Big bang or not...

[Sean of the Thread]

All this shit had to come from somewhere..

Discuss.

Edit.. I'm not smoking hippy lettuce.

[Drew]

Where'd it come from? Not.

[Numbers]

Impossible to know, but I highly doubt it came from some supernatural being who decided to light a fart one day.

[StrayRogue]

Jesus created everything.

[Latrinsorm]

The Big Bang theory doesn't really answer the question of where stuff came from in any profound sense. All the Big Bang was was an explosion in a pre-existing environment of matter/energy. I don't remember hearing anything about where the pre-existing environment came from, and if you're looking at things from a scientific point of view there can't possibly be a creation point before which nothing existed (due to the laws of conservation). Every bit of existence has always existed and will always exist, though its kaleidoscopic and breathtaking variations would make for a spectacular show for some sort of extra-dimensional traveler capable of viewing it in fast motion.

Now, this highlights an interesting (to me, anyway) semantical issue. Here's what the timeline looks like:

~14 billion years ago: the Big Bang happens.
~5 billion years ago: our Sun forms, a mostly unremarkable star, though it does have an unusually high amount of heavy elements.
~4 billion years ago: interplanetary bombardment mostly ceases, allowing the Earth to become more planet-like and less great-ball-of-fire-like. Almost immediately (in a geological sense), life begins to form.
~100,000 years ago: humans!

It's not at all clear where matter/energy came from, where life came from, or where our peculiar capacities came from (most remarkably, noncausality in a causal universe).

There are many colorful analogues to how unlikely it is for life to spontaneously occur, but my favorite is taking all the base materials necessary to build a house (wood, metal, etc.), flinging them up into the air, and having them fall, Bugs Bunny style, into a completely functional house, complete with plumbing, electricity, and heating systems. There are three important things to note here:
1) The universe is by and large empty space, very analogous to an atom. The interstellar medium is absurdly rarified, and the intergalactic medium is as far removed from it as it is from our atmosphere.
2) The universe by mass is approximately 75% hydrogen. Heavy elements (e.g. the earth and us) are by far the exception in an overwhelmingly cold and silent void populated by lonely, autonomous hydrogen molecules.
3) However, the inconceivable immensity of the universe and the non-negligible possibility of multiple universes preceding it are enough to make one pause: in the infinite limit, every event has a 100% chance of occurring, even one as preposterous as described above. An infinitesimally possible event is almost expected on the grand scale of our universe. Chalk this up as a draw between scientific chance and supernatural creation with scientific chance winning in PKs.

The most profound facet of existence I've ever seen is the human ability to rise above our animal programming and take the reigns of the Creator. In a display of cosmic humor, this is most clearly manifested in basic contrariness. How marvelous it is for us to be presented with what every part of us tells us we want and to turn away out of mere spite!! How incredible it is for us to throw away every material satisfaction simply for the intangible, truly unfeelable benefit of another!

There are many issues with a Created universe, but the only striking ones are ethical. As ridiculous as a "supernatural being lighting a fart" seems, so too does a lightbulb conjoining itself from shards of glass and sheets of metal. In a sense, this discussion is beneficial not in the sense of gaining a more profound understanding of the inner workings of creation, but in the sense of perspective it can grant on the wondrous, peculiar series of events that have led to this mostly hairless ape we call "human".

[Numbers]

Holy shit dude.

[Artha]

every event has a 100% chance of occurring
Moreover, it happens an infinite amount of times.

edit: Or never. One of the two.

[Stanley Burrell]

Totally the mighty work of The Super Best Friends.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/504_superbest.gif/200px-504_superbest.gif

[Drew]

Every action has reaction, every effect has a cause. If you trace all those effects and all those reactions back in time and you follow that spiderweb all the way back to the Big Bang, what was the cause? Some prime mover had to set it in motion. I am not claiming this was God, but it was a greater power outside our understanding.

[Sean of the Thread]

Maybe. Infinity really fucks up everything.

[TheEschaton]

The problems of the Big Bang is just what Thomas Aquinas was talking about in his Summa Theologicae all those hundreds of years ago:

1. If an object at rest is at rest until some outside force is exerted on it, how did the first objects start moving/having force? The logical assumption is that there had to be an object which did not depend on outside force to move, and moved of its own volition. Hence why Aquinas called God "THe First Mover".

He has a series of elegant arguments on the existence of God where he's "The First [Something]" in terms of many scientific things. Science isn't very good at explaining the beginning of things.

-TheE-

[Sean of the Thread]

Science isn't very good at explaining the beginning of things.
-TheE-

Either is religion.

