Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:01 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:44 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:30 pm That's news to me. So which cosmological theory is determined by the facts?
It's also news to me that if a theory is not underdetermined then it's determined.

There's the underdetermined theories.
There's THE determined theory. The theory of everything. The one we'll never get to.
There's the overdetermined theories.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:30 pm That is not even wrong.
It's not even right. Because it's all hallucination.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:30 pm That is an underdetermined hypothesis.
I thought we were talking about cosmological hypotheses. Are you insisting your mind is the cosmos or something?
Waiting for the edits.

Willus Ignoramus.

For some reason you also switched gears from talkin about origin theories to talking about cosmological theories.

That amounts to teleporting your philosophical position from the beginning of time when nothing exists, to the present moment when the entire cosmos exists.

Howcome?

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:13 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 9:04 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 2:12 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:55 pm
There's nothing to "believe in". It's just a placeholder to fill the epistemic void in your head.

What meaning you assign to that placeholder is entirely up to you. Go with Genesis if you want.

The meaning scientists assign to it is "irreducible time complexity". The entirety of history leading up to this instant in time.

Trying to "understand" it is a meaningless exercise. Which aspect of "it" are you trying to understand?
It's not a matter of what I want. It's a matter of what is. I mean, if there is a God, and it's the Genesis God, then there's not much I can do about it. I would hope there's a better God out there (one that doesn't kill people for displeasing him or her and send them to hell afterward for no other reason than not believing Christ is God) but if that's what's out there then that's what's out there and I'm effectively screwed in the end because I don't believe Christ = "creator" of all that is any more than I believe that Socrates was the "creator" or all that is.

My personal take is that it's really not knowable what is out there when it comes to what is "beyond" what I call "reality". And "take your pick" isn't the right answer to "I don't know".

Of course, I'm diagnosed with "mental illness" so maybe this is all "delusional" thinking on my part. If it is, then call me "deluded" if that's the case.
Gary, you are confusing the Biblical accounts of God for what the Christians actually call God.

Which is why I keep making the point. Trying to understand what the Christians call God through a book is like trying to taste lemonade through customer reviews.

Human language is 2nd hand account of experience.
Human language is NOT direct experience.

The language is missing ridiculous amounts of information that you would've obtained if you were actually drinking the lemonade.

So leave the denomination/religion out of the discussion, the idea in modern language/technical writings is called "irreducible complexity".
It's all of the formal sciences combined into complexity theory.

It's the exact same idea. Described in different words by Mathematicians and Scientists. Instead of a 2500 year old book.

None of the theory is going to help you understand the idea either. Because... lemonade.

You actually have to engage the idea and think about it in your own head. Let reason do the rest.

OK. If you say so. Guess the whole "God" thing is going to have to remain a mystery to me alone, then. Others seem to think they have some sort of answer. That's fine. Do yourselves, then. I've tried to make my point. Apparently, it's not preferable.

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:15 pm**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:13 pm OK. If you say so. Guess the whole "God" thing is going to have to remain a mystery to me alone, then. Others seem to think they have some sort of answer. That's fine. Do yourselves, then. I've tried to make my point. Apparently, it's not preferable.

The point being made is that the god idea is not about making points.

I can't persuade you to think that lemonade is delicious.

It's not that kind of game! There's no answer in rhetoric. The answer's in drinking the lemonade.

Words are not experience.
Experience is not words.

You seem to expect the answer to arrive in linguistic form. What if that expectation is wrong?

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:17 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:15 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:13 pm OK. If you say so. Guess the whole "God" thing is going to have to remain a mystery to me alone, then. Others seem to think they have some sort of answer. That's fine. Do yourselves, then. I've tried to make my point. Apparently, it's not preferable.
The point being made is that the god idea is not about making points.

I can't persuade you to think that lemonade is delicious.

It's not that kind of game! There's no answer in rhetoric. The answer's in drinking the lemonade.

Words are not experience.
Experience is not words.

If nonsense gets you to where you need to be, then by all means, engage in it. I don't go for nonsense. But that's apparently just me between the two of us.

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:18 pm**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:17 pm If nonsense gets you to where you need to be, then by all means, engage in it. I don't go for nonsense. But that's apparently just me between the two of us.

Heh. The whole point of the exercise is to turn the nonsense into sense. By acquiring the understanding.

Everything's nonsense when you are born. But it all slowly starts to make sense.

In fact the way I went about it was by tackling the nonsense headon. The nonsense we call reality.

Posted: **Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:18 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:17 pm If nonsense gets you to where you need to be, then by all means, engage in it. I don't go for nonsense. But that's apparently just me between the two of us.
Heh. The whole point of the exercise is to turn the nonsense into sense. By acquiring the understanding.

Everything's nonsense when you are born. But it all slowly starts to make sense.

In fact the way I went about it was by tackling the nonsense headon. The nonsense we call reality.

If reality is nonsense, then what on earth is guiding you through life? God either exists or God doesn't exist. And either a person knows the answer to which it is or they do not. I don't. If you do, then congratulations! You must have supernatural abilities.

