Cosmological argument vs. LDS infinite regress

[mfbukowski]

OOPS I think the above link is not the one I wanted to provide but this one is:

Would anyone care to answer my question? I am genuinely curious. Here it is again so that no one has to search for it:

I've thought about it and I cannot see any logical way for there to be no Prime Mover in LDS theology, but I'm not a logician or philosopher. Perhaps someone more gifted in those areas would like to answer my question?

If this strays too far off-topic from the original post, then I'm certainly open to starting a new thread.

Thanks.

Frij

This is basically the start of this thread, so I thought my posts were on this one, but they were not.

[Honorentheos]

Hi Mfbukowski,

I apologize for being a distraction. My wife tells me the same thing often as well Oh, the joys of being evil...

Anyway,

And this becomes mind-boggling. I feel that point 1 combined with the big bang (a singularity of matter/energy that requires the relationships we know today to all be one thing - or not changing in their relationship which is something to think about) requires point 2 to be the preference over 3.

I'm not seeing this at all. Let me paraphrase my understanding of what you are saying so you can see where I go wrong. You are combining the idea that time and matter are connected, with the big bang and then having that require that the relationships don't change? I am definitely missing something here.

I hope that the link I provided clarifies why I was requiring eternity to either have no beginning and end, which is inconsistent with the big bang, or have some point that the relationships between things do not change (which is actually a very rough model for the singularity that is the big bang).

This is why time really matters here. Is Mudcat's P1 actually true when it comes to time and matter? (there is infinity) Or is this a false assumption?

And to keep things moving -

When we speak about identity and you say the following:

Heck if you knew me 40 years ago, you would say I am not the same person. I mean radical hippie student of Angela Davis at UCLA, atheist philosophy student to TBM Mormon bishop? High school and college buddies find me on facebook and are stunned, but I AM the same person!

can you tell me what is the same? If you and your hippie past-self were put in the same situation would you choose the same in all cases? would you look the same or just have a family resemblence? What is the unifying thread here? What gives you an identity that both you and your friends on facebook use to agree on that you are in fact you, appearances to the contrary?

I think when we get to reality as a river analogy, we arrive at what I see as the eastern esoteric view yet again. But I guess I am jumping ahead in my thinking when I say this. First - What is Time? (have we agreed on this?), then second - What is Identity?

[Mudcat]

Infinity is beyond our finite minds. Most of us can agree on that.

Trying to cram infinite ideas into finite minds is impossible, and even getting those finite minds to a point where the merest of glimpses of infinity are in view is just as unlikely.

Hey Lehi,

Maybe it is fair to say that infinity is beyond our minds. People of faith, seem to relate to infinity from a theological sense and it's possible that the concept of this rather incomprehensible concept of "infinity" was given to us by God in some respect. I mean it doesn't make much sense for someone to think up something that is beyond comprehending. Removing faith or religion for the concept, it could be said that infinity is a concept derived from humanity and if it truly exists, it should be comprehensible is form or fashion.

I think this closed set type of infinity that John Doe alluded to earlier, the infinity between 1 and 2 for example, is in some sense comprehensible. If for no other reason that it actually has a beginning (1) and ending (2) that infinity exists between. However it's this open set of infinity that seems the harder to grip... no origin nor terminus.

Regardless, if the concept has come to us through divine words or simply our own thoughts. Do you think its just something we should, take on faith, so to speak and just move along?

The discussion of "first causes" when the subject is God and the universe is pointless. There was no first cause, and there was no "beginning".

Well I would agree with you, in the respect of God, if he is infinite he is uncaused.

However, in regards to the universe I think discussion of a cause for it are far from pointless. I mean it did have a beginning.. the Big Bang and all.

By the way, the Bible does not say "In the beginning, God created ...". It says something more like, "When God began to create ...", and "create" does not mean "creatio ex nihil". While that may be a subject for another discussion, it has direct bearing on this one.

You know, I have thought about this ex nihil bit for a while and I would be in agreement that the text is relatively ambiguous to his creation requiring materia.

Subsequently I have changed a bit on my position on the topic, and think that the best possible interpretation is simply creatio ek Theos.

[Honorentheos]

Hey Lehi,

Maybe it is fair to say that infinity is beyond our minds. People of faith, seem to relate to infinity from a theological sense and it's possible that the concept of this rather incomprehensible concept of "infinity" was given to us by God in some respect. I mean it doesn't make much sense for someone to think up something that is beyond comprehending. Removing faith or religion for the concept, it could be said that infinity is a concept derived from humanity and if it truly exists, it should be comprehensible is form or fashion.

I really enjoyed the book, "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charler Seife. He does a good job of dealing with both null and infinity and making them both comprehendable from a mathmatical standpoint while not falling prey to the usual plasebos we put in the place of the two. Reading the book helped me understand zero much better than I did before, and I think his later chapters on the fate of the universe might end up in a post of mine sometime. It wouldn't fit in here yet.

I think this is where we need to also create some consensus - defining infinity as it relates to things other than numbers and math. As a science, math is the purest and maybe therefore closest to the notion of God as we can get. Or at least holds the best options for finding working definitions or analogies for the incomprendable divine. Yet the God that is formed in this process stops being the God of most religions IMO. Certainly it creates an issue with an idea of a god that is relatable to the finite.

Regardless, if the concept has come to us through divine words or simply our own thoughts. Do you think its just something we should, take on faith, so to speak and just move along?

I think this gets down to if a person is will to accept the entire package deal of what it means for the nature of God and if we can claim to have any real understanding of this or if we are really just looking through a glass, darkly.

However, in regards to the universe I think discussion of a cause for it are far from pointless. I mean it did have a beginning.. the Big Bang and all.

Exactly. To ignore the big bang in this discussion requires some pretty strong moving to present counter-evidence for the big bang instead of just brushing it off. And it requires a proper understanding of things as they occured at the big bang - the nature of what was that became what we now know.

[Mudcat]

That's an excellent question. To start, I think I'd like to go back to my earlier waffling. Right now, I think that God is free. Even though He cannot choose evil (for He is limited by His perfectly good nature it would seem), He is still able to express that nature. Being bound by one's nature does not lead to a loss of freedom, I think. In a sense, we are just as bound, only our natures are not perfect. Still, I think we are free to choose good or evil, and so is God. Those who are not free to do so are those who either lack the understanding to distinguish between good and evil and/or those who are coerced into acting in a way that goes against their natures. I believe that this freedom exists even when nobody has ever actually chosen evil. Consider God acting before any of His creation has come into being (assuming creation from nothing contra LDS doctrine).

Hey John,

I stated something to Lehi a bit earlier, about creation from nothing. The Evangelical community has been a big proponent of this, but as of late I have recognized a bit a logical inconsistency in the statement. The sentiment behind ex nihilo or creation from nothing, I would imagine was to give God full credit for the whole thing... however it is a bit of a misnomer. By saying it has come from nothing, we (I am equally guilty of it)have sort of implied that God is nothing, by saying we were created from nothing. Now we obviously don't think God is nothing, but somehow this seems to be intimated in the statement even though we think all things come from God. I don't know if you could say I am shifting theology, but I am shifting semantics at least, as I am now preferring to say creation is of God from God, instead of saying creation is of God from nothing.

I suppose since I am considering this some sort of epiphany, I am making a rather big deal out of it, even though it doesn't seem to change anything that is relevant to the thread. Just something I am rather excited about.

Back on topic... If evil exists without choosing evil. Then I might offer it only exists in a potential state. I am positing that like there are two states of evil, potential and kinetic. I would possibly further that this might be what God created... simply a potential for evil which would allow free will to clear that gap to kinetic. This makes sense to me. So perhaps it is possible for beings to live in complete harmony with their creator maintaining the integrity of a singular kinetic good with the absence of kinetic evil. However, I am still at odds on the subject of such beings understanding evil fully.

