Philosophy Now Forum

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 3:08 pm The rotor?? You probably mean the curl, or the time-derivative. I know Maxwell's equations very well. Possibly unknown to you, I am a mathematician.

Yes I made an English mistake. It is not my language.
However you did not answer.

Probably because you don't grasp the problem.

I'm not surprised you're a mathematician.
Mathematics is often detached from reality.
As well as many so-called physicists, except the greatest.

In fact, they are often convinced that their formulas are "truth".
They believe their fields are the Reality!

You have to keep your feet on the ground to feel the limit.
It is necessary to do, to touch with hand.

I have been an engineer for a lifetime, and despite having dealt with electromagnetism only in my youth, having then dealt with other things, I am well aware of the underlying mystery.
Maxwell understood this well.
Many of his followers do not have the faintest idea.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 9:32 am

Lacewing wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:32 am Humans are the ones who judge it as chaotic, yes? The path of evolution is continually changeable based on varying contributions and circumstances. Can't we see perfection in that if we step back from ourselves? Can we only imagine that 'order' results from being pre-determined? Isn't it possible that there's a cooperatively creative flow that makes perfect sense while also continually evolving?

I agree on all the points you raise, Lacewing. I have had difficulty sorting out the last point about future events as determined just as past events are determined.
Recently I have heard or read certain parts of The Bible , a doxology, or a sermon, which explain to my satisfaction that the future is as assured as the past.

True, for us creatures of time there is a creative flow; the very word "flow" indicates a directional sequence. However from the point of view of eternity which is literally timeless there is no future and no past.

I use the word 'flow' to indicate movement and energy and something larger than myself that all is part of. It is very difficult to describe in our words because all of our terms describe the limits and understandings that are part of (and necessary for) our human world. I don't think of a source or direction of the flow. Rather, it's movement, connectivity, and perfection on a level on the other side of the veil (so-to-speak) from which we experience this human experience.

I think all-that-is is simply too fantastic for us to sufficiently describe with our stories and human-serving beliefs. But that is part of what we do here: tell stories. Could we exist without the stories? Some of us (like me) practice doing so. I'm focused on seeing and experiencing the fullness of as much as I can with each moment and each step. I already feel 'I'm' part of a greater flow, so I care about all that goes with that: what I give to it as well as what I receive from it.

I see the Bible as containing spiritual insights from people of a certain time and place. There is value and inspiration from that -- just as there are spiritual insights and value and inspiration everywhere and throughout all of us, all the time. How could this not be so in such a magnificent 'Universe' and beyond? I wonder how Christians do not seem to recognize the "idols" (stories, beliefs, etc.) that they have created and that they focus on... while ignoring ALL ELSE? So much magnificence is pulsing through every moment, in all directions -- again, why would it not be so? I think we are embraced in, and part of, so much more than humanness. And yet this humanness is a gift to be experienced and reveled in... as joyfully as birds fly through the air and as the rest of nature bursts forth!

We might fear the things that threaten our human experience -- like all of nature might fear for 'itself'. But we don't need to fear that we're excluded from that which is much greater that we're part of. We can find comfort from noticing the magnificence and perfection beyond the human drama.

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 5:41 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 3:08 pm The rotor?? You probably mean the curl, or the time-derivative. I know Maxwell's equations very well. Possibly unknown to you, I am a mathematician.

Yes I made an English mistake. It is not my language.
However you did not answer.

Probably because you don't grasp the problem.

I'm not surprised you're a mathematician.
Mathematics is often detached from reality.
As well as many so-called physicists, except the greatest.

In fact, they are often convinced that their formulas are "truth".

If you have discovered that some of "their formulas" are false, I suggest that you publish your astounding scientific findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

They believe their fields are the Reality!

You have to keep your feet on the ground to feel the limit.
It is necessary to do, to touch with hand.

I have been an engineer for a lifetime, and despite having dealt with electromagnetism only in my youth, having then dealt with other things, I am well aware of the underlying mystery.

I'm not sure which mystery you're talking about.

Maxwell understood this well.

Of course, Faraday, 40 years his senior, was the inspiration for Maxwell.

Many of his followers do not have the faintest idea.

About what?

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:10 pm If you have discovered that some of "their formulas" are false, I suggest that you publish your astounding scientific findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

I guess you don't know that science is founded on renouncing the possession of truth.

It is precisely this renunciation of truth that has allowed scientific development.
Instead you seem convinced that you know the Truth!
Which is completely unscientific.

As a mathematician I guess you believe in Cantor's paradise. And that the diagonal argument is correct...
Is that so?

Lacewing wrote:

I use the word 'flow' to indicate movement and energy and something larger than myself that all is part of. It is very difficult to describe in our words because all of our terms describe the limits and understandings that are part of (and necessary for) our human world. I don't think of a source or direction of the flow. Rather, it's movement, connectivity, and perfection on a level on the other side of the veil (so-to-speak) from which we experience this human experience.

