Merged A Proof of the Existence of God / Did Someone Create the Universe?

[Buddha]

But that's not what you told us you could prove. You told us you could provide deductive proof of the existence of God. What you gave us was a pseudo-logical exercise in which you concluded that the universe "must" have been created. From that you assumed the existence of a God.



You're not a positivist. Your proof is not an exercise in logical positivism. Your proof relies entirely on falsifying the first two of three hypotheses so that you can assert the third. And you don't need to keep starting a new thread every time you want to talk about a new element of your proof.



Yes, it is. Which is to say, it is based on categorical propositions which you claim partition all the possibilities. You deduce one must be true from the premises of all the others being false. That's a deductive pattern of reasoning. It fails, of course, because while you say the proof works by falsifying everything except your desired conclusion, you actually failed in your attempt to falsify them. There's a big difference between eschewing falsification and mounting a failed proof that requires it.

Your proof is a deduction. it's a failed deduction.



And it has been described how your proof fails to make the inductive leap from "The universe has finite age," to "God is God because he created the universe." Why, if you're such the expert in logic, would you promise a deductive proof and then insist upon induction? Do you not understand the difference?



Don't be condescending. Many of us here are professional scientists or otherwise professionally engaged in scientific-type inquiry. Others have considerable academic achievement in the relevant fields.



No, this is not an exercise where you are the master and everyone else is the student. You can throw around these names and words, but as we discovered from your attempt to falsify evolution, you really don't know what you're talking about.

This was the first step-- I proved that the universe was created by someone. You could call that person "god" or "gods". Whether you accept my proof or not is entirely up to you. I suggest you read Popper's book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. In his book he draws a clear distinction between his doctrine and positivism. Once you read that book you will understand why I call myself a positivist. Popper explained why the positivists do not accept his concept of falsifiability. That would be his explanation, not mine.
I suspect you don't know much about Popper's doctrine other than the concept of falsifiability which you used incorrectly regarding my article.
Now, about being condescending -- by scientific audience I meant scientific conferences, not Internet groups. There is nothing wrong with the Internet groups, but my objective is different than discussions of existence of God (this topic doesn't come up at regular scientific conferences, and I am not stupid enough to raise it there).
I see my mission there as a criticism of superstring theories. These theories are complete failures; for more information see the book, Not Even Wrong, by P. Woit. If you read the book you will understand why the superstring "research" did so much damage to theoretical physics.
No, I am not a physicist (I have MS in Mechanical Engineering with concentration in Control System Theory). After my graduation, as a special student (the word "special" indicates that I was taking courses not geared towards a degree) I took four graduate courses in quantum mechanics and one graduate course in Lie Groups theory. After that I became able to read original articles on Standard Model and superstrings.
I am planning to use the ideas that I presented here at scientific conferences in modified form, without references to the Creator. Instead of criticizing atheism in general I will be criticizing the anthropic principle that the proponents of superstrings theories use to promote their ideas.
I am sure that some members of this board made contributions to their fields of science and engineering, and I appreciate their responses to my article.
PS. I didn't promise a "deductive proof", instead a used the word "proof". I hope you understand the difference between the induction and the deduction, although this doesn't seem to be the case. Popper rejects the method of induction that the positivists use. But do not take my word for it, read his book to see his line of reasoning.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

This was the first step-- I proved that the universe was created by someone.

No you didn't...
You only 'proved' that one couldn't provide evidence for your other two hypotheses in video format.
You did not disprove them, and even if you had, that does not automatically make a random third hypothesis more likely, and certainly doesn't constitute proof of any kind.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This was the first step-- I proved that the universe was created by someone.

No you goddamn didn't.

 

[Buddha]

And on top of your "declaration of victory" we have your surgical avoidance of a dozen posts that pulverized your argumentation.


In short, you're just honing your sophistry.

Unfortunately I do not have time to answer to all posts. I choose the ones presented by the smartest opponents. I am sorry if you are not one of them. If you read my original post carefully you will see that I am not "declaring victory". I said from the start that not everyone will agree with my proof.

 

[Buddha]

Yeah go before a "scientific audience" with the declaration of "I don't believe in falsifiablity and you have to assume I'm correct before I start."

Good. Luck. With. That.

FYI : Not all atheist scientists believe in falsifiability; a Nobel Prize recipient, Weinberg, is one of them. Unfortunately he believes in another failed doctrine, scientific realism. But he wouldn't have a problem with my critique of falsifiability.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Check out Jabba's immortality thread if you want to hone your skills. He's much better at these dishonest tactics.