[Latrinsorm]

As Xyelin noted, infinity does have some interesting effects on things. It's hard to fathom (just like an infinite God), but there is no start (or end!) to infinity. A purely natural universe could very easily stretch backwards in time forever, though I think it's been shown that there wasn't any light around before the Big Bang. There is no real logical need for a First Mover or a first mover; movement could just be an eternal quality of the universe. That's what makes the whole "how did it all start?" question so fascinating: what if it didn't?

[Olanan]

You're making my brain hurt.

[Back]

We are not suited to understand it at this stage. Science hasn't cracked it, and religion we all know is a hoax.

[Hulkein]

and religion we all know is a hoax.

What do you mean by this?

Are you saying that religion can't prove it because it's a 'hoax,' or are you definitively saying that there is no way a supernatural being had a part in the creation of the universe?

[TheEschaton]

Is religion a hoax just because you can't prove it? Because it's an attempt to control the people? Sedate them?

Because that's exactly what the whole idea of society is. Is society, and the social construct, also a hoax?

-TheE-

[Latrinsorm]

I think he means "Check out my new Xyelin hat!", but I'm sure he'll give us an explanation himself eventually.

[Numbers]

Religion is a concept that's about 600 years past its prime, a tool used to explain the unexplainable, and to give people hope and meaning to their lives. A good portion of the unexplainable that religion set out to solve has since been given logical scientific explanations and theories.

Could there be a supreme supernatural being that created the universe? Perhaps. I personally don't believe there was, but I freely admit that I could be wrong. I do not, however, believe that a supernatural being created the earth, or created humans, or sent his son to earth 2,000 years ago.

I do fully believe, though, that the universe is incomprehensibly big, and is most likely teeming with life, sentient or otherwise.

But hell, for all we know, Dr. Seuss had it right, and our entire universe could simply be an atom floating in a petri dish in a lab somewhere, where a billionth of a microsecond of their time equals a million years our time.

[Back]

I think he means "Check out my new Xyelin hat!", but I'm sure he'll give us an explanation himself eventually.

If you actually read my post, it says we aren’t ready to understand it yet, by any means.

Its interesting that people get riled up by my saying Religion is a hoax. I fully believe it is. Sorry, but thats just one man in 6 billion’s opinion. Take that for what its worth.

And I don’t think Religion is the way to understand, because all it is is making up explanations for the unknown. We have science, and science more than religion has told us more about how this world actually works.

[ElanthianSiren]

I too believe that none of us will ever understand completely who or what created the universe or how precisely it happened. I really hope we're not lab experiments in a petri dish, however. The notion of a higher figure/s having contributed seems correct, but I'm not quite sure I'm ready to say BOOM and it was done. I tend to believe more along the lines that an entity set the conditions and let them move themselves into allignment. To me, the idea that an all knowing immortal force would absolutely deem that our universe must start at one precise moment/second seems silly.


If you actually read my post, it says we aren’t ready to understand it yet, by any means.

Its interesting that people get riled up by my saying Religion is a hoax. I fully believe it is. Sorry, but thats just one man in 6 billion’s opinion. Take that for what its worth.

And I don’t think Religion is the way to understand, because all it is is making up explanations for the unknown. We have science, and science more than religion has told us more about how this world actually works.

I read a pretty interesting essay where someone proposed science AS a religion. Think about it:

Science has rituals (the scientific method)
It has rules and laws.
It has its gurus and its "fathers".

I also had a very awesome evolutionary biology teacher who argued quite convincingly at why he could still, in good conscience, be involved with his Catholic church and the scientific field. His premise was that one thing existing, such as the theory of evolution doesn't invalidate the idea that his God created all things. To him, it just meant whomever wrote the Bible got the timeline incorrect, which was absolutely possible, as they were all humans.

I don't understand why science and faith can't co-exist in some people's minds. Without spirituality, imo much of the world would be left dead. The problem is more when one tries to trump the other.

-M

[Latrinsorm]

Science is based upon the principle of induction, which is wholly faith-based, but I've gone into that before and it's not super-relevant right now.

If it is the case that religion is nothing but an artifice of man, then it is surely to be discarded as the prattling of screwballs used to cloak the sinister domination of the common human.

If, however, it is the case that religion is actually right on its face, by which I mean that there is in fact a higher being or beings that have deigned to give the good word to us (in the case of Christianity as a for instance), then it surely must be fiercely guarded.

I've yet to hear anyone offer a convincing disproof for the existence of supernatural beings. Unless and until someone does, I don't see how one can rationally choose between the two above propositions. The existence of seemingly limitless THINGS beyond our ken suggests to me that it would be inappropriate to discount all religions as having no kernel of truth between them. How immense must the list be entitled "Stuff We Don't Know"!

