Prove me wrong: there is no God

[Immanuel Can]

...existence (or the universe) is progressing.

What makes you think it's progress, rather than regress or remaining as it is?

[Fanman]

...existence (or the universe) is progressing.

What makes you think it's progress, rather than regress or remaining as it is?

As stated: I do not attribute a 'direction' to progression. Based on the configuration of reality and how we experience its changes of state, progressive seems apt as a fundamental descriptor.

[Immanuel Can]

...existence (or the universe) is progressing.

What makes you think it's progress, rather than regress or remaining as it is?

As stated: I do not attribute a 'direction' to progression. Based on the configuration of reality and how we experience its changes of state, progressive seems apt as a fundamental descriptor.

Except that "progress" implies improvement in a journey or direction. One always "progresses toward" something. And if one is getting there, one is making "progress."

So it even implies teleology...it takes for granted that we know what we ought to be "progressing toward," or at least what is it inevitable that we will "progress toward," and yet does not always tell us what the orientation point is supposed to be, or what destination, what "toward," is being assumed.

So it kind of turns out to be misleading, if that's not what it is. But I'm sensing you didn't intend to imply progress...so perhaps another word would actually suit better.

[Fanman]

What makes you think it's progress, rather than regress or remaining as it is?

As stated: I do not attribute a 'direction' to progression. Based on the configuration of reality and how we experience its changes of state, progressive seems apt as a fundamental descriptor.

Except that "progress" implies improvement in a journey or direction. One always "progresses toward" something. And if one is getting there, one is making "progress."

So it even implies teleology...it takes for granted that we know what we ought to be "progressing toward," or at least what is it inevitable that we will "progress toward," and yet does not always tell us what the orientation point is supposed to be, or what destination, what "toward," is being assumed.

So it kind of turns out to be misleading, if that's not what it is. But I'm sensing you didn't intend to imply progress...so perhaps another word would actually suit better.

My replies correspond to your sentences in order.

Not on the scale I am applying it. On the scale I am using, progression refers to the medium (or process) of existence that facilitates changes of state.

Specifically, how did you gather this from what I stated? That is not my inference of progression within the category of existence (or the universe) itself. It is important to the progression of our discussion that you answer this question.

Again, this is your inference; how do you relate that to what I specifically stated in my initial post in this sequence? At the moment, based on the scale I am applying, progression, which categorically differs from yours, I think there's a misalignment in our understanding. In that case, I reject your suggestion that another word would suit it better.

[Immanuel Can]

As stated: I do not attribute a 'direction' to progression. Based on the configuration of reality and how we experience its changes of state, progressive seems apt as a fundamental descriptor.

Except that "progress" implies improvement in a journey or direction. One always "progresses toward" something. And if one is getting there, one is making "progress."

So it even implies teleology...it takes for granted that we know what we ought to be "progressing toward," or at least what is it inevitable that we will "progress toward," and yet does not always tell us what the orientation point is supposed to be, or what destination, what "toward," is being assumed.

So it kind of turns out to be misleading, if that's not what it is. But I'm sensing you didn't intend to imply progress...so perhaps another word would actually suit better.

My replies correspond to your sentences in order.

Not on the scale I am applying it.

"Scale"? There's no "scale." There's just the meaning of the word "progress" and what it automatically implies. You can't have "progress," by definition, unless you also have "direction" and "advancement." So there's no way to alter that.

Specifically, how did you gather this from what I stated?

Quite simply: from the word you chose to use.

Words are community things, you know. Of course, there's the person who uses them, but there's also the community that invented the word for a particular function. A lone user doesn't have any ability suddenly to change the communal implication of a word, one that he never invented but rather borrowed from the particular linguistic community that invented it. The word means -- and implies -- what that word already means and implies.

Words mean things. We have to respect the linguistic-communal meanings of the words we choose, or just accept that nobody's going to understand us.

Again, this is your inference;

No, not at all. Rather, it's the implication of a word invented by the linguistic community known as "English speakers." I'm sorry, but you're simply using the wrong word for that community...assuming you want to make your meaning plain.