How could a being that has always been in full communion with God, understand what a breech in that relationship would be fully?

Regarding the existence of evil, evil itself is not a tangible thing. Of course, I must accept the teaching of the BoM that there must needs be opposition in all things. Still, that applies to an entirely different worldview with different assumptions. Moreover, I think the BoM teaching is most applicable to this life. That being said, it doesn't seem correct to me that evil must be expressed to actually exist. All that is required is for evil to be understood (and even if no intelligent being understood evil it would not cease to exist as a concept). Even when evil is expressed, evil itself still remains an abstract concept, not a tangible thing.

You and I would likely differ hear. I think evil, in a potential sense is completely tangible. Any of the myriad of the horrors of war are the proof of its tangible nature.

Consider the case (again, assuming creation from nothing and God as absolute First Cause) of the first evil act, which we can assume was Satan's rebellion. Prior to this, evil had never been expressed. If we assert that some being must have actually expressed evil as a prerequisite to choices actually being free, then we must conclude that Satan's rebellion, the first evil act, was not a free choice. And if the very first act of evil, which led to all evils throughout history, was not a result of free will, then the entire free will defense against the PoE loses its basis. What's more, this calls into question the justice of Satan's punishment for his rebellion, if said rebellion was not the result of his own free choice.

This subject.. Satan and all.. may be difficult to broach. All I could do would be to put in a similar correlation that I believe exists with Adam. I imagine we would disagree on the topic of that though.

I know LDS Scripture speaks in some detail about the goings on surrounding this event. The Bible offers precious little, other than there was a big to do and Satan fell with a 1/3rd the host of heaven. To tell you the truth, I'd be making a jump to say that free will had anything to do with it. It's a different scenario for a different set of individuals. Nevertheless, I assume God is consistent so I will follow with the topic and say that Satan and company were aware that there would be consequence.

Now to say that he was fully aware of consequence would be another story. My guess would be likely not.

Much like a fellow who commits some horrible murder, while knowing if he is caught, he will get electrocuted (State depending of course). If this murderer knew what an inconvenience it would be getting caught, let alone being convicted and spending years on death row while appealing his case, plus all those death row inmates telling him how his eyeballs would pop out of his head because it hurt so badly having "the juice" put to him and so forth. Then at some point actually being called up for death, sweating it out for the Gov. to call and pardon him.. of no avail and then getting "juiced".

I imagine Satan like this killer, if they could have seen how bad it was going to be, they wouldn't have committed the crime. Yet I would imagine Satan like the killer was aware, in the potential sense, of those consequences and the punishment has been rendered by a fair judge.

[Mudcat]

I think this is where we need to also create some consensus - defining infinity as it relates to things other than numbers and math. As a science, math is the purest and maybe therefore closest to the notion of God as we can get. Or at least holds the best options for finding working definitions or analogies for the incomprendable divine. Yet the God that is formed in this process stops being the God of most religions IMO. Certainly it creates an issue with an idea of a god that is relatable to the finite.

Emphasis mine. I agree completely. I am open to suggestions here. Do you have something in mind? Or are you just recognizing the problem in communication. I am hopeful that you have something in mind.

I think this gets down to if a person is will to accept the entire package deal of what it means for the nature of God and if we can claim to have any real understanding of this or if we are really just looking through a glass, darkly.

I think, as a theist, I am prepared to see through the glass darkly, but certainly won't refuse some lens paper.

Exactly. To ignore the big bang in this discussion requires some pretty strong moving to present counter-evidence for the big bang instead of just brushing it off. And it requires a proper understanding of things as they occured at the big bang - the nature of what was that became what we now know.

Well I think most, if not all, would recognize the BB as something that occurred. What happened prior to it is another realm of speculation, of course. Lets assume there was a singularity(the stuff before the BB), something happened and the BB occurred. I am ok with starting at "something happened" and since I am on the matter. What do you think caused something to happen?

[Honorentheos]

Emphasis mine. I agree completely. I am open to suggestions here. Do you have something in mind? Or are you just recognizing the problem in communication. I am hopeful that you have something in mind.

I think that the discussion to this point has been fascinating, particularly in how all parties have been able to move and shift their views as the discussion has required. At least, to some extent which in this online world is Herculean.

So my suggestion is to keep doing what is being done - taking the Sherlock Holmes approach of eliminating the things that don't fit until whatever is left can not be eliminated.

My points on time and matter were my first steps in this direction as I see both being incompatible with any notions of infinity as long as one can assume that the Big Bang and the two theories of relativity are valid theories. When one really defines the singularity of the Big Bang, which we can not do mathematically at this point but we make our guesses, one does not find a point of internal change or forces or matter or anything. At some point after the Big Bang, these things began to separate from the ursache that is the singularity that became our universe. The four known forces, energy and matter, space-time - they all were born at that point of reference in the past. All change points back to it, and then stops.

So unless anyone has a counter argument, I think that neither time nor matter belong in this equation. I think most won't have a problem with time, but matter is an issue if one believes in an LDS godhood with a necessary resurrection of a physical (in some way) body. And the issue here is that time is not an independent entity from matter. I think the tendency will be to stop thinking about it once one comes to terms with this reality about matter and time, as has been the case on most threads like this in the past. But I am hopeful we can find a consensus from which to proceed. Or at least an acceptable placeholder.

I pointed out an option here in m first post - this being that there cold be an infinity of matter and change. But that is nothing short of chaos, really. Like your example of the closed infinity of the numbers between 1 and 2, there are closed infinities within which entities that may share something that we would call our identity will exist. But there is another, larger set of infinities where we don't, or where no life exists at all, or whatever. The laws of physic kind of become arbitrary at some point in here. Lee Smolin, the physicist, has argued against this possibility which some proponents of string theory suggest is a reality that could lead to a solution. They could be right, but I think if it is ever proved we may find out that it was possible to disprove god. At least, the one we thought was out there anyway. The god of this multiverse no longer obeys laws, or none that we have to follow in any sense at all, nor is this god composed of any structure that we must recognize as form or structure. And before you get excited, morality goes to - there just are no consistent rules in this theory.

I think, as a theist, I am prepared to see through the glass darkly, but certainly won't refuse some lens paper.

Likewise. Which is good since I don't think clear glass was on the menu when we were born. And not likely to be on the dinner menu, either. Maybe dessert...

Well I think most, if not all, would recognize the BB as something that occurred. What happened prior to it is another realm of speculation, of course. Lets assume there was a singularity(the stuff before the BB), something happened and the BB occurred. I am ok with starting at "something happened" and since I am on the matter. What do you think caused something to happen?

Don't know. Lee Smolin and others suggest that universes are born when the singularities of black holes in other universes go boom on the other side (where does all that matter and energy go?) but it's an unprovable theory since black holes are an event horizon beyond which we can't see. Though Loop Gravity theorists have proposed naked singularities may be possible which would be amazing.

But even this just pushes the first cause out to another unknown. Where did the first black hole come from? The Tao? But isn't that just a word for, "Hell if I know, but I can groove with it for a while"?

Tao it is.

But seriously, I think there is value in thinking about this infinity question. I'm proposing matter and therefore time are out and have given my reasons. Identity will be my next target for the simple reason that it falls short of even being sustainable during a human life given the constraints placed on time-matter. I'm open to other evidence, but the current state of physics seems to have eliminated both of the first so we'll see. Space? define it without matter. What's left...

[mfbukowski]

I hope that the link I provided clarifies why I was requiring eternity to either have no beginning and end, which is inconsistent with the big bang, or have some point that the relationships between things do not change (which is actually a very rough model for the singularity that is the big bang).