[Drew]

I don't understand why science and faith can't co-exist in some people's minds.


They can and do in my mind. Science takes as much faith as religion. We can't explain our universe without a mysterious dark matter that no one has every seen or observed but many scientists take it on faith that they will find it one day. Science can't explain what happened before the big bang, or what set the universe in motion, or if the universe is static. All these things are taken on faith by the scientific that they will one day be understood.


I believe that we will refine our understanding of the world around us through science and I believe that when we pass off this existance there is another one beyond that. We all have our faiths.

[Numbers]

I've yet to hear anyone offer a convincing disproof for the existence of supernatural beings. Unless and until someone does, I don't see how one can rationally choose between the two above propositions.

I don't think science has ever disproven the existence of supernatural beings. Nor has any credible scientists/physicist/astronomer/gynecologist come out and said, "supernatural beings can not and do not exist, and here is why." That's really not how science works.

However, throughout the evolution of science, it has simply ended up explaining away all of the things that the religions of the world claimed to know for certain. According to religion, the sun revolved around the earth. The earth was flat. The stars and planets were made of crystals. The earth was a few thousand years old. We all know this to be false, but back then, everybody was convinced it was true, because religion said so.

In any case, why don't I believe in a supernatural being? Because I have seen no proof to convince me otherwise, regardless of what religion says. As I stated before, though, I don't deny that there's a possibility, however small, that one could exist.

[Latrinsorm]

The only actual religious claim I see there is that the earth was only a few thousand years old. It was the Greeks who came up with the sun going around the earth, circular orbits, and basically all the wacky astronomical stuff. Although it's said it a lot, I'm not convinced people in olden times actually did think the world was flat. Some Greek dude calculated the circumference of the earth pretty closely, and at Columbus's time people knew the earth was round. If you have a primary source of some kind from the Dark Ages or a reference, I'd like to see it.

There were certainly religious people making scientific claims, but I'm not sure they were ever made with dogmatic backing besides the age part (and creation and so on).

[Drew]

However, throughout the evolution of science, it has simply ended up explaining away all of the things that the religions of the world claimed to know for certain. According to religion, the sun revolved around the earth. The earth was flat. The stars and planets were made of crystals. The earth was a few thousand years old. We all know this to be false, but back then, everybody was convinced it was true, because religion said so.




As Latrinestorm mentioned all of those thoughts were at one time or another believed by those nutty scientists only to be disproved. This once again prove science is a wacky!

[Makkah]

And ALL who dare vocalize the Tetragrammaton shall be BLASPHEMING the very WILL of He and shall burn in the hands of an Angry One.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

I'll likely get laughed at for this, but.. oh well.

I don't think that the Universe ever really began, or that it will end. I think it just.. *is* and the problem isn't where it came from, the problem is humans understanding that our brains can only do so much mathematically before it's too much to comprehend in the full scope.

There's so much that we don't know about the Universe, like what's between all of our atoms, since atoms are made mostly of.. non atomic-particle? What's the nature of it? Etc, etc, so on, so forth, etc.

I don't think that.. any creation that happens is conscious. That's me being agnostic. But.. if God made himself clear to me or the apocalypse happened, then sure, I'd believe. There's proof that, well, God exists. And if God made himself clear to me and said, "I created the Universe," then yeah, I'd believe that. However, there's no clear evidence on how it actually started, therefore, I just believe it's always been there.

I should note that I buy into Albert Einstein's String Theory and what have you, which allows for very fucked up, breaking-of-physics-laws things to happen in the Universe. Who knows though, really.

[Kranar]

Albert Einstein never had any involvement in string theory. Special/General Relativity, which he was involved in, are still based on the classical view of the universe, and while there is much to be appreciated about them, neither theory allows for breaking-of-physics or other incredibly counter intuitive stuff.

In fact, Einstein, who actually did believe in God, was opposed to the now accepted modern view of the universe which is based on quantum mechanics. One of his most famous quotes is that "God does not play dice with the universe."

[Warriorbird]

My problem with Latrinsorm's argument is it works just as well to justify worshipping the little green men from Mars or the Great Spaghetti Monster as it does old Yhvh himself. If you don't believe in anything then, because you believe in everything, you probably need slapped.

Suggesting that the Big Bang had supernatural motivations makes me happy. I don't care if anybody else believes the same thing or not.

[DCSL]

..or the Great Spaghetti Monster..


Feel the touch of His Noodley Appendage! Thou shalt have no entrees before Him!