[Fanman]

Except that "progress" implies improvement in a journey or direction. One always "progresses toward" something. And if one is getting there, one is making "progress."

So it even implies teleology...it takes for granted that we know what we ought to be "progressing toward," or at least what is it inevitable that we will "progress toward," and yet does not always tell us what the orientation point is supposed to be, or what destination, what "toward," is being assumed.

So it kind of turns out to be misleading, if that's not what it is. But I'm sensing you didn't intend to imply progress...so perhaps another word would actually suit better.

My replies correspond to your sentences in order.

Not on the scale I am applying it.

"Scale"? There's no "scale." There's just the meaning of the word "progress" and what it automatically implies. You can't have "progress," by definition, unless you also have "direction" and "advancement." So there's no way to alter that.

Specifically, how did you gather this from what I stated?

Quite simply: from the word you chose to use.

Words are community things, you know. Of course, there's the person who uses them, but there's also the community that invented the word for a particular function. A lone user doesn't have any ability suddenly to change the communal implication of a word, one that he never invented but rather borrowed from the particular linguistic community that invented it. The word means -- and implies -- what that word already means and implies.

Words mean things. We have to respect the linguistic-communal meanings of the words we choose, or just accept that nobody's going to understand us.

Again, this is your inference;

No, not at all. Rather, it's the implication of a word invented by the linguistic community known as "English speakers." I'm sorry, but you're simply using the wrong word for that community...assuming you want to make your meaning plain.

My responses accord with the order of your sentences and paragraphs

I strongly disagree. The meaning of a word can vary depending on the scale and context to which it is applied. In my application, "progressive" ≈ continuous state‑change, not direction.

I don't agree; the meaning of the words we use is not governed by a community consensus—if used appropriately according to standard lexicons and appropriate contexts, there's no issue. I mean, "progressive" ≈ continuous state‑change, not direction. That's not 'unlawful' because you say so or because you disagree with my doing so.

I have committed no linguistic violations, as explained.

I strongly disagree — as discussed. I will not continue to argue over my use of a word, as I do not see anything wrong with it. I have stated my objections, and as far as I am concerned, they are valid until proven otherwise as a matter of fact, not an interlocutor's preference. For the neutral reader, so my initial post in this sequence doesn't get lost in a semantic debate, here it is again:

Fanman stated:

If we break things down to their most fundamental “action,” “passive state,” or condition, existence (or the universe) is progressing. I don’t attribute a direction to that progression, even though “forward” is the intuitive metaphor.

Within that ongoing state of progress, rather than using causality or randomness as foundational reference frames, wouldn’t it be more coherent to say that the constituents of reality are constantly undergoing changes of state?

Framed this way, we avoid the conflict between causality and randomness — both of which may be human projections imposed onto reality to make sense of things at that scale.

My framing acknowledges reality as a continuous existence of state‑change — with causality and randomness operating as functional tools for interpretation rather than ontological absolutes.

[Immanuel Can]

My replies correspond to your sentences in order.

Not on the scale I am applying it.

"Scale"? There's no "scale." There's just the meaning of the word "progress" and what it automatically implies. You can't have "progress," by definition, unless you also have "direction" and "advancement." So there's no way to alter that.

Specifically, how did you gather this from what I stated?

Quite simply: from the word you chose to use.

Words are community things, you know. Of course, there's the person who uses them, but there's also the community that invented the word for a particular function. A lone user doesn't have any ability suddenly to change the communal implication of a word, one that he never invented but rather borrowed from the particular linguistic community that invented it. The word means -- and implies -- what that word already means and implies.

Words mean things. We have to respect the linguistic-communal meanings of the words we choose, or just accept that nobody's going to understand us.

Again, this is your inference;

No, not at all. Rather, it's the implication of a word invented by the linguistic community known as "English speakers." I'm sorry, but you're simply using the wrong word for that community...assuming you want to make your meaning plain.

My responses accord with the order of your sentences and paragraphs

I strongly disagree. The meaning of a word can vary depending on the scale and context to which it is applied. In my application, "progressive" ≈ continuous state‑change, not direction.

Sorry...you're just wrong. Nobody knows what you mean, if you use words in ways that no linguistic community even knows. You do have a right to be incomprehensible, if you want. But who's going to pay attention, if your words don't make sense to them?