I did like the link and the article, and I agree with the idea that all we can know about time is that it seems to be "change" pure and simple. I would add something to the author's thesis though, I think I would like to add that time is not "change" by itself, but "perceived change", or "known change". This makes time ultimately something of human measure and experience. I could be wrong, but I am exploring this idea a bit. And again, I just see eternity as "a really long time" which means that it could have both a beginning and possibly an end. In LDS theology, we hear the phrase "from eternity to eternity", or in Catholic theology we have an interesting latin phrase which is taken idiomatically to mean "forever" -- it is "per omnia saecula saeculorum" which literally translated is "through all the worlds of worlds".

This is why time really matters here. Is Mudcat's P1 actually true when it comes to time and matter? (there is infinity) Or is this a false assumption?

You mean this P1?

P1. All things that exist are infinite and self-existent

P2. Nothing that is infinite is caused

C1. All things that exist are not caused

I don't know, there are an awful lot of "big words" here which I have a hard time knowing what they mean! And I want them all to relate to experience. I have trouble knowing what "existence" means frankly because I cannot understand "non-existence". I guess a counter-example would have to be "someTHING which doesn't exist"? If there are no counter examples, how do we know this is true?

If you and your hippie past-self were put in the same situation would you choose the same in all cases? would you look the same or just have a family resemblence? What is the unifying thread here? What gives you an identity that both you and your friends on facebook use to agree on that you are in fact you, appearances to the contrary?

I experience myself as the same person. I remember being a little boy, going through all those things and every change and how my perceptions changed. I can "put myself back there". There are people alive who can remember those changes also. The sense of continuity is what we call the "self" I think partially, but I do not subscribe to a total "bundle" pov, which I think does not account for the full phenomenon.

I think when we get to reality as a river analogy, we arrive at what I see as the eastern esoteric view yet again.

Or what became what we think of as the "eastern" pov, but what is ironic is that Heraclitus was at the very forefront of WESTERN philosophy in Greece.

But I guess I am jumping ahead in my thinking when I say this. First - What is Time? (have we agreed on this?), then second - What is Identity?

I can go with "time is change" with the proviso that we discuss the possibility that it includes only "known change"-- I want to include an experiential element, because I think that is a necessity.

And there are many theories of the self, if that is what you mean by identity.

[mfbukowski]

Subsequently I have changed a bit on my position on the topic, and think that the best possible interpretation is simply creatio ek Theos.

A very interesting point of view!

[mfbukowski]

I stated something to Lehi a bit earlier, about creation from nothing. The Evangelical community has been a big proponent of this, but as of late I have recognized a bit a logical inconsistency in the statement. The sentiment behind ex nihilo or creation from nothing, I would imagine was to give God full credit for the whole thing... however it is a bit of a misnomer. By saying it has come from nothing, we (I am equally guilty of it)have sort of implied that God is nothing, by saying we were created from nothing. Now we obviously don't think God is nothing, but somehow this seems to be intimated in the statement even though we think all things come from God. I don't know if you could say I am shifting theology, but I am shifting semantics at least, as I am now preferring to say creation is of God from God, instead of saying creation is of God from nothing.

I suppose since I am considering this some sort of epiphany, I am making a rather big deal out of it, even though it doesn't seem to change anything that is relevant to the thread. Just something I am rather excited about.

I think I understand what you mean. I see the universe as an "unfolding" of God's existence and nature or perhaps "manifestation" is more the word. Though I accept the LDS pov that he has a body, I think the unfolding of his kingdom(s) is inseparable from his glory and nature. We are part of his glory and are inseparable from his becoming. "This is my work and my glory- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man".

The relationship between God and man is a reciprocal act of creation - we are part of his glory and without him we cannot be glorified.

[Honorentheos]

I did like the link and the article, and I agree with the idea that all we can know about time is that it seems to be "change" pure and simple. I would add something to the author's thesis though, I think I would like to add that time is not "change" by itself, but "perceived change", or "known change". This makes time ultimately something of human measure and experience. I could be wrong, but I am exploring this idea a bit. And again, I just see eternity as "a really long time" which means that it could have both a beginning and possibly an end. In LDS theology, we hear the phrase "from eternity to eternity", or in Catholic theology we have an interesting latin phrase which is taken idiomatically to mean "forever" -- it is "per omnia saecula saeculorum" which literally translated is "through all the worlds of worlds".

I'm glad it helped clarify my thoughts. Of the online sources I could find in a quick google search, I thought it was the clearest.

I'm thinking through the implications of including the provisio that you would like to add regarding time. It certainly makes sense from an individual perspective without background references. From the articles pov however, which I believe is the norm within the physical sciences, the concept of time IS change and in our case change within a 3 dimensional space that defines space-time, regardless of our backgroundless perception. Now, we are getting dangerously close to asking questions like, "If a tree falls in the forest..." and other variants on the effects of observers on a system. But in Newtonian physics we assumed a sort of absolute time and this ultimately turned out to be the time associated with movement within the solar system though not necessarity the same with background shifting at larger scales like the galaxy, and our understanding of that movement in the universe as a whole. This traditional form of physics works within a set frame of reference, though, and relativity then helps us understand why this stops working as well at other scales and within other frameworks in relation to one another. So it seems we have to share a certain frame of reference to maintain time as a thing at all, even as change. Otherwise, it becomes subjective and insubstantial, right?

So there is some sort of external reference where time is not manipulated by our perceptions or scale of thinking. In our case, we rely on the earth and the sun. Our perception of time can vary against this background, but we have to keep resetting ourselves when we get off by referencing this more objective, immensely scaled and fairly constant state of change.

I don't know, there are an awful lot of "big words" here which I have a hard time knowing what they mean! And I want them all to relate to experience. I have trouble knowing what "existence" means frankly because I cannot understand "non-existence". I guess a counter-example would have to be "someTHING which doesn't exist"? If there are no counter examples, how do we know this is true?

And you say I'm evil! I was originally referring to the P1 that stated there was such a thing as infinity, but this makes it more interesting in terms of dealing with our discussion on time. It basically asks the question I have been asking - is matter really infinite? or does it have a known beginning, at least within our universe at the Big Bang? and if it does and prior to this it is in such a form that all of the matter in the universe today with all of the forces and energy were all condensed down to a singularity within which there is no change and therefore no time (breath) - ARE all things that exist infinite?

I would say no. This P1 is false.

I experience myself as the same person. I remember being a little boy, going through all those things and every change and how my perceptions changed. I can "put myself back there". There are people alive who can remember those changes also. The sense of continuity is what we call the "self" I think partially, but I do not subscribe to a total "bundle" pov, which I think does not account for the full phenomenon.

My emphasis. I think this is exactly it. In order to maintain an identity there has to be a sense of continuity between the old self and the current self. I know I don't have to go into Descartes here with anyone, either. The issue with your friends on facebook was that you had to establish the continuity between the mfb they knew and the you of today. Once you were able to establish this, they could accept that you are you. But are you the you you were? Certainly not. You are someone else, just that the you you are grew from the seed of the man you were then.

To maintain identity we have to maintain continuity.

But how long can we establish and maintain continuity? Eternity? Hmmm.

[mfbukowski]

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79018

"The Persistence of Memory" Salvador Dali

Edit- Added This Quote:

Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.

If I wasn't such a ditz I would be able to paste the image above, but since they changed the format I am not sure how to do that, since it calls for a url instead of a file.

But the issue here IS persistence of memory after death I suppose, so the "scientific" question would be how much of the memory is in the flesh of the brain and how much is in the "immaterial matter" of the spirit. I don't think I have the answer to that one!

But of course I have a theory....

Relating to the "self", the reason I don't like "bundle" theories is that I think they are inadequate to explain our own experience of the self. Bundle theory of course says that "I" am the bundle of all my experiences and perceptions and memories, also called "qualia". That's very nice but to me it is inadequate, because one can do a thought experiment where one strips away all this, and there is still a "me". Back to Descartes? Perhaps, but where he went wrong is that imo he confused experience with "reality" ie: he thought that there was something "out there" as opposed to "in here" when for me and all my philosophical cronies, experience IS reality, since we can know nothing else. And again, this does not entail solipsism because honestly, I do really know and experience that there is someone who is answering these posts, and I can drive a car and walk and talk to real people etc!. Again, part of experience is experiencing others and what they say and do etc.