Spinoza did describe in words. He used Latin because Latin is unambiguous. Translated from the Latin into English, Spinoza's words are "From the point of view of time , and from the point of view of eternity". Both of the points of view are mutually true .

Some people would call eternity "larger" than we creatures who live and die. But temporality and eternity imply each other, equally. That's to say, you can't have the one without the other.

indeed, sub specie aeternitatis shall all things be considered, Belinda. For to go with peace and adequate knowledge of God is a noble task as difficult as it is rare, madam.

and only very few eternal truths exist, and those are either analytical tautologies, truisms or synthetic a priori truths. the rest... you, me, the stuff floating around the universe... all modifications of substance ('god')... energy forms and objects extended in space time. but eternally speaking, none of this has any significance... and even a photon, who's shelf life is a gazillion gazillion years, passes in the blink of the eye of eternity. 

dust in the wind, Belinda. all we r iz dust in the wind.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:23 pm indeed, sub specie aeternitatis shall all things be considered, Belinda. For to go with peace and adequate knowledge of God is a noble task as difficult as it is rare, madam.

and only very few eternal truths exist, and those are either analytical tautologies, truisms or synthetic a priori truths. the rest... you, me, the stuff floating around the universe... all modifications of substance ('god')... energy forms and objects extended in space time. but eternally speaking, none of this has any significance... and even a photon, who's shelf life is a gazillion gazillion years, passes in the blink of the eye of eternity. 

dust in the wind, Belinda. all we r iz dust in the wind.

Dust in the wind is temporal. Time and space are illusions as physicists now inform and explain. However something happens and what happens is absolute reality, including illusions of space and time and all else.

Note that I'm not saying anything about so-called "life after death" .

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:54 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:10 pm If you have discovered that some of "their formulas" are false, I suggest that you publish your astounding scientific findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

I guess you don't know that science is founded on renouncing the possession of truth.

It is precisely this renunciation of truth that has allowed scientific development.
Instead you seem convinced that you know the Truth!
Which is completely unscientific.

I believe you should understand the distinction between science's axiomatic deductive and hypothetico-deductive models. Mathematics is axiomatic; we do not test hypotheses like physicists.

As a mathematician I guess you believe in Cantor's paradise. And that the diagonal argument is correct...
Is that so?

Of course it is correct. It is not a question of belief.

"Dust in the wind is temporal."

Yup, even dust in the wind is dust in the wind.

we may risk saying of the longest lasting things with observable extension that they are Democritean fundamental units of being that exist in a void, in swerve mode.

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:36 pm

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:54 pm As a mathematician I guess you believe in Cantor's paradise. And that the diagonal argument is correct...
Is that so?

Of course it is correct. It is not a question of belief.

So is it okay for you to process to infinity, come back and process again?

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:53 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:36 pm

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:54 pm As a mathematician I guess you believe in Cantor's paradise. And that the diagonal argument is correct...
Is that so?

Of course it is correct. It is not a question of belief.

So is it okay for you to process to infinity, come back and process again?

I don't think I understand what you mean. Are you having trouble grasping the concept of infinity?

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:03 pm

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:53 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:36 pm
Of course it is correct. It is not a question of belief.

So is it okay for you to process to infinity, come back and process again?

I don't think I understand what you mean. Are you having trouble grasping the concept of infinity?

The concept of infinity is very clear to me.
In fact it is the negation of the finite.
Infinite is that which has no end.

But Cantor elaborates the infinite...
This is what he does.

Don't you see any problem with that?

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:12 pm

BigMike wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:03 pm

bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 7:53 pm

So is it okay for you to process to infinity, come back and process again?

I don't think I understand what you mean. Are you having trouble grasping the concept of infinity?

The concept of infinity is very clear to me.
In fact it is the negation of the finite.
Infinite is that which has no end.

But Cantor elaborates the infinite...
This is what he does.

Don't you see any problem with that?

Nope

the concept of infinity is like an intuitive antinomy of thought i think. in math we know potential infinites as real open series, but actual infinites of anything are inconceivable... yet we get caught in a metaphysical infinite regress of causes if we posit that energy and matter are finite and at some point in the past, created by a prima causa that iz, itself, eternal or 'infinite' in some attribute.

so being parsimonious we suggest that the metaphysical problem might be avoidable if we can imagine a universe-system that didn't need to be created to exist, and had always existed, and will always exist, somehow.

at this point, such a hypothesis is no more reaching and fantastic than a metaphysical theory of God used to explain the same phenomena in question. the problem of uncaused self-caused first causes and the problem of the intellectual antinomy of infinity. either way we go we end up at an inconceivability.

We're inna helluva situation here, philosophers.

Discuss.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:59 pm ...we suggest that the metaphysical problem might be avoidable if we can imagine a universe-system that didn't need to be created to exist, and had always existed, and will always exist, somehow.

Discuss.

Just one little problem with that...science.

Alexander Vilenkin
Many Worlds In One
New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.

"It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning." ( p. 176)