There is no God!

[raum]

I have nuttin' left to say...I guess my mind is too weak to understand how pure nothingness could result in a human being by mysticism. I just feel it is illogical.

your mind is not weak,.. just not refined enough. Study the higgs-boson possibility. The HBE is stuff that makes stuff things, without being a thing itself... where Mass is the criteria for something being a "thing", and massless elementary particles are "stuff." the only real competition to the HBE phenomenon is Casimir effect, which still supports my assertion.

BUT - the real question for me is how does the idea of scalar elementary particle theories in quantum science interact with some of the discoveries taking place in cognitive science?

The Large Hadron Collider will be great if they ever get it to work.

@ raum: do you believe that our universe is eternal or temporal?

the word "our" in that statement is misplaced, methinks.

The Universe is eternal; and eternally changing due to scalar elementary particles. Our singular observations of the Universe are [generally] temporal; and continually changing and overlap in some very interesting ways that mimic many quantum effects.

This is why I personally feel many cog sci experiments speak to the possibility of a scalar elementary particle that creates a thing called 'consciousness' - if we lock that down - we can acknowledge the Highest Octave of Thought in the Universe, and by Pseudo-Dionysus's definition - that is exactly what God is!

Does consciousness function on a Quantum level is the question I personally address when people ask me about God. Not a question of mythical accounts or whose hype do you believe. My answer to the question of Quantum consciousness is YES, and furthermore I assert I have experienced it, and shared that experience with others (without drugs, alchohol, sleep deprivation, or fasting). And that by Qabalistic definition is called "Messhiach" and is the True Rosicrucian Mystery spoken of in the Fama Fraternitatis and the gnous revealed in the Corpus Hermeticum.

Kumicho may or may not confirm my sharing it with others.

[deepsepia]

I have nuttin' left to say...I guess my mind is too weak to understand how pure nothingness could result in a human being by mysticism. I just feel it is illogical.

Again, you're imposing a very narrow human perception on a physical universe which is vastly more complex.

Here's an example: you go into a cave. Its pitch black: you see "nothing". For the bat, which lives in the cave and uses echolocation, he "sees" just fine. What looks "pitch black" to you is simply "quiet" in the segments of the electromagnetic spectrum which you're biologically equipped for: without instrumentation, but in fact other parts of the EM environment are quite informative.

There never "was" what you call "nothing". Space and time at the level of the universe are related in ways which don't make much sense to us as humans-- "was" isn't even a meaningful word in the world of particle physics. We have a very narrow temporal understanding as human beings: there's a past, a present moment, and a future, this is called "the arrow of time", because it only points in one direction. All human experience is consistent with this.

But that doesn't apply to our universe, in which time is much more complex. Among the many aspects of time which make no intuitive sense, but which are nonetheless measurably real: Einstein's time dilation, wherein time "passes more slowly" for a twin riding a fast spaceship than it does for the Earthbound twin. This is "illogical" -- we expect that time passes at the same rate for everything, because that's the way it works in human experience-- but we have in fact measured this effect (clocks on fast moving spacecraft are in fact measurably slower than on Earth); "illogical" or not, its quite real, and consistent with a much more complex understanding of the physical universe than human intuition can ever provide. No theology or supernatural explanation is required for explaining time dilation, nor would it make it any less weird.

The point of all of this: naive intuition is worse than useless in trying to understand where we are "I don't see how" is simply a statement that "you don't see how" -- its not proof of anything.

[Aemeth]

Logical principles are eternal. They are not stuck in our perception of time. Hence we can successfully say that logical principles could be eternal, but our world isn't.

Give me an example of an eternal logical principal, and upon your completion and my immediate understanding of said example, I will allow you entrance into the magical Kingdom of Eusou...Your use of words so closely together that in essence shouldn't be together confuses me...Logic is perceived, first and foremost...Time comes from and will go to a place we cannot comprehend...So in my mind, time is eternal, and shits on everything we think or believe to be logical...Elaborate...Or, tap out as you suggested you would do for lack of an understanding...

A cannot be A and not A at the same time, in the same respect, from the same perspective, etc. (law of non-contradiction)

1+1=2

0x0 cannot equal anything other than 0

(that is how I would put N-2-S argument in mathematical form)

You cannot prove these things false unless their definitions are manipulated in some way.

[Aemeth]

But that doesn't apply to our universe, in which time is much more complex. Among the many aspects of time which make no intuitive sense, but which are nonetheless measurably real: Einstein's time dilation, wherein time "passes more slowly" for a twin riding a fast spaceship than it does for the Earthbound twin. This is "illogical"

My man that is not illogical at all. "illogical" yes, but it does not violate any logical rule or principles. It doesn't make 0x0 equal something other than 0. It just shows we do not understand the mysteries of time.

If Jones was asleep at 4 AM, he could not have committed the murder at 4 AM. If nobody knows where he was, he could have. All these examples seem to operate under the pretense of nobody knew where Jones was, providing infinite possibilities. But if he was sleeping, (ie there was nothing) then it is simply impossible to commit a murder (ie get something).

Now, my question for the eternalists:

If time is eternal, how is change possible?