I'm thinking through the implications of including the provisio that you would like to add regarding time. It certainly makes sense from an individual perspective without background references. From the articles pov however, which I believe is the norm within the physical sciences, the concept of time IS change and in our case change within a 3 dimensional space that defines space-time, regardless of our backgroundless perception. Now, we are getting dangerously close to asking questions like, "If a tree falls in the forest..."

I know. But the purpose of the tree in the forest argument is to show that these problems are largely linguistic, and happen in the way we speak about this abstract stuff and get ourselves confused. That is why Wittgenstein is seen as a pragmatist though at least in late W he was totally into language. It was W who finally broke me out of philosophy because I realized that all philosophy really did as its proper subject matter was discuss the way we used language, and IT SHOULD DO SO, because that is precisely where all this confusion exists.

The real question of the "tree in the forest" is what do we call a change which occurs without being perceived by anyone. Are vibrations from that tree falling creating waves in the atmosphere properly classified as "sound" when no one is there to hear it? It is not experienced so in what sense is it "real"? It did not happen from our frame of reference if we never know about it. We don't know about a particular dinosaur who died in a certain time and place until we discover the fossils, perhaps of it and some eggs, perhaps in a volcanic eruption, say, and then we come up with a poignant tale of the mother dinosaur trying to save her babies, or whatever, and there is a picture in National Geographic. It is now real because it becomes part of human experience. But what of all the tales of private heroism which occurred perhaps in Pompeii during the eruption which we don't know about?

How can it be said that "they happened" when there isn't a "they" for them to have happened or not? "What about the time that...." That what? Who did what and then what? We don't know about IT, so IT didn't happen! There is no "IT" for it to have happened or not!

We have no reference to describe an event which we don't know about, so we literally cannot know anything about it.

How can we test the time hypothesis that "time" is a "change" which occurs across the galaxy which we don't know about and never will? Perhaps that PARTICULAR change was the counter-example to proving that time is NOT change! So to me the notion that "time is change" including change we cannot know about is non-scientific, literally in principle. So do we really want to go around believing "scientific" things about time which are not observable in principle? Not me!

It is like the non-existence problem. If we don't know what non-existence is, why worry about what "exists"? We really don't worry about the existence of garbage when we are taking it out, we know for sure that it exists though we wish it didn't! No one has a problem with the "existence" of anything until we dream it up linguistically, and generally that entails something called a "category mistake".

A category mistake happens when we use language improperly and it results in a question which seems to make sense linguistically and then we discuss a non- real problem. Imagine two silly people arguing about whether or not courage is red or green. That would be a "category mistake" Courage is a noun and one can use adjectives with nouns, right? Poetically perhaps one might argue that courage is red, but of course we know that courage has no color.

I think even asking the question "Does infinity exist" entails a category mistake or two. We can say the words, but they don't mean anything. Or maybe I am just dumb, but I don't get it.

So it seems we have to share a certain frame of reference to maintain time as a thing at all, even as change. Otherwise, it becomes subjective and insubstantial, right?

I am deliberately quoting you out of context here so that you sound like me, at least up to the "otherwise" part. I don't think that subjective things are insubstantial for one point. After all, my "self" is pretty subjective and at least to me, it is something quite important and substantial!

And I think that this "frame of reference" is not even "subjective" since we are discussing it, and since the frame of reference is all human knowledge and experience, including science itself because science is "objective human experience" which is replicable in principle to all who have the tools and knowledge available to do so.

I was originally referring to the P1 that stated there was such a thing as infinity...

Uh-oh! It's them big words again....!

[Lightbearer]

Yes, I see. Emphasis Mine

Now from my understanding of LDS beliefs, God played an active role in organizing intelligences. The KFD seems to argue against that.

Underline Mine.

Seems he sent intelligences and that was about it. Have I got that right?

Sorry, I had missed your reply, but shall attempt to answer if I may (hope the thread has not moved beyond this point).

First let me say that God did play an active role in organizing intelligences, that is actually sustained by the KFD as I already stated here:

"The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits."

Our spirits were born in heavenly mansions and reared in the courts of heaven by our heavenly parents. But the intelligence, has always existed and is eternal. I am getting into the realm of speculation here, so I will try not to delve to deeply into unrevealed things but consider this:

(Abraham 3:18-26) "Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal. And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all. The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the hands of the priest of Elkenah. I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen. Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever."

Also the following:

(D&C 93:29-39) "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light. And every man whose spirit receiveth not the light is under condemnation. For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy; And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy. The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples; and whatsoever temple is defiled, God shall destroy that temple. The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one. Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God. And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers."

I hope this explains in some way where I am coming from and what the Gospel teaches as I understand it.

[Mudcat]

I think that the discussion to this point has been fascinating, particularly in how all parties have been able to move and shift their views as the discussion has required. At least, to some extent which in this online world is Herculean.

I confess, I have been immensely pleased with the quality of discussion thus far, also.

So my suggestion is to keep doing what is being done - taking the Sherlock Holmes approach of eliminating the things that don't fit until whatever is left can not be eliminated.

I am wondering how this part will fair. I am hopeful.

My points on time and matter were my first steps in this direction as I see both being incompatible with any notions of infinity as long as one can assume that the Big Bang and the two theories of relativity are valid theories. When one really defines the singularity of the Big Bang, which we can not do mathematically at this point but we make our guesses, one does not find a point of internal change or forces or matter or anything. At some point after the Big Bang, these things began to separate from the ursache that is the singularity that became our universe. The four known forces, energy and matter, space-time - they all were born at that point of reference in the past. All change points back to it, and then stops.

So unless anyone has a counter argument, I think that neither time nor matter belong in this equation. I think most won't have a problem with time, but matter is an issue if one believes in an LDS godhood with a necessary resurrection of a physical (in some way) body. And the issue here is that time is not an independent entity from matter. I think the tendency will be to stop thinking about it once one comes to terms with this reality about matter and time, as has been the case on most threads like this in the past. But I am hopeful we can find a consensus from which to proceed. Or at least an acceptable placeholder.

I am in agreement with time. I still have questions on if matter should be something that should be eliminated. I matter has mass, which this extremely dense singularity has. And matter also has volume, which this infinitesimally small singularity has. Then it would stand to reason that the singularity is matter, thought not in the sense we understand it at present. I don't think the recognition of matter imposes a recognition or time, if matter is in a changeless state. What do you think?

I pointed out an option here in m first post - this being that there cold be an infinity of matter and change. But that is nothing short of chaos, really. Like your example of the closed infinity of the numbers between 1 and 2, there are closed infinities within which entities that may share something that we would call our identity will exist. But there is another, larger set of infinities where we don't, or where no life exists at all, or whatever. The laws of physic kind of become arbitrary at some point in here. Lee Smolin, the physicist, has argued against this possibility which some proponents of string theory suggest is a reality that could lead to a solution. They could be right, but I think if it is ever proved we may find out that it was possible to disprove god. At least, the one we thought was out there anyway. The god of this multiverse no longer obeys laws, or none that we have to follow in any sense at all, nor is this god composed of any structure that we must recognize as form or structure. And before you get excited, morality goes to - there just are no consistent rules in this theory.

Well I read a bit about Smolin and he seems to promoting some sort of Cosmological Darwinism. I think using Darwinism as some sort of template, we find ... at least on a biologic level some sort of relative morality, though as you get closer to the source of it all what is relative may actually be absolute. What do you think?

Don't know. Lee Smolin and others suggest that universes are born when the singularities of black holes in other universes go boom on the other side (where does all that matter and energy go?) but it's an unprovable theory since black holes are an event horizon beyond which we can't see. Though Loop Gravity theorists have proposed naked singularities may be possible which would be amazing.

