Philosophy Now Forum

Age wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 6:25 am

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

But WHY ASSUME ANY thing?

WHY NOT just LOOK AT and DISCUSS what IS IRREFUTABLY True ONLY?

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm We assume something and show whether it leads to a contradiction or not.

I KNOW you DO. That I ASKED you WHY you DO 'that' SHOWS and PROVES this.

Now, WHY do you NOT just ANSWER the ACTUAL QUESTIONS I ASKED you?

The assumption is true if there is no contradiction, otherwise it is false.

And, of the MANY CONTRADICTIONS you make and say some of I SHOW and REVEAL.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm
By WHO'S, or by WHAT, 'definition' is infinity UNREACHABLE?

The age of the universe is either finite, has a beginning, or it is infinite and has no beginning.

REALLY?

WHY were you under some sort of an ASSUMPTION "others" here were NOT AWARE of this Fact and that you NEEDED to SAY and WRITE this here?

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm Can you reach the infinite past by watching the evolution of the universe backward? Of course not. So you cannot reach from any point in the infinite past to now too.

But, as I have EXPLAINED to you BEFORE, just because a human being can NOT do some thing, then this by itself does Not mean that a 'thing' does not exist, OBVIOUSLY.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

But the 'NOW', Itself, IS eternal?

So, your CONCLUSION here IS Wrong. Making YOUR so-called "argument" NOT valid and sound, so REALLY rather WORTHLESS and USELESS.

No. Now is just one point at the time. It is not eternal.

"Now is just one point at the time" does NOT make sense in english.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

Or, the CONCLUSION is Wrong, but because of YOUR BELIEFS you are NOT OPEN to SEEING this.

Talk about just saying SOME thing, which aligns with what one ALREADY BELIEVES is true.

You are wrong. The conclusion is correct. I cannot help you if you cannot understand such a simple argument.

What you are 'trying to' CLAIM can be VERY EASILY UNDERSTOOD. But what you are 'trying to' CLAIM can be PROVED False AND Wrong. You are just NOT YET OPEN enough to UNDERSTANDING and SEEING this Fact.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

Here are three CONCLUSIONS, based solely upon one's OWN ALREADY GAINED BELIEFS, but which are ALL False, Wrong, AND Incorrect.

No.

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

This, ACTUALLY, does follow, LOGICALLY. However, because the past three CONCLUSIONS were Wrong, False, AND Incorrect this makes 'this' ALSO False Wrong, AND Incorrect.

It follows.

OF COURSE 'it' follows. 'it' even follows LOGICALLY, as I just SAID. However, if the Universe' did NOT begin from ANY moment, then It is infinite, ALSO 'follows', and even LOGICALLY, but does this make 'it' TRUE and RIGHT?

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

It could be argued that any act actually CREATES or CAUSES what is said to be 'time'. So, what you just said here could ALSO be just as False, Wrong, AND Incorrect as your other CONCLUSIONS above.

Does any act has a before and after? If yes how you could have an act without time?

BUT what you, Wrongly, refer to as 'rime' IS eternal, along WITH the Universe. The two go 'hand-in-hand', as some might say.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

Now this her is a PRIME EXAMPLE of circular reasoning and arguing.

No. If there was a point that there was nothing but God.

Your response here, ONCE MORE, is MORE ABSURD than your original CLAIM IS and WAS.

A fair amount of what you say MIGHT make sense in your original language but it truly does NOT in english.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

This just leads to ABSURDITY and RIDICULOUSNESS in the EXTREME.

I know you believe in regress but you are wrong.

But what you SUPPOSEDLY :know' here is ABSOLUTELY and TOTALLY Wrong AND Absurd.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

Talk about being BEYOND a joke now.

Please provide an argument.

'what' some of you human beinga refer to as 'time', like the Universe, can NOT begin. BECAUSE it is BOTH logically AND empirically IMPOSSIBLE to create some thing from NO thing. So, what some of you human beings refer to as 'time' is NOT some thing that was 'created' but is some 'thing' that exists ALWAYS, with the ALWAYS CHANGING Universe.

'Regress' is just some IMAGINED up thing, which has absolutely NO bearing in a discussion about whether the Universe began or not.

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

If you SAY and BELIEVE SO, then 'it' MUST BE SO, correct?

I just proved it.

Is it STILL IMPOSSIBLE for you to just ANSWER the ACTUAL QUESTION posed to you?

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:46 pm

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

You are, LITERALLY, NOT in a position to show ANY such thing.

Yes, I am.

Age wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 10:43 pm

WHO and/or WHAT is the 'we' here, EXACTLY?

By the way,'you' have NOT shown ANY such thing here.

The above was a GREAT EXAMPLE of how adult human beings used to 'try to' "argue" for their ALREADY OBTAINED BELIEFS, back in the days when this was being written.