[raum]

If Jones was asleep at 4 AM, he could not have committed the murder at 4 AM. If nobody knows where he was, he could have. All these examples seem to operate under the pretense of nobody knew where Jones was, providing infinite possibilities. But if he was sleeping, (ie there was nothing) then it is simply impossible to commit a murder (ie get something).

Jones put a mercury switch on an explosive and placed it on Smith's bed in an apartment in new york... He then carefully placed a pillow over it. Then he left and flew about 4,000 miles away. It was not until his victim hopped into bed that Smith was dead at 4 AM Eastern time - Yet is was only 1 AM in San Francisco where Jones was according to his watch when he called the person who hired him to kill Smith, though his watch was actually 3.5 minutes early. At what time did Jones commit murder? Delayed death is VERY easy to arrange. In fact, the simple concept of mechanism seems to unravel most of your analogies.

Now, my question for the eternalists:

If time is eternal, how is change possible?

Am I an eternalist? I never heard that before... i generally preferred to not be called a "ist", "ian," "ite", and all those other crutches people use to imply the base of their own assumptions are automatically compatible, if not identicle, to those of others.

as for the question...

The notion of change and stability are asserted by human perception and decision, and are subjective, if not entirely arbitrary.

[deepsepia]

But that doesn't apply to our universe, in which time is much more complex. Among the many aspects of time which make no intuitive sense, but which are nonetheless measurably real: Einstein's time dilation, wherein time "passes more slowly" for a twin riding a fast spaceship than it does for the Earthbound twin. This is "illogical"

My man that is not illogical at all. "illogical" yes, but it does not violate any logical rule or principles. It doesn't make 0x0 equal something other than 0. It just shows we do not understand the mysteries of time.

I had a different point, and expressed it badly. Einsteinian time dilation is logical, but it is not intuitive. No aspect of human experience gives us any intuition as to how or why the speed of an object, or the gravitational field that it is placed in, should affect the the rate of time on that object.

Modern physics actually does "understand the mysteries of time" -- however, the understanding that that is scientifically accurate is not relevant to human experience.

[Aemeth]

Jones put a mercury switch on an explosive and placed it on Smith's bed in an apartment in new york... He then carefully placed a pillow over it. Then he left and flew about 4,000 miles away. It was not until his victim hopped into bed that Smith was dead at 4 AM Eastern time - Yet is was only 1 AM in San Francisco where Jones was according to his watch when he called the person who hired him to kill Smith, though his watch was actually 3.5 minutes early. At what time did Jones commit murder? Delayed death is VERY easy to arrange. In fact, the simple concept of mechanism seems to unravel most of your analogies.

Ok, I didn't think it was necessary to provide every single parameter...There are a million other ways he could have been responsible with the scenario I put out but I just thought the point could be understood and my time would not have to be wasted.

Jones has not left his room since the day he was born, has had no communication, and has been carefully monitored by 10000000 cameras. Feel free to add in anything else. Point is, he cant be two places at once in the same respect...Two things can't coexist in this sense on a natural level...If you have complete and utter void, it is impossible for something to come about, b/c there is nothing to inspire it/form it/create it/etc/etc/etc.

Now is this still really up for debate or can we move on to discussing the possibility of an eternal universe, in which I see much more potential for solving this dilemma?

Am I an eternalist? I never heard that before... i generally preferred to not be called a "ist", "ian," "ite", and all those other crutches people use to imply the base of their own assumptions are automatically compatible, if not identicle, to those of others.

as for the question...

The notion of change and stability are asserted by human perception and decision, and are subjective, if not entirely arbitrary.

Sorry, I will just call you lil bitch from now on

Change and stability? I would say change is completely arbitrary since it depends entirely on human perception and decision. But isn't stability (and by stability I mean non-change; I am wondering if/hoping that is what you meant) completely independent of perception? For if "stability" could somehow be perceived, change would exist...

[Aemeth]

I had a different point, and expressed it badly. Einsteinian time dilation is logical, but it is not intuitive. No aspect of human experience gives us any intuition as to how or why the speed of an object, or the gravitational field that it is placed in, should affect the the rate of time on that object.

Modern physics actually does "understand the mysteries of time" -- however, the understanding that that is scientifically accurate is not relevant to human experience.

I do not cry for "God" out of intuition. To me, 0x0=1 is so illogical that I am willing to say that something that actually goes against much of my intuition (that something more than nature exists) is true b/c I do not see how 0x0 can equal 1 any other way.

[deepsepia]

I do not cry for "God" out of intuition. To me, 0x0=1 is so illogical that I am willing to say that something that actually goes against much of my intuition (that something more than nature exists) is true b/c I do not see how 0x0 can equal 1 any other way.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Agnostics don't claim that 0x0 =1, they merely observe that claims for the existence of a supernatural deity have no evidence.

The notion that there is some logical problem "where did the universe come from?" which is somehow made more simple by saying "it came from God" doesn't make sense. Where did God come from, then? You've merely moved a bit of complexity one order deeper-- and raised all sorts of paradoxes and inconsistencies at the same time.

[Aemeth]

The theist does not claim to understand the nature of the supernatural...if he did, it would be considered the natural...

I have not moved the problem. I say that it is not necessary/impossible to "know" where "God" came from. It is a supernatural issue. However, w/o supernatural, it is just a natural issue--and not being able to explain it or even understand it is a problem.