(Watch me add nothing to the discussion.)

[TheEschaton]

In any case, why don't I believe in a supernatural being? Because I have seen no proof to convince me otherwise, regardless of what religion says. As I stated before, though, I don't deny that there's a possibility, however small, that one could exist.

No proof to the contrary, according to scientific rational, does not prove something exists. You need specific proof negating the hypothesis to prove something doesn't exist. If you're so enamored of science, you should be an agnostic, as opposed to an athiest.

That's the problem of science - you can never prove anything, you can only disprove. And that's where modern science and religion clash, because religion says you can positive statements without erring, IE, "God exists", "God created the Universe", "God is good".

-TheE-

[Valthissa]

This is one topic where it is difficult for anyone to post with certainty. I'm basically a Deist so I find discussions on the origin of the universe interesting.

A reasonably good laymans explanation of Big Bang misunderstandings can be read here (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147)

I think it's a given that there are things that are unknowable by humans and the origins of the universe may be on that list.

Contracting and repeating universes (one answer to where did all this shit come from) certainly has some appeal over continual expansion and heat death.

C/Valth

[Artha]

..or the Great Spaghetti Monster..

Feel the touch of His Noodley Appendage! Thou shalt have no entrees before Him!

rAmen.

[FinallyDomesticated]

I am more inclined to believe that God or a Creator of some sort got us here. It is very difficult to be both religious and scientific at the same time. Yes, parts of the Big Bang theory make sense. However, there are too many things in this world that lead me to believe there is a greater purpose. The people who come in and out of our lives and seem to fulfill the sole purpose of somehow teaching us something about life or ourselves. The amazing beauty of both people and our world and all the imperfections involved. The moments and miracles that defy science and all common sense but are still occuring around the world daily. Its simply hard for me to believe that chemicals, atoms, and other science caused all of this. I feel there must be a greater purpose, which at some point, hopefully, will be revealed.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Albert Einstein never had any involvement in string theory. Special/General Relativity, which he was involved in, are still based on the classical view of the universe, and while there is much to be appreciated about them, neither theory allows for breaking-of-physics or other incredibly counter intuitive stuff.

In fact, Einstein, who actually did believe in God, was opposed to the now accepted modern view of the universe which is based on quantum mechanics. One of his most famous quotes is that "God does not play dice with the universe."

Well, String Theory is a spin off of Einstein's research and work. Whether or not Einstein would have believed it or not, I don't know. As for the quote, "God does not play dice with the Universe", that's what String Theory is trying to prove, basically. That the weird little things that can't otherwise be explained suddenly can. After reading the Elegant Universe I just couldn't ignore the fact that it may be correct, but heck, to each their own!

[Artha]

One of his most famous quotes is that "God does not play dice with the universe."

"Who are you to tell God what to do?"
<3 Bohr.

[Kranar]

Well, String Theory is a spin off of Einstein's research and work. Whether or not Einstein would have believed it or not, I don't know.


String theory has nothing to do with any of Einstein's work, in fact it takes an entirely different approach than Einstein's. Einstein treated gravitation as a continuum, basically a rubber sheet that makes up the geometry of the universe. String theory treats gravitation discretely, using particles called gravitons which act as information carrying agents. String theory's underlying framework is quantum mechanics, Einstein's was classical mechanics.

Einstein was one of the main figures against the quantum mechanical view of the universe. While he recognized the incredibly accuracy that quantum mechanics has in predicting microscopic phenomenon, he felt that nevertheless, quantum mechanics was merely approximating this phenomenon and as such was not a complete theory of the universe. He, along with Rosen and Podolski are famous for the EPR paradox which tried to prove that quantum mechanics is not a sufficient physical theory.

We know now, with great accuracy based on Bell's Theorem, that the EPR paradox is invalid and that quantum mechanics is neccessary to explain some natural phenomenon. The weird, crazy, and mind bending aspects you might have been referring to in your initial post come from quantum mechanics, and not from Einstein's theories of relativity.

And when you do study quantum mechanics, you actually come to realize that it's not so much that the ideas are weird or illogical or magical, just that quantum mechanics views the universe from an entirely different perspective. In that perspective, everything makes sense and is well founded. It's when you try to combine the quantum mechanical view of the universe with the classical view that "weird" things happen.

[Numbers]

This is a really good explanation of string theory and the 10th dimension. It's pretty mind-boggling, but very interesting nonetheless.

http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash.php

I'm partial to the universe where I'm the supreme ruler of everything.