Posted: **Fri Sep 22, 2023 7:18 am**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:18 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:17 pm If nonsense gets you to where you need to be, then by all means, engage in it. I don't go for nonsense. But that's apparently just me between the two of us.
Heh. The whole point of the exercise is to turn the nonsense into sense. By acquiring the understanding.

Everything's nonsense when you are born. But it all slowly starts to make sense.

In fact the way I went about it was by tackling the nonsense headon. The nonsense we call reality.
If reality is nonsense, then what on earth is guiding you through life?

My desire to turn the nonsense into sense. Curiosity. Thirst for understanding.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm God either exists or God doesn't exist.

Reality either exists or doesn't exist.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm And either a person knows the answer to which it is or they do not. I don't. If you do, then congratulations!

To think in terms of "questions" and "answers" is most definitely missing the point.

What's the answer to "Should this question be asked and answered?"

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm You must have supernatural abilities.

I do, but that's just a tautology given the definition of "supernatural". Science can't explain the ability because the ability IS science.

Posted: **Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:30 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 2:03 pm No they aren't.
That's news to me. So which cosmological theory is determined by the facts?
It's also news to me that if a theory is not underdetermined then it's determined.

There's a lot of stuff that is news to you.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pmThere's the underdetermined theories.

Which is all of them.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pmThere's THE determined theory.

Unless you are talking about something like The Truth, no there isn't.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pmThe theory of everything. The one we'll never get to.

The point is there could be any number of theories that explain every phenomenon we ever experience equally well.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:36 pmThere's the overdetermined theories.

That's different. Theories are underdetermined because there can be more than one theory that accounts for the same phenomenon. Phenomena are overdetermined if there is more than one cause for the same event. For instance, if a lollipop broke because you bit into it at the same time that a truck drove over your head.

Posted: **Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:27 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm Which is all of them.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm Unless you are talking about something like The Truth

Contradiction.

You said ALL but then you smuggled in an unless.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm The point is there could be any number of theories that explain every phenomenon we ever experience equally well.

I know this. Why are you telling me that? I am talking about the ones which CAN'T explain Nature/Reality/The Cosmos/Existence/Spinoza's God/

Like the Ex Nihilio one. Nothing is NOT an explanation. It's the absence of one.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm That's different. Theories are underdetermined because there can be more than one theory that accounts for the same phenomenon. Phenomena are overdetermined if there is more than one cause for the same event.

There's no fucking difference when the cause is on the other side of a time singularity. You don't know what's "after" the universe, you don't know what's "before" the universe.

The Big Bang could have 1 cause; or infinitely many causes or 0 causes. ALL of these are halucinations/choices.

I don't like 0 - that's not an explanation.
And we have Occam's Razor.

So... where does that leave us?

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pm For instance, if a lollipop broke because you bit into it at the same time that a truck drove over your head.

That anaolgy... Are you 5?

Posted: **Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:28 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 7:18 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:26 pm
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:18 pm
Heh. The whole point of the exercise is to turn the nonsense into sense. By acquiring the understanding.

Everything's nonsense when you are born. But it all slowly starts to make sense.

In fact the way I went about it was by tackling the nonsense headon. The nonsense we call reality.
If reality is nonsense, then what on earth is guiding you through life?
My desire to turn the nonsense into sense. Curiosity. Thirst for understanding.

Good luck.

Posted: **Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:01 am**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:27 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pmWhich is all of them.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pmUnless you are talking about something like The Truth
Contradiction.

You said ALL but then you smuggled in an unless.

Well, it would be a contradiction if I smuggled in another theory; The Truth is not a theory.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:27 pmI don't like 0 - that's not an explanation.

But it might be The Truth.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:27 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:12 pmFor instance, if a lollipop broke because you bit into it at the same time that a truck drove over your head.
That anaolgy... Are you 5?

If it helps you understand the difference between underdetermimation and overdetermination, does it matter?

Posted: **Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:37 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:01 am The Truth is not a theory.

It's not? So many truth-theories, which one is The Truth?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

And that capital "T". Tell me again about your atheism? Why do you reject things with capital "G"s but accept things with capital "T"s?

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:01 am But it might be The Truth.

That would be an overdetermination for sure. If it could've come from nothing it could've come from anything. No way of knowing because principle of equifinality.

[/quote]
You did smuggle in another theory. The metatheory that consecutive underdetermined theories approach The Truth as an upper bound.

Which left out all of the overdeterined theories which might approach The Truth as a lower bound.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:01 am If it helps you understand the difference between underdetermimation and overdetermination, does it matter?

You seem to be in the habbit of explaining things you don't understand. You can't determine which causes were "necessary" and "unnecessary" to cause a universe, never mind detrmine which causes were necessary and unnecessary to cause this particular universe. With you in it.

That would require omniscience.

So tell me about your atheism again.

Posted: **Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:41 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:37 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:01 am The Truth is not a theory.
It's not? So many truth-theories, which one is The Truth?

"Truth Theory" does not = Truth.

Posted: **Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:43 pm**

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:41 pm "Truth Theory" does not = Truth.

Sure. So which truth theory is furthest from Truth?

Posted: **Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:50 pm**

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:43 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:41 pm "Truth Theory" does not = Truth.
Sure. So which truth theory is furthest from Truth?

I don't know.

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