Instead of just REMAINING Truly OPEN, ALWAYS, so as to be ABLE to SEE and RECOGNIZE what WAS and WILL ALWAYS BE IRREFUTABLY True, they much preferred to just first BELIEVE some thing was true, and then 'try' their HARDEST to LOOK FOR and FIND just about ANY thing, which they could 'try to' use in the hope that it would back up and support their pre-existing ASSUMPTIONS or BELIEFS.

This forum is a GREAT PLACE to BEAR WITNESS to this Truly DISTORTED way of THINKING and of LOOKING AT things.

I am familiar with the wall of words from you that explain nothing and provide nothing.

If this is what you SEE, then this is what you "UNDERSTAND".

Are you AWARE that 'others" SEE things VERY DIFFERENTLY from you here?

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:24 pm Physicists have an answer for that. According to them the age of the universe is 13.77 billion years.

bahman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:18 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 2:46 am

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:04 pm
Which part of my argument is problematic for you. (1), (2), or (3)?

Which part of your argument are you able to back up with hard evidence?

I don't need evidence since this is purely a metaphysical discussion. But I have evidence for the fact that there is a beginning: If the universe was eternal we should be at heat death state now. We are not at heat death. Therefore there is a beginning.

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.

The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.

So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.

To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.

Or consider this:

To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.
nasa

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. nasa

bobmax wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:01 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 13, 2022 8:24 pm Physicists have an answer for that. According to them the age of the universe is 13.77 billion years.

But 13 billion years ago the universe was not born as well as anything else that is born.

Because everything is born in a pre-existing place.
A space-time place.

Instead, the birth of the universe, according to physicists, is the birth of space-time itself.
There is no space and time where the universe is born.

It is for this reason that for physicists you are precisely in the center of the universe.
Because everything in the universe is in the center of the universe itself.

This should already make us meditate...
But there is more!

Because if time has a beginning, and we hold this event in place without letting ourselves go to arbitrarily assume the existence of a time prior to this ... then we are still in that initial instant!
The 13 billion years have never actually elapsed.

And this paradoxical observation is confirmed by the photon, for which the universe is but a point and its billions of years have never been.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:06 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:18 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 2:46 am

Which part of your argument are you able to back up with hard evidence?

I don't need evidence since this is purely a metaphysical discussion. But I have evidence for the fact that there is a beginning: If the universe was eternal we should be at heat death state now. We are not at heat death. Therefore there is a beginning.

Okay, so you'll go to the grave with your metaphysical speculations. And if that's enough for you, great. Ater all, in the end, it's what we come to think and believe "in our heads" is true that counts.

For me though, it's just not enough. I was not, I was, I may not be, I will not be. Why? That I will almost certainly never have access to the answer can, in particular moods and frames of mind, exasperate me to no end. And, since I lost my faith/belief in religion, even my own existence "here and now" is construed by me to be essentially meaningless and purposeless.

And take your evidence for a beginning to the scientific community. I'm sure you'll find those there who both agree and disagree with it. But as for accumulating irrefutable proof that it's true...in our lifetimes?

Right.

And even if that ontological proof comes to be found, there's still the part about whether existence has any teleological meaning or purpose.

Try getting around God and religion in grappling with that.

Look, if there was a consensus among physicists about the beginning of the universe/existence it would be all they were talking about. Hell, that news would be plastered in headlines in the media around the globe. Right?

Note where your "simple truth" is being talked about either in the scientific community or the general media.

As for your argument against the existence of God, where's the irrefutable evidence for that?

I don't believe in the existence of God, myself.

But given the "staggering vastness" that is "all there is"...

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.

The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.

So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.

To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.

Or consider this:

To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.
nasa

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. nasa

...what are the odds that my belief comes closest to the actual objective truth?

Or your own.

bahman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:47 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:06 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 4:18 pm
I don't need evidence since this is purely a metaphysical discussion. But I have evidence for the fact that there is a beginning: If the universe was eternal we should be at heat death state now. We are not at heat death. Therefore there is a beginning.

Okay, so you'll go to the grave with your metaphysical speculations. And if that's enough for you, great. Ater all, in the end, it's what we come to think and believe "in our heads" is true that counts.

For me though, it's just not enough. I was not, I was, I may not be, I will not be. Why? That I will almost certainly never have access to the answer can, in particular moods and frames of mind, exasperate me to no end. And, since I lost my faith/belief in religion, even my own existence "here and now" is construed by me to be essentially meaningless and purposeless.

And take your evidence for a beginning to the scientific community. I'm sure you'll find those there who both agree and disagree with it. But as for accumulating irrefutable proof that it's true...in our lifetimes?

Right.

And even if that ontological proof comes to be found, there's still the part about whether existence has any teleological meaning or purpose.

Try getting around God and religion in grappling with that.