P.S. I'm having chili for dinner, so I expect I'll be making lots of universes tonight.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Given I've only dabbled in this sort of stuff (I can only handle so much math/science stuff before I get a headache, heh), I don't know all of that stuff that you do, Kranar. The book I read about String Theory however, seemed to require many of the same elements that are covered by quantum mechanics, though I guess that's what you're saying.

I recognize they aren't one and the same, but again, I don't know enough about the distinctions to be any sort of expert.

[peam]

We're all in a gigantic petri dish.

[Artha]

Tenth Dimension stuff
I think after the fourth or maybe fifth dimension it jumps into [loading asset] pseudoscientific claptrap.

[Latrinsorm]

My problem with Latrinsorm's argument is it works just as well to justify worshipping the little green men from Mars or the Great Spaghetti Monster as it does old Yhvh himself.I've made no argument to justify worshipping anything. The argument I've made is that it's not any more inconceivable for life, the Big Bang, and/or the universe in general to have been Created than it is for it to have simply happened (or always existed, in the case of the universe).

From what I recall (though I admit my Flash-based education is woefully inadequate), 10-dimensional theory started out as a mathematical contrivance but turned out to be really key in explaining stuff, sort of like complex wave equations and the birth of quantum.

[Back]

I've made no argument to justify worshipping anything. The argument I've made is that it's not any more inconceivable for life, the Big Bang, and/or the universe in general to have been Created than it is for it to have simply happened (or always existed, in the case of the universe).

From what I recall (though I admit my Flash-based education is woefully inadequate), 10-dimensional theory started out as a mathematical contrivance but turned out to be really key in explaining stuff, sort of like complex wave equations and the birth of quantum.

For some reason I cannot post a reply without quoting someone in this thread. Lucky you, Latrin!

Truth be told I do believe in a source of intelligence. I just don’t think its definable by our measures, and I do not accept anyone else telling me that their way is better than mine.

Yes, I agree with ES, science in and of itself can be close to a religious doctrine. We only have to look at Pythagoreas and his crew who founded the belief that there is an intersection between science and religion.

While the early Greeks did revolutionize science and mathmatics, they took what they learned from the Egyptians, who were well advanced in both subjects. They, in turn, took what they knew from the earliest of civilizations, the Mesopotamians and the Sumarians who took that from the Indus Valley. Before that? It was caveman prophecy.

[radamanthys]

It's not that I believe Religion is a hoax, per se.

I just think that noone quite has it right yet, and if there was a "creator", that there's no way that it has a sentient conscience and has capacity to "think" or "feel" or "judge" in the way we're all so inclined to be told. A capacity for right/wrong and good/evil would be so miniscule to something that had to manage (possibly multiple) infinities... the idea of "classifying" such a being is impossible. I think the Taoists and the Hindu idea of Brahman is abstract enough to work. "To know the Tao is to know that you don't know the Tao" or something like that. Etc etc. It's too much to wrap the mind around and is not the "this is the answer- everyone else is teh stupid" that Religions have taken.

I mean- to really understand, they say, is to understand that you'll never understand and that the process of understanding is to continue to not understand as much as possible until you can get the best out of something that is not understandable. If you can understand that, then you're well on your way to understanding... that you don't understand.

Kinda like trying to see something in the dark. No matter how hard you squint and stare and such, you'll never quite see the item. Spend a lifetime staring, and you can get quite accustomed to the darkness, and truly understand the dark, but will never see what it is that you're looking at. If some dude walked in and turned on the light, all of a sudden, you'd be wtfpwned.

There's no description for that. It's not possible. We're too puny to wrap our minds around something like that.

Therefore- the idea that there's a sentient being that tells us to "do this" or that "this is the right way to do things" is just hogswallop.

[Sean of the Thread]

I dunno I've seen Dogma and think I've got a pretty good grasp of it now and Riddick can see in the dark.

[Latrinsorm]

A capacity for right/wrong and good/evil would be so miniscule to something that had to manage (possibly multiple) infinities... the idea of "classifying" such a being is impossible.That's what I was more or less getting into with the capacity for noncausality thing. The entire idea of a moral system is based on free choice, which in turn is based on the idea that we aren't slaves to our impulses. There's no sense in saying one should if one can't do otherwise. It'd be like saying "you know, you should really stop being susceptible to gravitational forces." "Aw, man, sorry, I'll try harder." The capacity for good and evil is outstandingly impressive because of what it implies.

[Numbers]

Attaching a few images I really like. It essentially shows how utterly small and insignificant we really are, regardless of our desire to believe the contrary.

[Back]

We are all just particles. Truth is, between all those particles, there is nothing but space.

[HarmNone]

Those are pretty damned cool!

[TheEschaton]

Wow.

