following hypothesis: Reality, in itself, without observers, is a manifold, a 4D-object. Spacetime is this 4D-object, which is not directly observable/measurable, but only deducable. Spacetime is therefore, in my opinion, a Platonic entity, very real, even more 'real' then our relativistic observations of time and space, but pure abstract to us, and mathematical to us. We can’t observe it directly. So, the mathematicians and theoretical physisists should like this idea that reality n itself, without minds to perceive/measure it, is only pure mathemat…

Having quested for ultimate bedrock. Namely , what is at the bottom of " EVERYTHING" .? One could make the statement , ..." Things are bound to ultimately get better " ... Well if I were designing anything , say a boat to go to sea . Because of the intrinsic nature of the sea , if you fall in , or sink into the sea , you usually die ! I would make sure , that in my design , above all else , there must be some means , like a water pump , to pump any ingress of water OUT . So things would get better , always , as living is better than drowning , always ! Hence , it would stand to reason , that however the universe came about , there must be by desig…

The result of pondering whether human life was purposeless or not, lead me to conceive an early hypothesis, somewhat detailed in some earlier threads: Why is the purpose of human life reasonably to create Artificial General Intelligence? Consciousness causes higher entropy compared to unconscious states in the human brain (Relates to thread above) However, given my hypothesis above, upon discussions, especially atheistic persons tend to confuse teleonomy (purpose in the realm of science/objectivity) for the teleological argument, which is a religious/subjective concept contrary to teleonomy; where my threads concern teleonomy.) Why aren't concep…

I notice this is currently being wrestled with on the social platforms, including this one. Is it not really an unattainable aspiration because freedoms must always have limits? Where do we draw the lines between acceptable and not?

There is, in my estimation a requirement that one holds reality in an imaginary model of it, that one then compares against the input of the senses to judge change. In this internalization process the model is judged against the model and an analogous version of the universe is judged against an analogous version of the universe. The space in the brain, and the time it takes signals to reach from one area to another, allow for the a priori understanding of space and time. Comparisons and analogies are built up from these already understood concepts, and from the synthesis of various thusly built up understandings, one can visualize and comprehend the table of judgm…

It's so peculiar that there has always been a lot of conflict between religion and science. Why do you guys think that is?

This is another Quote of Einstein. He wrote it in the book Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms"(1931). "At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research." This is completely my cup of tea! Knowledge and imagination concern in a sense a duality in science. What do yo…

What do you think of this statement? Many things in what people consider mainstream science are logic ideas not based on scientific evidence. Something that concerns science but is not based on scientific evidence is imo philosophy and not (yet)science.

Just testing. This used to be uncontroversial : All knowledge is ultimately circular. Break any idea down long enough and you'll end up with ideas, like 'time', for which all definitions end up circular. Specifically concerning numbers : You can't escape the fact that trying to define what a number actually is begins and ends with the pragmatic observation that we, and other machines, are able to count. Logic and set theory, themselves based on self-evident, circular, concepts (try to define 'set') are circularly dependent on each other and even if you reduce everything to just manipulations of symbols you'll just end up with a machine that can count and perform…

there are a few posts i've seen by members here which are along the lines of "logic is branch of mathematics." is "logic" considered indistinct from "mathematical logic?" if so that seems to be a narrow generalization of what logic is(at least in comparison to the descriptions i can find elsewhere such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic),but i could be wrong and that's why i wanted to ask.

Those of us that struggle to make ends meet, dream of winning the lottery. It's even advertised as, a life changing amount. But is that change positive? The Diderot effect would sugget otherwise....

Kristalris has a habit of derailing threads by shouting "BAYES' THEOREM!!!!!!111!1!11!" even when it's utterly irrelevant because no inference is even being made. So, I've decided to make this thread so he doesn't have to derail the others. He's made some hefty claims about Bayes's theorem. Some are true, some are false. Before we get into that, let's see what Bayes's theorem is. The propositional calculus tells us what is true when other things are true. The problem is, we rarely in a position to tell with the certainty that the propositional calculus demands whether or not propositions are true or false. We can do that with tautologies or contradictions (such as why w…

Secularism must be distinguished from secularization. Secularization is the praiseworthy contribution of modern man which avoids the primitive temptation to explain all mysterious and unknown forces in terms of spirits, gods, or some other supernatural power. Due to secularization, modern man is aware of his mastery over life and of the fact that the future of the world is, in a very real sense, in his hands. Secularism is something quite different. Secularism is an attitude or philosophy of life which holds that only secular values are real and that all religious values are nothing more than superstition. Materialism holds not that material things have value, but…

Are there Universal Laws? Can you break them? What are they? Is the a consequence of breaking a law?

I am sorry, but I feel that I really need this explained. Prompted by a very nice account that I read on math stack exchange from a parent who tried to answer questions from a 5-year old child about "infinity". The reactions turned into suggestions about whole numbers and "numbers that are larger than all numbers that you can imagine", and similarly. Numbers? I looked up the wikipedia page on "infinity". Similar story. The first sentences establish that "infinity" is a philosophical concept concerning something without any bound. Then it is said that "modern mathematics uses the general concept of infinity..." I may be a terrible example of a parent to a 5-…

Without meaning to be argumentative, John, I'd say all your claims above might most charitably be described as dubious. (I've numbered them for convenience) (1) The definitions are clear enough? This is news to me. Please share these definitions with us so that those poor beleaguered souls who've spent decades trying to explicate the concept of "evidence" in science, and meeting very little success, might finally rest. It seems to me that "evidence" in science is simply that which people commonly regarded as being involved in the scientific enterprise call evidence. (2) Well, that's one opinion. It's not the opinion of Karl Popper and his followers, though,…

As we have had another one of those crazy types who insist that science is a cult with arrogant high priests, etc. here is an excellently argued refutation of that sort of ignorant, closed-minded nonsense: https://thelogicofscience.com/2016/08/01/are-scientists-arrogant-close-minded-and-dismissive/

Split from Anti-Human thread. First, what makes an animal sentient? I defined it as A: Being able to think logically. B: Having emotion and being self aware C: Having a language of some sort. I would, if I had to, say dauphins were the closest animal to meeting all three of these requirements.

bad reasons of believing anything are 4: 1. tradition 2. authority 3. general agreement: crowd opinion 4. private Revelation but what are good reasons of believing anything? any idea?

What exactly comes under philosophy? To me, whatever questions science cannot answer currently seem to come under philosophy. For e.g. :- Consciousness is something that science cannot answer satisfactorily, so we put it under philosophy. Similarly the beginning of universe is largely unknown so it's philosophy. So when we know these answers, will it come under science? Am I right?