Look, if there was a consensus among physicists about the beginning of the universe/existence it would be all they were talking about. Hell, that news would be plastered in headlines in the media around the globe. Right?

Note where your "simple truth" is being talked about either in the scientific community or the general media.

As for your argument against the existence of God, where's the irrefutable evidence for that?

I don't believe in the existence of God, myself.

But given the "staggering vastness" that is "all there is"...

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.

The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.

So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.

To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.

Or consider this:

To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.
nasa

It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe. nasa

...what are the odds that my belief comes closest to the actual objective truth?

Or your own.

Speculation? I am using logic. Again, (1), (2), or (3). Which one do you like to discuss?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:57 am

bahman wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:47 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Jun 14, 2022 5:06 pm

Okay, so you'll go to the grave with your metaphysical speculations. And if that's enough for you, great. Ater all, in the end, it's what we come to think and believe "in our heads" is true that counts.

For me though, it's just not enough. I was not, I was, I may not be, I will not be. Why? That I will almost certainly never have access to the answer can, in particular moods and frames of mind, exasperate me to no end. And, since I lost my faith/belief in religion, even my own existence "here and now" is construed by me to be essentially meaningless and purposeless.

And take your evidence for a beginning to the scientific community. I'm sure you'll find those there who both agree and disagree with it. But as for accumulating irrefutable proof that it's true...in our lifetimes?

Right.

And even if that ontological proof comes to be found, there's still the part about whether existence has any teleological meaning or purpose.

Try getting around God and religion in grappling with that.

Look, if there was a consensus among physicists about the beginning of the universe/existence it would be all they were talking about. Hell, that news would be plastered in headlines in the media around the globe. Right?

Note where your "simple truth" is being talked about either in the scientific community or the general media.

As for your argument against the existence of God, where's the irrefutable evidence for that?

I don't believe in the existence of God, myself.

But given the "staggering vastness" that is "all there is"...



...what are the odds that my belief comes closest to the actual objective truth?

Or your own.

Speculation? I am using logic. Again, (1), (2), or (3). Which one do you like to discuss?

Right. Logic -- metaphysical logic -- and the beginning of the universe and/or existence itself.

Pick one of them yourself and provide us with the logic -- the simple truth -- that will have the scientific community buzzing with excitement once they hear it.

Or are you to physics what Immanual Can is to the Christian God?

At least as construed by me.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 4:30 pm is "nothing" simply an absence of matter?

-Imp

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:54 pm
(1). What is your objection?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:32 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:54 pm
(1). What is your objection?

My objection? Again, I lack the education, the background and the experience to tackle your conjectures -- your logic, your simple truth -- with any degree of sophistication.

Thus my suggestion that you take it to those who do.

Then one day I might be watching an episode of Nova here in America and there it is...a documentary confirming your logic and your simple truth. By then you might even be closing in on the simple, logical truth regarding the meaning and the purpose of the universe and of existence itself.

Look, I'm the first to admit it truly is fascinating to speculate about things like this. But to insist your own conclusions are necessarily logical and convey the simple truth? I'll need confirmation from the scientific community itself before I can go along with that.

And shouldn't you?

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:21 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:32 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 1:54 pm
(1). What is your objection?

My objection? Again, I lack the education, the background and the experience to tackle your conjectures -- your logic, your simple truth -- with any degree of sophistication.

Thus my suggestion that you take it to those who do.

Then one day I might be watching an episode of Nova here in America and there it is...a documentary confirming your logic and your simple truth. By then you might even be closing in on the simple, logical truth regarding the meaning and the purpose of the universe and of existence itself.

Look, I'm the first to admit it truly is fascinating to speculate about things like this. But to insist your own conclusions are necessarily logical and convey the simple truth? I'll need confirmation from the scientific community itself before I can go along with that.

And shouldn't you?

It is alright.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 7:10 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 6:21 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 5:32 pm

My objection? Again, I lack the education, the background and the experience to tackle your conjectures -- your logic, your simple truth -- with any degree of sophistication.

Thus my suggestion that you take it to those who do.

Then one day I might be watching an episode of Nova here in America and there it is...a documentary confirming your logic and your simple truth. By then you might even be closing in on the simple, logical truth regarding the meaning and the purpose of the universe and of existence itself.

Look, I'm the first to admit it truly is fascinating to speculate about things like this. But to insist your own conclusions are necessarily logical and convey the simple truth? I'll need confirmation from the scientific community itself before I can go along with that.

And shouldn't you?

It is alright.

Whatever that means?

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 7:15 pm
I don't need confirmation from the scientific community. It is alright if you need it.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 7:22 pm

bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 7:15 pm
I don't need confirmation from the scientific community. It is alright if you need it.

Well, sure, that's one way to go about it. Like IC not needing confirmation from the Christian God that He exists.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 15, 2022 7:22 pm On the other hand, what is alright that who needs?