I don't agree; the meaning of the words we use is not governed by a community consensus—if used appropriately according to standard lexicons

A "lexicon" is the linguistic community's record of common understandings. It's a dictionary, and dictionaries are communal.

I will not continue to argue over my use of a word,

Okay. But nobody will understand you, and you'll seem to be talking nonsense. If you're fine paying that price, go ahead.

[Will Bouwman]

...quantum mechanics allows for uncaused quantum fluctuations.

No, you don't know that they're "uncaused."

Correct; the fact that quantum mechanics allows for uncaused quantum fluctuations does not necessarily mean that quantum fluctuations are uncaused. I don't have to know they are uncaused; the fact that they might be is enough to make any further argument based on your infinite regress argument unsound.

Even Einstein didn't know that, as you have already asserted.

Like you, Einstein preferred to think that the universe at the quantum level is deterministic, fundamentally that is an aesthetic choice, but he failed to show that it is. Again, this does not mean that the quantum level of reality is random, it is enough that it might be.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Correct; the fact that quantum mechanics allows for uncaused quantum fluctuations does not necessarily mean that quantum fluctuations are uncaused. I don't have to know they are uncaused; the fact that they might be is enough to make any further argument based on your infinite regress argument unsound.

Dearest Wilbur. Am I to understand that the function and thrust of your argument is to attempt, by reference to these unpredictable fluctuations at the micro level (unexplainable as they are said to be at this point), to undermine, or in any case call into question, the traditional or ancient physics view of an “infinite regress” to that Uncaused Cause?

I am uncertain how micro-level freakiness of particle behavior would or does undermine the notion of an original uncaused cause and I would feel gratified were you to explain.

What are the ramifications of accepting “uncertainty”, as you put it? Is your argument as simple as an assertion that there was no original cause? That there was no ‘beginning’ as some religionists assert to bolster their notion, by way of logical inevitability, that everything was poofed into existence?

What are we to gain from accepting your (counter-) argument?

[Immanuel Can]

...quantum mechanics allows for uncaused quantum fluctuations.

No, you don't know that they're "uncaused."

Correct; the fact that quantum mechanics allows for uncaused quantum fluctuations does not necessarily mean that quantum fluctuations are uncaused.

Well, then, there's no basis for your claim that quantum mechanics presents any "challenge" to the principle of causality. A speculation is not a basis for undermining an observable scientific law.

I don't have to know they are uncaused;

Actually, you do.

the fact that they might be is enough to make any further argument based on your infinite regress argument unsound.

No, that remains purely speculative, on your part, and has the burden of justifying any doubts regarding causality. It goes no farther than that.

Again, this does not mean that the quantum level of reality is random, it is enough that it might be.

Hardly. You don't even know whether or not it "might be." All you know is that you have not the foggiest idea what causality is associated with the quantum level -- you're not within a million miles of being able to say there's no causal explanation. It may well have.

Yet I get why people aver to quantum theory: it's that they think it will free them from one or another of the problems raised by causality. So being dogmatic, and attempting to drive it to conclusions we simply cannot justify is perhaps tempting. It might be Determinism they think it will help them escape -- but it won't, of course, because a universe controlled by randomness is still just as impersonal and mechanistic as a fully Determined one. But I understand their aversion to Determinism, and their longing to escape it. Another motive might be yours; namely, to escape the causal regress problem. But that's no more successful than the appeal to randomness, since quantum theory isn't a fully-formed theory at all, but rather just an anomaly, an odd speculation derived from unexpected observations of the microcosm. Neither you, nor I, nor Einstein can say what the meaning of those anomalies is, at the present moment. So it's not a "challenge" to anything: it hardly rises to the status of more than a question. But let's grant it the status of an anomalous observation. That seems fair.

It's very far from a conclusion. It may very well prove to be the case that the quantum world has its own causality after all. I would suspect we will find it does, since a particle ACTUALLY being in two states in the same moment fails to conform to existing science, common sense and the Law of Contradiction. We're going to find out something weird there, for sure; but I doubt we'll find no causality is involved.