 

[Buddha]

Your view of positivism is utterly bizarre. It seems to entail that every scientific law is literally false. It is not positivism as I learned it.

You say that you learned positivism. Prove it. Name the books written by prominent positivists that you read. Have you read "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Wittgenstein?_

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I proved that the universe was created by someone.

I am not "declaring victory".

Uh huh.

I said from the start that not everyone will agree with my proof.

Not much of a proof then is it. Btw, if you had "said from the start that no one will agree with your proof", you have been considerably more accurate. You are presenting fairy stories, not thought experiments or logical arguments.

 

[Dr.Sid]

If the universe was created by someone, wasn't this someone simply part of the universe ? How does the idea 'universe was created by someone' solve the problem of the origin .. we still have to find out, how the 'someone' got to be. The concept is just redundant.

 

[I Am The Scum]

It's like Jabba, but with hubris.

 

[Buddha]

Nonsense. A "proof" so unwieldy as to be unverifiable is of no more value than not having the "proof" at all.

One estimate for the age of the universe is 13.772 billion years.

Since you went old school and opted for "videotapes," we'll use standard VHS tapes.

We'll use the estimated mailing weight of 7.4 ox for a VHS cassette in a cardboard case.

Since most of this video will be rather dull, image quality isn't much of an issue, so we'll assume Extended Play (6 hours per tape) for most of recorded history (get it, since we're recording everything it's all recorded history!) with about 100 years worth of Standard Play tape (2 hours per tape)

For simplicity sake we'll assume only one camera and no overlap between tapes. We'll also assume a magical camera that can switch tapes without missing any time. We'll also skip leap ears, just because this is silly enough without them.

Lets start with the 100 years of interesting stuff. There's 8,760 hours in a year, so 100 years would be 876,000 hours. That's 438,000 SP tapes. That comes out to 3,241,200 ounces, or 202,575 pounds. This means to record JUST the 100 years of interesting bits, we'd need 101.2875 US tons of VHS tape.

I was going to go ahead and do the calculation for recording the rest of the history of the universe on Extended Play tapes, but I think we can already see that the "proof" being suggested is a useless pile of plastic and magnetic tape that can't be realistically verified.

If you were immortal you wouldn't have a problem with my proof. All astrophysics theories imply observation periods that lasts for trillions of years. Using just one observer is a figure of speech, every astrophysicist uses it. Knowing that would have saved you from the trouble of going through all your calculations.

 

[JayUtah]

I proved that the universe was created by someone.

No. You deduced it poorly from a contrived scenario.

I suggest you read Popper's book...

I have most of Popper's work on my shelf. Once again, you are not the master teaching a bunch of eager students. You've read a book or two on the philosophy of science and now you think you can tackle the big existential questions just by throwing around a few philosophy-sounding words and alluding to great minds. No, you really just made a hash of a proof that repeats the same sorts of errors amateurs have been committing for generations.

Now, about being condescending -- by scientific audience I meant scientific conferences, not Internet groups.

Given the massive failures identified in your proof, what makes you think you won't be laughed out of such conferences? What "scientists" are interested in a proof for God, whether it's half-baked or not?

No, I am not a physicist...

Nor are you a biologist or a philosopher, but that has not apparently stopped you from writing in abject ignorance on those subjects.

I am planning to use the ideas that I presented here at scientific conferences in modified form, without references to the Creator.

Then how does proving the existence of a creator and garnering criticism on that particular proof help the irrelevant task you plan to undertake? That's like saying you want to perfect your sponge cake recipe, so you're going to ask for pointers on pouring a concrete patio.

I am sure that some members of this board made contributions to their fields of science and engineering, and I appreciate their responses to my article.

Except, of course, for the ones who aren't smart enough to meet your standards. You're being extremely arrogant when in fact your proof has been completely torn to shreds.

PS. I didn't promise a "deductive proof", instead a used the word "proof".

Except here's what you actually said.

I can do better that giving an empirical proof that the Creator exists -- I can use the methods of deductive logic to prove that the Creator exists. To me existence of God is not a matter of faith but of logical necessity.

and

The only remaining possibility is that the universe was created by someone. Of course, a person who says that he is the Creator is, most likely, an impostor. But his sincerity or lack of it doesn't matter as far as my logical deduction goes.

And your proof is structured as a deduction at the highest level. Please, O wise one, explain the difference between a deductive proof and a proof based squarely on deduction.