I would say we would be better of leaving Black Holes out of the equation. Their existence is a plausible assumption, but I imagine the concept would conflate the issue. Though, for some theists they may fill the role of a Theistic destroyer of sorts.

Anyways, I am curious to see what your thoughts are on what I have posited on matter.

[Honorentheos]

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79018

"The Persistence of Memory" Salvador Dali

Edit- Added This Quote:

If I wasn't such a ditz I would be able to paste the image above, but since they changed the format I am not sure how to do that, since it calls for a url instead of a file.

But the issue here IS persistence of memory after death I suppose, so the "scientific" question would be how much of the memory is in the flesh of the brain and how much is in the "immaterial matter" of the spirit. I don't think I have the answer to that one!

Nor do I.

Relating to the "self", the reason I don't like "bundle" theories is that I think they are inadequate to explain our own experience of the self. Bundle theory of course says that "I" am the bundle of all my experiences and perceptions and memories, also called "qualia". That's very nice but to me it is inadequate, because one can do a thought experiment where one strips away all this, and there is still a "me". Back to Descartes? Perhaps, but where he went wrong is that imo he confused experience with "reality" ie: he thought that there was something "out there" as opposed to "in here" when for me and all my philosophical cronies, experience IS reality, since we can know nothing else. And again, this does not entail solipsism because honestly, I do really know and experience that there is someone who is answering these posts, and I can drive a car and walk and talk to real people etc!. Again, part of experience is experiencing others and what they say and do etc.

I agree with your critique of Descartes dilemma. The part I bolded summed it up nicely, IMO.

The challenge I see with identity and continuity may be best illustrated in an example - My maternal grandmother suffered a series of strokes that over a period of time changed her completely. The first changed her personality as well as limited her physical capabilities. She was happy, still recognized people from her past, but also was different in the way she responded to others. The second stroke left her similar to an Alzheimer's patient in that she no longer recognized anyone from her past and she was wheelchair bound as well. She would interact with people, but not as the person she was before the strokes or as I remembered her. She obviously did not remember us in the same way, either. The third and final stroke left her in an internal world of her own from which she seldom interacted with others in a direct way.

I bring this up because I seriously doubt she had a sense of identity or continuity that was shared with those around her. We continued to see in her who she was, but also had to recognize who she had become and she did not share our sense of who that had been in any way we could see. I think, as a family, everyone still loved her but it was...I guess it is hard to explain.

So I would extend this thought experiment - suppose everyone in the world were suddenly to succumb to a form of Alzheimer's that destroyed all ties to the past. As individuals, we no longer had the thread to our past to define us, and there was no outsider looking in who held these threads either.

Can we still claim that our identities did not change? Are we the same person still at that point as we were as 5 year olds?

...

How can we test the time hypothesis that "time" is a "change" which occurs across the galaxy which we don't know about and never will? Perhaps that PARTICULAR change was the counter-example to proving that time is NOT change! So to me the notion that "time is change" including change we cannot know about is non-scientific, literally in principle. So do we really want to go around believing "scientific" things about time which are not observable in principle? Not me!

Hmmm. It is probably me, but I see this as being internally contradictory. Scientifically we have to limit ourselves to what can be observed for it to be "scientific" rather than metaphysical. Is it right, then, to suggest we are limiting ourselves in the discussion by eliminating the unobserved and theoretically unsupported idea that there may be galaxies in our universe where time is not change? I would suggest it is not. Otherwise, we are saying anything goes in this discussion to be limited only by our imaginations. That may be fun in an cocktail party sort of way, but is it going to move us closer to any answers?

It is like the non-existence problem. If we don't know what non-existence is, why worry about what "exists"? We really don't worry about the existence of garbage when we are taking it out, we know for sure that it exists though we wish it didn't! No one has a problem with the "existence" of anything until we dream it up linguistically, and generally that entails something called a "category mistake".

A category mistake happens when we use language improperly and it results in a question which seems to make sense linguistically and then we discuss a non- real problem. Imagine two silly people arguing about whether or not courage is red or green. That would be a "category mistake" Courage is a noun and one can use adjectives with nouns, right? Poetically perhaps one might argue that courage is red, but of course we know that courage has no color.

I think even asking the question "Does infinity exist" entails a category mistake or two. We can say the words, but they don't mean anything. Or maybe I am just dumb, but I don't get it.

Very well put. Like Socrates, in recognizing our ignorance on the subject you may be the wisest of all.

However, it begs the question of whether or not we can conceive of the answers to the questions in the OP or are we, in reality, just splashing on the edge of the ocean thinking we are swimming in it?

To be honest, it is the main reason I am agnostic. I think we are splashing rather than swimming and mistake other splashers for swimmers. We may admit we are not swimming, but why do we think anyone else was, either? It comes down to a person's willingness to believe something based on a limited set of evidence which invariably has counter-evidence (something that critics and believers alike seem to want to ignore but seems to be the case). So when we squint through our dark glasses and make out some shape on the other side, there has to be some integrity in recognizing it is little different than seeing shapes in clouds, IMO.

It is why I think the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was wise in saying that charity is the greatest of all over faith, hope, and even the gifts of the spirit.

Which is why when you say this,

And I think that this "frame of reference" is not even "subjective" since we are discussing it, and since the frame of reference is all human knowledge and experience, including science itself because science is "objective human experience" which is replicable in principle to all who have the tools and knowledge available to do so.

We don't need to look through the same dark glasses at the world around us to know that we can choose to do good or we can choose to equivocate on morality based on the same systematic beliefs that give form to the clouds on the other sides of the glasses. Personally, I think this is one of the key points of the story of the Good Samaritan. Being charitable towards one's fellow man is the highest form of "right" that we can feel some assurance is "divine". Beyond that - "Marco!"

"polo"....

[Honorentheos]

Anyways, I am curious to see what your thoughts are on what I have posited on matter.

Hi Mudcat,

I am in a bit of a pinch getting things done at work today and I shot my freetime limit in responding to mfb. So I can't respond in detail but as I was reading your post I thought of this paper written by Lee Smolin I found recently while looking for an online source that explained the problem with time -

The Unique Universe

[mfbukowski]

Hi Mudcat,

I am in a bit of a pinch getting things done at work today and I shot my freetime limit in responding to mfb. So I can't respond in detail but as I was reading your post I thought of this paper written by Lee Smolin I found recently while looking for an online source that explained the problem with time -

The Unique Universe

Hey this looks like a great article--

I am loving this thread big TIME but don't always have the TIME to respond either. But what's the rush? We have eternity to figure this stuff out~

[mfbukowski]

Beyond that - "Marco!"

"polo"....

That's funny, I used to say Marco "Polish". Hmmm wonder why... (my real name is Mark...)

But on a serious note, I think that is a great analogy, because what we really have is a situation very much like that game. For those who have never played it, it is basically tag but with a twist which leaves the person who is "it" blindfolded, and the person who is it says "Marco" and the others respond "Polo", and the person who is it tries to tag one of the "Polos", only using the sound of their voices. As he gets closer he says "Marco" more frequently. forcing the others to respond more frequently while he tries to home in on their always changing locations. We used to play it in a swimming pool, so you also had the splashing sounds of the moving players and a confined area to help you find the others.

Very much like what science does, I think. It puts out a hypothesis into the dark, "Marco", and awaits a "Polo" in return. But maybe sometimes it just gets a "splash" from the opposite side of where it is supposed to be.