Meanwhile, where's your answer as to how science can even continue to exist, if you were ever to succeed in undermining causality? And how can you detect an anomaly in the apparent pattern of causality, such as a quantum singularity, if causality is itself is not a pattern at all? There's no longer anything to which it can be an anomaly, and it ceases even to be remarkable, then.

Are you going to answer?

[mickthinks]

I don’t think you’ve been paying attention, AJ.

I believe you are right about Will calling into question the traditional original uncaused cause reasoning by reference to quantum physics.

But quantum physics doesn’t “undermine the notion” * of an original uncaused cause. It undermines Manny’s reasoning by removing the certainty of one of the premises. You don’t need me to tell you that the conclusion is unproven if a premise is in doubt.


* I’m not sure what those words mean in this context. Is “notion” supposed to be a synonym for “proof”?

[Alexis Jacobi]

But quantum physics doesn’t “undermine the notion” of an original uncaused cause. It undermines Manny’s reasoning by removing the certainty of one of the premises. You don’t need me to tell you that the conclusion is unproven if a premise is in doubt.

Undermines? Can you honestly say it goes that far? It may well pose a problem with the argunent of two people on an Internet form who rehearse a battle for various reasons, not all of them stated or obvious.

What would serious physicists say?

So, it is proposed that ‘certainty’ in respect to one premise is cast into some doubt. But the attainment from the insinuation seems pretty vacuous.

Can you explain how it is more substantial?

[Notion: Middle English nocioun, concept, from Latin nōtiō, nōtiōn-, from nōtus, known, past participle of nōscere, to get to know; see gnō- in Indo-European roots.]

[Fanman]

This post is not directed toward Immanuel Can; it is for the benefit of the neutral reader, relative to the 'discussion' I was having with him. Upon checking the three dictionaries I perceive as reputable — Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, and Collins — none of them included a direction in their definitions of the word "Progression". IMO, none of the three dictionaries contradict my use of the word "Progression". Fundamentally, that is progress.

My thoughts are: to attribute a direction to reality at the scale I am using would impose our phenomenological experience onto reality as an ontological factor, and I am not willing to do that epistemically. I take it as a given that progression can mean advancement, but again, at the scale I am applying the word, it seems like a phenomenological metaphor or feeling imposed (or projected) onto an essential state of reality.

That is why I chose to say (without checking any dictionaries at the time) "progressive" ≈ continuous state-change — It requires a progressive field. With respect to Immanuel Can as an interlocutor, I will not continue any discussion with him on this subject.

[Immanuel Can]

IMO, none of the three dictionaries contradict my use of the word "Progression".

And yet they all point out that it means "increasing" in a particular direction. It is the opposite of "static" or "regressive."

My thoughts are: to attribute a direction to reality at the scale I am using would impose our phenomenological experience onto reality as an ontological factor, and I am not willing to do that epistemically.

Okay, so you're not committed to the word "progressive," then. You're trying to be neutral. Understood. But the word "progressive" is still misleading, so I suggest you use a word like "neutral."

With respect to Immanuel Can as an interlocutor, I will not continue any discussion with him on this subject.

That's fine. I think the point is made. And if you want to reject it, you certainly can. I won't stop you.

[Fanman]

Once again, for the neutral reader, since Immanuel Can is perhaps, because of misunderstanding, explicitly misrepresenting my position. For the purposes of clarity and philosophical 'clean waters', I will repeat my original post on this subject, which is to be considered my current philosophical position; my subsequent posts have all supported this position:

Fanman stated:

If we break things down to their most fundamental “action,” “passive state,” or condition, existence (or the universe) is progressing. I don’t attribute a direction to that progression, even though “forward” is the intuitive metaphor.

Within that ongoing state of progress, rather than using causality or randomness as foundational reference frames, wouldn’t it be more coherent to say that the constituents of reality are constantly undergoing changes of state?

Framed this way, we avoid the conflict between causality and randomness — both of which may be human projections imposed onto reality to make sense of things at that scale.

My framing acknowledges reality as a continuous existence of state‑change — with causality and randomness operating as functional tools for interpretation rather than ontological absolutes.