Uranus is huge.


Someone had to say it.

-TheE-

[Back]

Wow.

Uranus is huge.


Someone had to say it.

-TheE-

Of course it'd have to be a left-wing heathen.

[Kranar]

From what I recall (though I admit my Flash-based education is woefully inadequate), 10-dimensional theory started out as a mathematical contrivance but turned out to be really key in explaining stuff, sort of like complex wave equations and the birth of quantum.


I don't know exactly what the Flash thing said, but modern string theory is 11 dimensional. The number of dimensions isn't a contrivance, nor was it something just arbitrarily picked or used because it was convenient or made the theory simpler.

The number of dimensions in string theory is the result of a system of equations. Just like some physical theories have equations that let you determine how much kinetic energy an object has, or other physical properties, using string theory, one can actually deduce the number of dimensions there are in the universe, and the solution to the system of equations is 11.

Thus far, only string theory has an equation that can be used to determine how many dimensions the universe is, all other theories just assume there are 3 spatial dimensions, and 1 dimension for time because that's what we experience and observe. They can, and in some cases have been extended to work in any arbitrary number of dimensions.



That's what I was more or less getting into with the capacity for noncausality thing. The entire idea of a moral system is based on free choice, which in turn is based on the idea that we aren't slaves to our impulses.


Obviously being heavily influence by computer science I kind of have a different perspective on the issue of causality, and how it relates to morality.

On the one hand, it is claimed that a non-trivial theory of morality depends upon the universe being non-deterministic. But on the other hand, if the universe is non-deterministic, then that means that there exist events in the universe that happen at purely at random. If the reason behind some morally signficant action is random, then I argue that that action is of no value. If I program a robot to randomly behave in some manner, then the robot should neither be praised if it randomly happens to save someones life, nor should he be condemned if it randomly decided to kill someone. All of these actions are merely random occurances and I think it would be absurd to assign moral significance to it.

In my opinion, a theory of morality makes a lot more sense in a deterministic universe. If Alice saves someones life in a deterministic universe, it means Alice could not have acted differently, that there was some fixed quality about Alice that required her to save another person's life and that no other outcome was possible.

On the other hand, if Bob kills someone, then once again, Bob could not have acted differently. It's not like there was a chance of Bob doing it or not doing it and the universe just decided to take the path where Bob ends up killing someone.

It makes a heck of a lot more sense in such a universe, I think, to say that Alice is a moral individual, and that Bob is not.

Now of course, this doesn't mean the universe is deterministic, only that a non-trivial theory of morality should make a heck of a lot more sense where determinism is present, as opposed to one where it isn't.

And as a final note... I believe that we do live in a wholly deterministic, but Turing-uncomputable universe. That as a result of the Turing-uncomputability of the universe we are able to feel as if we have free choice since we are unable to compute the choices we, or others make, but that God, who I also believe exists is able to do so.

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

We are all just particles. Truth is, between all those particles, there is nothing but space.

Actually.. no one is entirely sure what's between those particles.

[Artha]

I've heard energy is between those particles. And if you could harness 1 cm square of that 'empty space energy', it'd power NYC for a year or something like that.

[TheEschaton]

If I harnessed yo' momma....


....well, you get the idea.

-TheE-

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

I've heard energy is between those particles. And if you could harness 1 cm square of that 'empty space energy', it'd power NYC for a year or something like that.

That makes more sense than the weird dark matter theories I'd heard.

[Latrinsorm]

I agree that random acts have no moral worth, but I'm not so sure every nondetermined act has to be random. That is to say, I don't think the absence of determination can only mean randomness as the absence of charge can only mean neutrality. I'd make the analogy to angular momentum as follows: every massive object that I spin is going to have angular momentum. However, the reverse is not true: massive objects that I do not spin can still have angular momentum. The analogy being every act that is determined is not random, but it does not follow that every act that is nondetermined is random as well.

I'm curious as to what it is about a nondetermined act that makes you consider it necessarily random as opposed to the more common conception of a sort of noncorporeal faculty that can reflect upon a situation and really make a choice.

[Kranar]

A random event is one for which the probability of it occuring is neither 1 or 0. In a deterministic universe, events are not actually random, only inferences about events can be random (Bayesian inference). That is, if I ask you to pick a random card from a standard deck of 52 cards, you may infer that the probability of the card being the Ace of Spades is 1 / 52, but that is nothing more than your own personal inference of the outcome. I on the other hand can take a glance at the card and know if it is the Ace of Spades or not, but to you, the probability is still 1 / 52.

In a non-deterministic universe, that is not always the case. There can be events for which up until the actual instant it occurs, it could have gone differently.