And the analogy is also instructive for another reason, because in the game, the main player is using only one sense whereas the others have all their senses available. I would say that those who limit their senses and discount certain areas of experience are like those who are blindfolded in the game- I think strict skeptics are like the blindfolded, because they will not allow the possibility that religious experience is valid "experience" from which we can grow in knowledge. But maybe that is for another thread. But I think that it is important to point out that this is where the compatibility of post modern thought lies with religious thought for me. When we admit that experience is all that we can know about reality, it is like putting on blinders to eliminate a whole area of experience just because it is "religious". In my opinion, religious experience is just as "valid" as any other kind of experience, though of course I would put it in the "subjective" or "private" or "first person" category when looking at it logically.

I'm glad we have killed off Descartes!

So I would extend this thought experiment - suppose everyone in the world were suddenly to succumb to a form of Alzheimer's that destroyed all ties to the past. As individuals, we no longer had the thread to our past to define us, and there was no outsider looking in who held these threads either.

Can we still claim that our identities did not change? Are we the same person still at that point as we were as 5 year olds?

I can understand this pov as well, because my mom is going through it. She now is in a nursing home, and though the people there are friendly, I am the only one who still holds any "threads". What if ALL threads were lost?

I think I would be inclined to agree with you, that she would be a "different person". I didn't think I would think that, but I do. What was completely changed was the context of her life. What is perhaps instructive in my mother's life is that she still has her own "threads" to some degree; she knows here name and what city she is from, but doesn't know what city she is in or who I am other than someone who loves here and whom she loves. She sometimes thinks I am her husband or boyfriend, which can be very weird indeed. She says she never had any children, and tells false stories about her family which she believes to be correct. I have no idea where these stories came from. The staff of the nursing home, who are wonderful, ask me about the stories, expecting me to elaborate and give the details about what never happened. Suppose I did that. Would it make that "history" "real" if there was no one to say "that never happened?" I know that it would, and that story would become "history" for the nursing home staffers. Sometimes she is so vehement about the stories that I start to wonder myself, if there was something that happened that I didn't know about -- she can actually make me question what I know is true! (from my own memories- because there is no one else left in the world who has also experienced these events)

But these are extraordinary conditions. But I think it is clear that memory is a very big part of what makes the "self" the "self" when any other context is stripped away. But it is rare indeed to have this kind of amnesia, it is the sort of thing about which novels are written.

I said:

How can we test the time hypothesis that "time" is a "change" which occurs across the galaxy which we don't know about and never will? Perhaps that PARTICULAR change was the counter-example to proving that time is NOT change! So to me the notion that "time is change" including change we cannot know about is non-scientific, literally in principle. So do we really want to go around believing "scientific" things about time which are not observable in principle? Not me!

You said:

Hmmm. It is probably me, but I see this as being internally contradictory. Scientifically we have to limit ourselves to what can be observed for it to be "scientific" rather than metaphysical. Is it right, then, to suggest we are limiting ourselves in the discussion by eliminating the unobserved and theoretically unsupported idea that there may be galaxies in our universe where time is not change? I would suggest it is not. Otherwise, we are saying anything goes in this discussion to be limited only by our imaginations. That may be fun in an cocktail party sort of way, but is it going to move us closer to any answers?

Frankly, when I was writing this, it sounded a little "fishy" even to me! In retrospect, I will give myself "partial credit" and agree with you that a change we don't know about, is a change we don't know about, period. End of story. But on the other hand, I think the point that time has to be change "which we know about" is true for the same reason.

Very well put. Like Socrates, in recognizing our ignorance on the subject you may be the wisest of all.

Uh-huh.... Tell my wife all about my "wisdom"! I am good at recognizing ignorance because I have so much of it!

However, it begs the question of whether or not we can conceive of the answers to the questions in the OP or are we, in reality, just splashing on the edge of the ocean thinking we are swimming in it?

To be brutally honest, imo, for those who accept the cosmological argument OR that the LDS position requires infinite regress, I think they are not even splashing yet, but in the desert trying to make it to a mirage, much less swimming in the ocean. The whole argument gives false hope to those who believe it, and makes those who don't believe it chuckle in glee. But remember I am a theist big time.

To be honest, it is the main reason I am agnostic. I think we are splashing rather than swimming and mistake other splashers for swimmers. We may admit we are not swimming, but why do we think anyone else was, either? It comes down to a person's willingness to believe something based on a limited set of evidence which invariably has counter-evidence (something that critics and believers alike seem to want to ignore but seems to be the case). So when we squint through our dark glasses and make out some shape on the other side, there has to be some integrity in recognizing it is little different than seeing shapes in clouds, IMO.

For me the key is knowing very clearly what we CAN and cannot know, and how we can know it. It is not a willingness "to accept something on limited evidence" because we accept nearly EVERYTHING on limited evidence! When you really look at it, really KNOWING anything is very very rare. We almost always take someone else's word for it. Have you been to the North Pole? Do you really understand Relativity? Who wrote Genesis? But you KNOW that you exist, you KNOW that you love your wife (or don't!)You KNOW what red is, how a trumpet sounds different from a french horn, what it's like to hug your kids and on and on and on. You know that without need for any external verification from anyone else, because no one else can give you that verification. No scientist can tell you about what is important in life.

It is why I think the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was wise in saying that charity is the greatest of all over faith, hope, and even the gifts of the spirit....

We don't need to look through the same dark glasses at the world around us to know that we can choose to do good or we can choose to equivocate on morality based on the same systematic beliefs that give form to the clouds on the other sides of the glasses. Personally, I think this is one of the key points of the story of the Good Samaritan. Being charitable towards one's fellow man is the highest form of "right" that we can feel some assurance is "divine".

Beautifully said, and I totally agree! But what IS that feeling that of assurance that it is divine?

[Mudcat]

Hi Mudcat,

I am in a bit of a pinch getting things done at work today and I shot my freetime limit in responding to mfb. So I can't respond in detail but as I was reading your post I thought of this paper written by Lee Smolin I found recently while looking for an online source that explained the problem with time -

The Unique Universe

After reading a bit more on the topic, I may be prepared to take matter off the table.. at least in a suspension of disbelief of sorts. The only reason that I say this, is that this singularity was very dense. Density doesn't seem to logically quantify as a property of nothing.

As to the article, it was interesting. I snipped the key points from the article as a skeleton of Smolin's statements for discussion, and hopefully anyone interested will refer to your link to get the details.

1. There is only one universe. There are no others, nor is there anything isomorphic to it.

2. All that is real is real in a moment, which is a succession of moments. Anything that is true is true of the present moment.

3. Everything that is real in a moment is a process of change leading to the next or future moments. Anything that is true is then a feature of a process in this process causing or implying future moments.

4. Mathematics is derived from experience as a generalization of observed regularities when time and particularity are removed.

I agree with point 1.

I agree with point 2.

On point three, a simplified view is offered.

"An atom in a moment is a process leading to a different or a changed atom in the next moment."

Take a Hydrogen atom. One proton and one electron. Now if we look at it in a very minuscule way, we could say that the atom is constantly changing... I mean you have this electron running around the proton, and never in the same place twice. So it is changing. However, there is the proton which seems to be static during the whole procedure. If you look singularly at the proton, well... he has a rather static way of things. I imagine the same could be said for the electron as well... if we looked closely enough.

Now taking the BB into account we at the very least must realize, that there was a point when a Hydrogen atom didn't exist so in that sense it has changed. But we would have to follow a concept that even though the H atom is real and within time, the only reason for it's reality is because at some point it will change.

Point four seems to disregard counterfactuals entirely. I may address it in another post, but I am tapped for the evening.

[mfbukowski]

Truly fascinating article which goes to the core of what we are discussing; I am trying to digest its implications.

(Emphasis Added)

1. There is only one universe. There are no others, nor is there anything isomorphic to it.

This logically implies that there are no other universes, nor copies of our universe, whether within or without. The first is impossible as no subsystem can model precisely the larger system it is a part of, while the second is impossible because the one universe is by definition all there is. This principle also rules out the notion of a mathematical object isomorphic in every respect to the history of the entire universe, a notion that is more metaphysical than scientific.

