h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

toxx. My apologies. Let me think about this for a bit.

toxx,

Be nice! (re: your response to gadarene) I noticed you let me off quite lightly with my somewhat (?) incoherent posting. Though I wasn't suggesting we go back to the stoneage.

Not knowing the origins of the universe or understanding what time is and how it works does not preclude trying to understand the mysteries of life as much as we can. I was mostly questioning why some people need to believe in a creator. And why this creator often takes human form when, well, how or even why should it? Why should the creator be a 'person'?

az

ps
Why does there even have to *be* a creator? Except some feel more comfortable with that notion.

az

"The course, if never travelled, has no laps."

So if there are no cars on the track, the track doesn't exist???

"That is like proposing an empty time dimension"

Well... yeah. I spose. I guess it comes down to whether you imagine time as a dimension, or simply as what stops everything happening at once. If the latter, it makes no sense to think of time as a dimension, as it only has any definition in relation to events taking place in one sequence or another.

By analogy, "length" can be considered independent of any individual object having length. But you're suggesting (I think) that time cannot similarly be considered independently of events occuring "in" it. In which case my analogy doesn't work at all.

I tend to think of time as a linear dimension, because that's how in works in the equations I've been presented with - i.e. Einstein-Podolsky spacetime. It makes perfect sense in such a paradigm to consider time as an empty track, awaiting cars - except that at some arbitrarily chosen point (say, the start line) the track narrows to an infinitesimal point, out of which cars come and into which they go. Other than that rather odd property, that point of the track is unremarkable. It has some vague use as a reference point - one can say one is, say, 1.2113 miles from the start line. But there is no sense in which one is any finite distance from the "beginning" of the track, because it hasn't got one - it's a closed loop. It no more has a "beginning" (or end) than does a circle.

To paraphrase good old Richard.

If you're going to design something you have to be *at least* as complicated as the thing you're designing. If you're gonna go to the trouble of answering prayers, performing the odd miracle, keeping the planets in motion and keeping the physical laws of the universe in check, you have to be a sight *more* comlicated.

God is not an answer, it is merely a restatment of the question.

And, of course, complete and utter fermented dingos droppings.

Hmmm. That sounds kinda like the rule of simulation: When you simulate something from the real world (on a computer or some other way), the simulation cannot be perfect--some information will always be lost. But simulating a poorly understood system (say the economy) isn't the same thing as duplicating a well understood system (say a watch), or creating a completely new one.

How are we defining 'more complicated than' here? "Possessing more information than"?

I'm not at all sure about this. My first thought was that spacetime can't be measured independently of anything, but if mass is "only" the shape of spacetime then the only thing we have to measure it is other parts of spacetime. Spacetime therefore has structure, with a logical form that is determined by the internal relations of the parts. Perceived "space" and "time" are just the model of these relations in the mind and can't be shown to actually exist in the perceived form outside the model. All logical relationships are internal (the universe is necessarily unbounded) and this should apply to those relationships that we call time as well as those we call space. Whether the shape of spacetime is like a circuit or something more complicated

Question is, if all the relationships "already" exist, why do we perceive time the way we do?

Noggin

because natural selection favoured a brain that spotted patterns - actions have consequences and a consequence is always preceded by an action....it just made the best of whatever mutations were about at the time - thats all. Its nothing special.

But click, in a timeless structure precedence and consequence (and evolution) don't exist. They are artefacts of the "direction" of perceived time, and can't be used to explain that direction.

Of course, spacetime probably isn't like I've suggested, but we don't really know.

Noggin

Artifact? Artefact?

Sorry.


Just have a good evening, OK?

Artifact it is

Not like me to misspell things.

Noggin

Howdy, az. I was trying to be nice to both you and gadarene. My remarks were mostly in jest and there's the odd grin in there which is intended to remove any doubt about the spirit of the message.

I would like to remind you that the final part of the kalam argument is precisely about why the creator has to be a person. For those who don't like my continuing to go on about it, you provide a good excuse along with those who are completely new to it.

The following is from this source: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8160/kalam.htm

Which I'm afraid I don't trust you to follow up for yourself.

"Actually, the nature of the creation event requires that the Cause of the universe be a personal agent. Can a temporal effect arise from an eternal (timeless) cause? If the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an effect exist from all eternity, then the effect will be eternal as well. (i.e. the effect will ontologically dependent on its cause [in an asymmetrical relationship] from all eternity.) For example, if the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of ice exist (such as the presence of water/H20 and subzero temperatures) then the effect arises immediately - there is no waiting period. The effect will never fail to arise as long as the causal conditions exist. Likewise, a completely mechanistic state of affairs that exists from all eternity, if causally sufficient for an effect, could only produce something eternal that is, so to speak, "along side it." Nothing new could ever enter into the causal "chain." But if this is the case, then the temporal universe cannot be the result of a mechanistic state of affairs existing from all eternity, for then the cosmos would be as timeless as the Cause is.