It is argued that when given a choice to kill someone or not to kill someone, that the decision is only of moral significance if it could not be pre-determined, with certainty, beforehand what that outcome will be. Well, there are only two possible outcomes, so in the worst case, there's a 50/50 chance of it happening one way or another... the question is, is the universe deterministic, in which case that probability is simply the result of an individual infering the outcome, and thus there can exist different inferences about the same situation (including the most important inference, that of the individual about to act)? Or is the universe non-deterministic, in which case there is something about the universe that at the very last instant arbitrarily decides to go one way or another without any predetermined cause for it.

Determinism, to me, makes more sense for a theory of morals. That doesn't mean individuals don't reflect on situations and make decisions, it only means that the process of making decisions is one that is ultimately governed by some sort of underlying formal process, be it the massive interaction of neurons in our brains or who knows what. I personally believe that a human being's formal process of reasoning is Turing-uncomputable, which I could go into detail about but it would be pretty extensive, but nevertheless, it does exist.

[Sean of the Thread]

INFINITY.. enough said.

[Valthissa]

And as a final note... I believe that we do live in a wholly deterministic, but Turing-uncomputable universe. That as a result of the Turing-uncomputability of the universe we are able to feel as if we have free choice since we are unable to compute the choices we, or others make, but that God, who I also believe exists is able to do so.

Logical positivism?

I was much taken with Carnap and Wittgenstein (who I don't think was actually a member of the group) in my early twenties.

It's good to see a lot of fellow Deists on this board....

C/Valth

[Latrinsorm]

Determinism, to me, makes more sense for a theory of morals.Let me ask you this then:

Dave's walking along on the street. (Dave is a hypothetical person, not the poster Dave from the PC.) As Dave's walking along, a meteorite falls from the heavens, removing his left leg below the knee. This causes Dave to fall down, shoving Nancy into traffic. Nancy is hit by a bus and dies.

On the opposite side of the street, Ronald is walking along. At the very same instant Dave gets wtfpwned by a meteorite, Ronald pushes Rebecca into the street. Ronald is not struck by a meteorite or anything else, he simply pushes Rebecca into the street. Rebecca is struck by a Nissan Pathfinder and dies roughly as quickly as Nancy.

In a deterministic theory, neither Ronald nor Dave had a choice in the matter, they were simply objects in a grotesque chain of dominos. How then do you propose we attach moral condemnation to the one "intentional" act but not the first "accidental" act? Are you instead suggesting that the common sense notion of morality is incorrect, that neither Ronald nor Dave are to be condemned? If so, what is a contemptible act in the deterministic theory of morality?

Another thought strikes me: are you proposing that intentions as a general class are exempt from determinism and, though they have no actual impact on events, it is on these grounds that we decide moral worth? That we as beings are in a sort of paralellistic environment where the mind sort of rides along with the body but doesn't do anything in the bodily world?

How would you generally define a deterministic morality? Would you have to rely on the unavoidability of your definitions in order to avoid the logical contradiction of giving commands to an implacable automaton? Am I missing the point entirely, could this be more of an afterlife focused morality? By which I mean, are feelings exempt from determinism and it is on how we feel when we engage in our unavoidable acts that that we are judged?

[Kranar]

In a deterministic theory, neither Ronald nor Dave had a choice in the matter, they were simply objects in a grotesque chain of dominos. How then do you propose we attach moral condemnation to the one "intentional" act but not the first "accidental" act? Are you instead suggesting that the common sense notion of morality is incorrect, that neither Ronald nor Dave are to be condemned? If so, what is a contemptible act in the deterministic theory of morality?


This may be a long and boring response for most... but just bear with me.

First let me define that a computation is nothing more than some formal process that when given input, produces an output. The formal process is not important here, so long as there is some formal process underneath and it's not just magic. We many never come to understand what the formal process is, that's not important to this discussion.

Deterministic computation means that the same input always produces the same output, if you repeat the same formal process and keep the same input, you will always generate the same output. Non-deterministic computation means that the same input does not neccessarily produce the same output but can produce one of a variety of outputs.

It's funny because before the word computer was used to refer to machines, the word computer was used to refer to human beings. You could be a computer by profession, just someone whose job was to carry out well defined actions very rigorously and precisely.

So now that that's out of the way... I can explain your scenario using my theory of morality based on determinism.



How then do you propose we attach moral condemnation to the one "intentional" act but not the first "accidental" act?