2. All that is real is real in a moment, which is a succession of moments. Anything that is true is true of the present moment.

This says that not only is time real, but also that everything else that is real is situated in time. Nothing exists timelessly.

3. Everything that is real in a moment is a process of change leading to the next or future moments. Anything that is true is then a feature of a process in this process causing or implying future moments.

The third principle incorporates the notion that time is an aspect of causal relations. A reason for asserting it is that anything that just existed in a moment, without causing or implying an aspect of the state at a future moment, would be gone in the next moment. Things that persist must be thought of as processes leading to newly changed processes. An atom in a moment is a process leading to a different or a changed atom in the next moment.

This alternative metaphysical framework has implications for the nature of physical law. Since nothing is true or real outside of time, there is no possibility of speaking of eternal laws. Laws are regularities that we discover hold for very long stretches of time, but there is no reason for laws to be true timelessly — indeed, there is no way to make sense of that notion. This opens the door to the possibility that laws evolve in time, which is an idea that has been on the table ever since the great American logician Charles Sanders Peirce wrote in 1891 that “To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.”

From this point of view, the notion of transcending our time-bound experiences in order to discover truths that hold timelessly is an unrealizable fantasy. When science succeeds, we do nothing of the sort; what we physicists really do is discover laws that hold in the universe we experience within time. This, I would claim, should be enough; anything beyond that is more a religious urge for transcendence than science.

Peirce is generally viewed as the founding father of American pragmatism, the school of philosophy to which I pretty much fully subscribe. Let me be a little pedantic here and put this into context for any lurkers out there in the doubtful chance that there actually are any.

The point being made here is that since we only experience a universe which exists in time, that is all we can know, and so that is what "is" as far as we know.

It is a bit ironic for me as a theist to see how these arguments twist and turn, since here we are given a supposedly atheistic argument for a position which seems on its face to favor a more theistic pov - that there is one universe which exists in time.

And yet what Smolin is arguing against is one interpretation of the multiverse theory called the "anthropic principle" the primary proponent of which is a guy named Andrei Linde, whose position is commonly seen as implying theism, and incidentally can be seen as pro-LDS with the implication that there could be multiple creators of multiple universes etc.

So I as a theist am arguing against the "theist" position and going with the "atheist" position? Obviously this is pretty complex stuff.

No, I am just affirming Smolin's methodology that all we can know is experience and all that is "real" is in some sense experienceable, and to me the implicatiton of that is that religious experience, especially when there are millions of people who affirm a similar religious experience, ie: "a testimony", or from an EV pov, a communication from the Holy Spirit, that this phenomenon is "real".

Oh, and regarding the evolution comment, since it is metaphysical speculation, we might as well also say that God directed all of this as say that it randomly occurred

[mfbukowski]

2. All that is real is real in a moment, which is a succession of moments. Anything that is true is true of the present moment.

This says that not only is time real, but also that everything else that is real is situated in time. Nothing exists timelessly.

3. Everything that is real in a moment is a process of change leading to the next or future moments. Anything that is true is then a feature of a process in this process causing or implying future moments.

The third principle incorporates the notion that time is an aspect of causal relations. A reason for asserting it is that anything that just existed in a moment, without causing or implying an aspect of the state at a future moment, would be gone in the next moment. Things that persist must be thought of as processes leading to newly changed processes. An atom in a moment is a process leading to a different or a changed atom in the next moment.

Uh oh. Can anyone say "Langoliers"?

Bob determines that the Langoliers are the timekeepers of eternity, and that their "real" purpose is to eat what is left of the past.

This is familiar territory for us on this thread. I may be wrong but I think he is begging the question here by presuming that there is such a thing as a "moment" and using our old notion of "real" without using his own view of "experience". So if he presumes "moments" he presumes time from the beginning.

We do not experience moments. Experience is stream of processes, (hence the phrase "stream of consciousness") not a jerky silent movie made of discreet pictures or "moments".

Another mistake I think he makes is presuming causality, which we have discussed before. If he spoke about "state 1" and "state 2" I think the argument would be stronger since we are speaking of processes

He is still in a billiard ball universe, but I guess what he is saying that we LIVE in such a universe. But logic is logic, and I think there are problems here.

I agree that experience in some sense IS time because all of experience flows in this stream, though it is not linear. As I type this I am thinking of the present past and future at once, (what has happened yesterday, what I have to do today, pictures of who I saw yesterday, etc.) and in a sense it is all "present" to me, perhaps in a way similar to the way God experiences the future as "present".

4. Mathematics is derived from experience as a generalization of observed regularities when time and particularity are removed.

I don't know about that one either. I am beginning to think this guy should stick to physics, because this isn't the greatest philosophy.

My personal believe is that mathematics and logic are the set of rules by which we think. I don't think 1+1=2 because we have learned it through experience, but because we cannot conceive of any possible cases in which 1+1 would NOT equal 2. What we mean by "1" and "2" is that it takes two ones to MAKE a two, and we can conceive of it no other way. We cannot conceive of a world in which the transitive property of equality would not hold, because it is definitional.

[Honorentheos]

Hi, mfb,

It's a good thing we have "eternity" to discuss this. This week was busy for me and flew by.

But on a serious note, I think that is a great analogy, because what we really have is a situation very much like that game. For those who have never played it, it is basically tag but with a twist which leaves the person who is "it" blindfolded, ...

And the analogy is also instructive for another reason, because in the game, the main player is using only one sense whereas the others have all their senses available. I would say that those who limit their senses and discount certain areas of experience are like those who are blindfolded in the game- I think strict skeptics are like the blindfolded, because they will not allow the possibility that religious experience is valid "experience" from which we can grow in knowledge...In my opinion, religious experience is just as "valid" as any other kind of experience, though of course I would put it in the "subjective" or "private" or "first person" category when looking at it logically.

I agree, though it carries a twist. I mentioned this in my last post -

"It comes down to a person's willingness to believe something based on a limited set of evidence which invariably has counter-evidence (something that critics and believers alike seem to want to ignore but seems to be the case). So when we squint through our dark glasses and make out some shape on the other side, there has to be some integrity in recognizing it is little different than seeing shapes in clouds, IMO."

I think this is true. There is evidence that there is more to life than simple reason can offer us. But there is more to Truth than religion seems to claim and much that religion calls truth that is very subjective. Perhaps good for the person involved with it, but not something universal.

For example, ask yourself why your analogy focused on the myopia of the skeptic but not on the counter example of those who prefer the religious experience as truth-verifying over reason? I think this is because we have to do so - we have to feel that our view of the world is accurate, but since there are those around us acting like they have virtual goggles on shooting at things we can't see or driving in cars in invisible races we simply assume they are missing reality since their actions do not fit our view of things.

I think the reality is that none of us are truly blindfolded anymore than anyone else, but certainly do not have clear access to some sort of "objectivity" lens that allows us to use all available senses. We all see the glass, darkly though our glasses were fitted to us at birth based on our internal make-up, experience, and the continuous background of life. And it isn't just when one really looks at it I think.

I think these things allow us to make sense of Plato's shadows on the cave wall, but that the shadows are our reality from birth to death. And there is a more certain clarity of understanding this. Kind of like looking at clouds on a summer's day, one can guess the shapes they make but we are closest to the truth when we see them as clouds. But does it help us to see them as particles of "a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body..."

When using meteorology, this is too simple. When enjoying an afternoon with one's daughter this may be too complex. So I agree with you on the whole, just offering the caveat that we are all yelling out "Marco!" and using this to figure things out. Or, to use the other famous analogy - none of us know what an elephant looks like, IMO. So we are all wrong in what we are holding and lack the ability to understand it even if we could create an accurate picture of this thing called "elephant" (or God). I've always found that analogy so apt yet always assuming someone, usually the teller, knows what the elephant is. And beyond this, wouldn't the blind men be best off if they could listen to one another, even trade places to "see" what the other "sees"?