I hope you understand the difference between the induction and the deduction, although this doesn't seem to be the case.

Wrong. I've written extensively on your misuse of both.

Popper rejects...

We're not discussing Popper's lines of reasoning. Please stop trying to change the subject and to portray yourself as somehow enormously well read. We're discussing your lines of reasoning, which are highly faulty. Alluding to great minds who have gone before does not fix your errors.

 

[Buddha]

That the universe always existed (ignoring evidence to the contrary) is not contradictory to the claim that it was created by a God, who happened to be eternal in the sense of being not bound by time. Mind you, I think that's a mighty weird concept, but it is a concept that some buy.

The fact is that God has never shown his face as the creator and it's not clear how he might do so. If this is your notion of what counts as false (not what the positivists say, of course), then all three premises are false by your own standard. God doesn't seem to plausibly give us the videotapes of the Big Bang in a way that they are verifiable.

There is a philosophical system, the name of which I forgot, whose proponents claim that after creating the universe God removed himself from it. Perhaps, you should ask their opinion on this topic.
If you read my article carefully, you will see that the third scenario doesn't require a videotape.

 

[phiwum]

You say that you learned positivism. Prove it. Name the books written by prominent positivists that you read. Have you read "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Wittgenstein?_

No, I have not read Wittgenstein. I read shorter articles by other authors. It was some time ago.

Why not quote Wittgenstein or anyone else who states clearly that a proposition which can't be verified in principle is not meaningless but false? Then point out where the remaining of three propositions must be true, even without an argument that it is verifiable.

Far as I understand the positivists, the existence of a creator would be a meaningless conjecture, a pseudo statement.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I wanna go back to one extremely basic error in all of this.

Being unverifiable, this statement is false.

I'm still amazed that Buddha is unwilling to concede the absurdity of this, so we'll have some fun. Let us turn this statement into a general rule, which I will refer to as Buddha's Postulate.

BP: If a proposition is unverifiable, then that proposition is false.

Buddha, please explain how you might go about verifying that your postulate is true. If you can't, then, by BP, you must concede that BP is false.

 

[JayUtah]

Unfortunately I do not have time to answer to all posts. I choose the ones presented by the smartest opponents.

And what is your criteria for "smartest?" Most fringe claimants eventually start limiting their participation by artificial criteria when they see they're in over their heads.

If you read my original post carefully you will see that I am not "declaring victory".

Except that you did. You are claiming your proof is successful while ignoring everyone who has told you what's wrong with it. And there's quite a lot wrong with it.

I said from the start that not everyone will agree with my proof.

Then it isn't a proof.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

You say that you learned positivism. Prove it. Name the books written by prominent positivists that you read. Have you read "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" by Wittgenstein?_

Well, as proof that I haven't read any book on positivism, I could of course produce a videotape of me reading every book I've ever read. But that would be too unwieldy, so therefore we can discount that I've never read a book on positivism.

 

[JayUtah]

There is a philosophical system, the name of which I forgot, whose proponents claim that after creating the universe God removed himself from it.

...to a place outside the universe? A larger universe?' A superverse? I think you need to take stock of what "universe" means.

If you read my article carefully, you will see that the third scenario doesn't require a videotape.

Because the third scenario throws empiricism out the window and therefore the need for any actual evidence. You flip the switch on empiricism depending on whether it supports or refutes your desired conclusion.

 

[JayUtah]

It's like Jabba, but with hubris.

Jabba had plenty of hubris. Remember, he claimed he was a master of "holistic thinking" which somehow automatically gave him a better perspective on everything.

Yeah, this is just the standard "I'm so much smarter than everyone else" schtick. The evolution book is the real kicker. Spout a bunch of ignorance and then ignore the criticism because it somehow doesn't pass the bar for the claimant's valuable attention.

 

[Buddha]

You've just moved your position from claiming such statements are false to claiming they are meaningless.

Carnap would surely claim that the notion the universe was created by a Creator as meaningless as well.

Carnap could have said that but he didn't, his position regarding God is not clear. Russell wrote a book, Why I am not a Christian This would seem suggest that he was an atheist. On the other hand, he said on several occasions that there is nothing wrong with Buddhism because this is a religion without the Creator. His statement is debatable, but this is not the point -- by accepting Buddhism he accepted the concept of reincarnation (I also believe in reincarnation). Wittgenstein was a religious person, although his religious views didn't enter his philosophical works. Gödel was a religious person.

Regarding my position: both false and meaningless statements are not acceptable. I have nothing more to add to it.