Ronald acted immorally because he received a certain series of inputs, his brain/consciousness/being underwent some formal, deterministic computation, and the output of that computation was to kill Rebecca. It is entirely deterministic in that if somehow, hypothetically, the exact same scenario was replayed, Ronald received the exact same inputs and his being was in the same state, he would kill Rebecca again and again. Because of this, Ronald is immoral. There is some characteristic, something about his underlaying formal system that would kill an innocent human being when given input/parameters which do not justify such an action.

It's not that he just happened to have killed Rebecca, but if we replayed the scenario he could have acted differently and have been considered a moral individual, maybe even going out of his way to do something nice to Rebecca. It's that there is something about how Ronald computes information about the world that makes him immoral.

Dave on the other hand, did not make any computation which resulted in Nancy's death. We can not make any conclusion about Dave's brain/consciousness/being that when it receives certain inputs, it will result in him killing someone.



Another thought strikes me: are you proposing that intentions as a general class are exempt from determinism and, though they have no actual impact on events, it is on these grounds that we decide moral worth?


Using this, I feel, rigorous approach to morality, one can define the term "intention" as the abstract result of a computation. If when given input, your brain produces output which contains in some abstract form the information to kill Nancy, then it means you intended to kill Nancy, regardless of whether or not you physically managed to.



That we as beings are in a sort of paralellistic environment where the mind sort of rides along with the body but doesn't do anything in the bodily world?


Your mind processes the computation, and when that computation is complete, your mind is connected to nerves/muscles so on so forth which carry information on how to physically process/manifest the result of that computation. If your body acts as a result of something other than the result of some computation in your mind, then you should not be held accountable for it.

Anyhow, don't relate computation to an actual Pentium 4 uber computer or whatnot. I don't believe a human being is in any way, shape, or form comparable to these merely Turing-complete chunks of silicon. But the human brain does operate, I believe, deterministically. It receives input, and processes it using some means far more advanced than we may ever come to understand.

A moral individual is one whose mind produces output compatible with the moral theory, an immoral individual is one whose mind produces output incompatible with it. Determinism is the key ingredient because it ensures that the individual's brain really is what is to blame and hold accountable for the action as opposed to just the luck of the draw.

[Back]

There may be some mortality in this universe, to which I will not admit.

Do you think it controls the evolution of species?

[Hulkein]

We are all just particles. Truth is, between all those particles, there is nothing but space.

I feel bad, honestly, that you believe that is all we are.

[Latrinsorm]

Ronald acted immorally because he received a certain series of inputs, his brain/consciousness/being underwent some formal, deterministic computation, and the output of that computation was to kill Rebecca.Alright, now we're getting somewhere. We're agreed that the result is unacceptable, and I don't think we need to define why at this point. What I do think we need to do is examine the larger picture, similar to how we stepped back from "X pushes Y" to "why did X push Y?" and found Dave more palatable than Ronald, mostly because I don't think we've fully answered "why".

Yes, Ronald's brain is configured in such a way as to ensure the death of Rebecca, but why? Must we not be forced to answer that events beyond Ronald's control have caused him to be in such a mindset? If I were to abduct a child and brainwash em into becoming a ruthless killing machine (a la Soldier with Kurt Russell), would the child be held to blame for each atrocity ey committed? Similarly, mustn't we hold the engineer(s) of the events responsible for Ronald's disposition to blame rather than Ronald?

I do agree (as I believe most serious ethicists do) that happenstance acts are not morally praiseworthy or disgusting; that is to say, a person cannot be accidentally good (or evil).
There may be some mortality in this universe, to which I will not admit.I'm.. not quite sure what you mean here. There's definitely mortality in this universe. Things cease to exist all the time. The you from 5 minutes ago ceased to exist shortly after 5 minutes ago. Nothing will ever stay the same.
Do you think it controls the evolution of species?Contextually, I think "mortality" could be a typo for "morality", in this case meaning a sort of organizing intelligence with humanesque qualities of good and evil? In that case, not anymore. I've been saying all along that humanity is the only noncausal thing around, so everything that was around before humanity was necessarily defined by the initial (I use the term loosely) conditions of the universe, or at least the initial conditions created by the Creator. In that sense, the evolution of pre-human species was inevitable and therefore controlled by the Creator. I don't think that a meddling sort of micromanagement occurred (e.g. "Tada, zebras!"), if that's what you mean by "control".

However, as Kranar very aptly put it, humans make probabilities besides 0 and 1 possible. While it is certainly possible for a Creator to know which path a human will take, by definition the Creator cannot control these acts. Therefore, the Creator totally loses control of the universe, although obviously still maintains de facto control in regions where human influence cannot possibly reach (which that totally sweet Big Bang article detailed, thanks Valthissa!).