Yet, for us, this is almost impossible to do. We find it hard to see what the believer in a certain religion sees in them (not excluding critics towards the LDS faith) yet finding it equally hard to see the value in the opposite view of the believer in rational agnosticism (how I would define myself since I have decided to reject the label critic. )

I can understand this pov as well, because my mom is going through it.

I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I empathize with your struggle and have to admire your unsaid heroism in being there for her in this time when it can be so easy to disappear. You're a good man for this, Bukowski.

But these are extraordinary conditions. But I think it is clear that memory is a very big part of what makes the "self" the "self" when any other context is stripped away. But it is rare indeed to have this kind of amnesia, it is the sort of thing about which novels are written.

While we will disagree on this, I think it is the most common thing in the world. It happens to everyone when they die. And it was the state of the person prior to birth. Maybe just my "Marco!" and I am not expecting a "Polo", but it is my current suspicion.

But what IS that feeling that of assurance that it is divine?

Don't know. But it is certainly part of the human experience.

[Honorentheos]

mfb,

Sorry, I keep popping in and out tonight. Trying to catch up on a few things that I wasn't able to get to during the week, spend time with family and also decompress at the same time.

Uh oh. Can anyone say "Langoliers"?

This is familiar territory for us on this thread. I may be wrong but I think he is begging the question here by presuming that there is such a thing as a "moment" and using our old notion of "real" without using his own view of "experience". So if he presumes "moments" he presumes time from the beginning.

We do not experience moments. Experience is stream of processes, (hence the phrase "stream of consciousness") not a jerky silent movie made of discreet pictures or "moments".

Another mistake I think he makes is presuming causality, which we have discussed before. If he spoke about "state 1" and "state 2" I think the argument would be stronger since we are speaking of processes

I pulled out a copy of Smolin's Three Roads to Quantum Gravity because I think this made more sense to me having some background on Smolin's thoughts on this subject. I think that is the important thing to keep in mind with him - his current area of "expertise" is in the search for the THEORY OF EVERYTHING!!! (dum, dum, dum). String theory being the best known of the theories of course, but not the one Smolin currently feels is the closest. The essay I linked to is as much a response to a more modern mood, but at the time of his writing the book above he was very open to any of a multitude of theories being the one that found an answer. I picked his book up back in 2003 and really enjoyed the ease he has with communicating. Great book if you can find a copy.

In it, in the chapter titled, "The Universe is made of processes, not things", he addresses you concern with his view thus -

"Here is an idea for an art piece. Take a film which everyone has seen and loved and extract from it a series of stills, one from every ten seconds of the film. Mount these in a large gallery, arranged sequentially. Invite people to view the film one still at a time. Would this be enjoyable? No, people might laugh a bit at the beginning but most would quickly become bored. Of the few who looked at the entire film, many would be film-makers and critics who would be able to pick up some tricks of how the film was made. For most of the rest of us a film presented one still at a time would be quite uninteresting even if it took no longer to view the whole sequence that to watch the film. Of course, when we watch a film we are really looking at a sequence of still images, presented to us at such a rate that we see movement. This is sometimes described by saying that the sequence of still images creates the illusion of motion, but this is not quite right. It is the still images themselves that are the illusion. The world is never still - it is always in motion." (my emphasis)

The ultimate outcome of his point is that there are no such thing as "things" in the universe - just processes. Slow ones (some having begun at the birth of the universe and not having completed yet - the decay of all hydrogen in the Universe for example) and fast ones of which there are many but in a cosmic sense the current changing configuration of the temporary components that make up you and I are included.

I think this is critical for when you say the following -

I agree that experience in some sense IS time because all of experience flows in this stream, though it is not linear. As I type this I am thinking of the present past and future at once, (what has happened yesterday, what I have to do today, pictures of who I saw yesterday, etc.) and in a sense it is all "present" to me, perhaps in a way similar to the way God experiences the future as "present".

...we seem to be arriving at this point in the essay I linked to -

"The Newtonian schema is the basis for the claim that time is not fundamental in cosmology. From this point of view, time is seen merely as a parameter on a trajectory in configuration space, and not as an intrinsic part of the physical law. The present moment, the time we experience, has no place in this description. The philosopher who does not believe in the flow of time points to the trajectory in the configuration space and says that the only thing that is real is that the whole history of the universe exists timelessly â?? what in general relativity is called the â??block universeâ? picture. Many physicists and philosophers have fallen for the temptation of believing in the â??block universeâ? picture. To them, our experience of the flow of time is just an illusion. "

He then follows up why this is flawed thus -

"This argument is faulty for two reasons. First, it does not prove that time is not fundamental. When we observe motion, we record a series of measurements of a systemâ??s position. These can be graphed on the configuration space, resulting in a curve that represents the record of the motion. This graph is timeless, because it is a representation of a record of a past motion, which is, of course, no longer changing. The correspondence is between a mathematical object, which is static, and a series of records of observations, which is also static. The fact that we can make this correspondence be

[Honorentheos]

After reading a bit more on the topic, I may be prepared to take matter off the table.. at least in a suspension of disbelief of sorts. The only reason that I say this, is that this singularity was very dense. Density doesn't seem to logically quantify as a property of nothing.

As to the article, it was interesting. I snipped the key points from the article as a skeleton of Smolin's statements for discussion, and hopefully anyone interested will refer to your link to get the details.

1. There is only one universe. There are no others, nor is there anything isomorphic to it.

2. All that is real is real in a moment, which is a succession of moments. Anything that is true is true of the present moment.

3. Everything that is real in a moment is a process of change leading to the next or future moments. Anything that is true is then a feature of a process in this process causing or implying future moments.

4. Mathematics is derived from experience as a generalization of observed regularities when time and particularity are removed.

I agree with point 1.

I agree with point 2.

On point three, a simplified view is offered.

"An atom in a moment is a process leading to a different or a changed atom in the next moment."

Take a Hydrogen atom. One proton and one electron. Now if we look at it in a very minuscule way, we could say that the atom is constantly changing... I mean you have this electron running around the proton, and never in the same place twice. So it is changing. However, there is the proton which seems to be static during the whole procedure. If you look singularly at the proton, well... he has a rather static way of things. I imagine the same could be said for the electron as well... if we looked closely enough.

Now taking the BB into account we at the very least must realize, that there was a point when a Hydrogen atom didn't exist so in that sense it has changed. But we would have to follow a concept that even though the H atom is real and within time, the only reason for it's reality is because at some point it will change.

Point four seems to disregard counterfactuals entirely. I may address it in another post, but I am tapped for the evening.

I like the way you think, Mudcat.

[Honorentheos]

I would add quickly that his use of the term "evolution" regarding a theory on the propagation of universes is an attempt to use something that is familiar to explain something that is not.

For example - the theory of evolution by the process of natural selection can also explain the success and failure of economic institutions. Businesses taking the place of organisms, one can see that fitness, niche habitation, adaption for better fitness in a changing market or environment , etc., etc., all model why some businesses succeed and others fail. I personally also think it shows why some behaviors may lead to success but are like viruses - and equally undesirable because they kill the host- but that is another topic.

Anyway, I think his point is that if one applies similar rules to the propagation of universes that apply in biology, one must be able to look at our universe and see certain things that make it "fit" for survival. And if this is the case and it is potentially one of many or one in a series of universes back to a parent this fitness must be communicable between universes. He has a bunch of sneaky math equations to try and back it up, but it is theoretical physics which is again nice for cocktail parties (though likely not the kind most of us would be at since the conversation turning on theoretical physics seems a unlikely pairing with Saturday night social gatherings. How 'bout them Cowboys?)

Anyway, one of the reasons I like Smolin is that he can both disagree with someone and grasp their point - and even come up with theories in that direction because until it is proven false, it is possible.