The only way a temporal effect (namely the first event at t0) can be caused by an eternal state of affairs is if the Cause of the universe is a personal agent. Agent causes can bring about events that are not necessitated by their essences (i.e. they are not determined to act as they do) and can, therefore, produce novel effects. Thus, God could exist eternally [causally prior to creation] and yet will to produce a temporal effect by virtue of the fact that He is an agent; and such would not be determined by His timeless nature. Otherwise, the universe would be just as eternal as God is. Hence, personal agency is essential to the Cause of the universe."

toxx

The problem is that this leaves the nature of "personal agency" entirely mysterious. It's not the same personal agency that we are familiar with within the universe, it has no internal structure or explicated relationship with its environment, no context of purpose etc. It's a chimera, the extension of a concept beyond the bounds of its applicability.

Noggin

Noggin.



The nature of personal agency IS entirely mysterious. Maybe you would care to explicate what it is for something to be a person and also 'the same person' at t1 and t2. We covered the latter aspect of this problem when we did the 'Beam me up Scottie' topic that I dragged in some time ago, I seem to recall. I suspect that you are taking a superficial, unanalysed view of this at the present moment or you might find that what seems important 'within the universe' isn't a key feature of the concept.

What is essential, you might find applicable beyond the 'within the universe' features you base the analysis on. Fairly obviously, if you analyse something as used in a particular context (The vacuum cleaner is for cleaning the bedroom carpet), it won't appear to have a use outside that concept (what good is this thing in the dining room?)!

In an earlier post, you mentioned the relation between metaphysics and physics. I think you will find that metaphysics covers persons while physics does not. Here again, you are attempting to constrain the wider applications of a philosophical construct to the mundane by analysing it in terms of the mundane. Perhaps there are grounds for doing so and it might be the underpinnings of a particular school of thought. If so, I don't think I'm likely to subscribe to it, but I'm open to persuasion.

It's pleasing that not everyone is away from here for Easter. Particularly good to see you, Noggin, although new friends here have also been hard but fair on this thread. Exactly what we need.

toxx

Oops! That last 'concept' should have been 'context', of course. t

So what use is it as an explanation? And how would you know what is essential to it and what is not, or what the limits of its applicability are?

A philosophical construct has an internal logic; it only applies to that which has the same rules of construction as it does itself.

And the vacuum cleaner analogy sucks

Noggin

Noggin. I guess material causation is pretty mysterious too. We have tried to analyse it further than 'just one damn thing after another' but in the end it applies where it is observed to apply. We can't discover what causes what without doing the experiment.

We can leave it to physics to tell us what 'matter' is. Maybe it boils down, in the end, to Pauli's exclusion principle. So maybe the equations work, but still I don't think we know why.

In the case of 'personal causation' we're left whith the concept of a person as a problem for ourselves. We seem to understand what is meant by 'a person'. Nobody on the parallel 'God' thread has objected to that feature of my attempted response to your 'What is a god?' question, anyway. We can, at least, say something about personal agency from the example of ourselves and others. I guess it applies to that which has a choice concerning whether to act. True, 'choice' is difficult too - especially if it is supposed to be in some sense a free choice. In my own case as you know, 'my choice' is all I insist on. Ah but what is meant by 'my'? That pesky person again! It's a hard discipline we've embarked upon, Noggin.

toxx

"metaphysics covers persons while physics does not"



Why do you say physics doesn't cover persons? What is it about persons which is not covered by physics (allowing that by "physics" one basically also means "chemistry", and by "chemistry" one also by implication covers "biology").

<...but in the end it applies where it's observed to apply.>

I thought that was pretty much what I've been saying all along in regard to agency.

Arguably, physics doesn't cover the "what it's like" of being a person. Metaphysics has to try and take that into account, and to clarify the concepts that relate it to other disciplines, but it doesn't really explain it.

Noggin

Toxxin:

"Nobody on the parallel 'God' thread has objected to that feature of my attempted response to your 'What is a god?'"

Happy Easter, everybody

Well, I hereby object to it.

As Member points out, the person is certainly subject to physics within this universe. The 'person' you are alluding to as being separate from the physical person however is merely a high level program running on a biological computer. Take away, damage or 'power down' that computer and the 'person' disappears. MRI scans can even show the system in operation. Personality and consciousness are all affected by physical interaction with the brain and so are demonstrably dependent on it.

God, on the other hand appears to be high level software running on nothing.

The Kalam argument insists that personal is different to physical as if the 'person' in each of us was independent of the "ugly bags of mostly water" we inhabit. Well it isn't. The 'personal' cause requires a physical medium in which to exist which clearly precludes it as the cause of the beginning of the universe. Proposing a dimensionless, timeless and somehow eternal intellect in the role is simply a way of not answering the question; like telling children the stork brought their new sister.

It's true that our usual experience of the universe is that if something is possible then it's compulsory; that if the conditions are right for ice to form then it either has formed or will unless the conditions change, that if A can cause B then it always does. I can see why this has been extended to the cause of the universe; that if the conditions were ever right then they were always so and the universe should have been created 'immediately'. Unfortunately this assumes some kind of time dimension prior to the beginning of the universe. If time started when the universe was born then these rules and assumptions about causality break down. In a situation where there really is 'nothing' then there is no time. The 'infinitely old' scenario is meaningless as, with no time, then no time has passed. Prior to the big bang - if that carries any real meaning - there could have been an infinity of nothing: there's no reason why we can't have as much nothing as we need. Take away the temporality and the infinity argument evaporates with it.

F