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

Buddha said:
Several opponents wrote that I use circular logic – according to them, I stared with the axiom that God exists and used it to prove God’s existence. Really?
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No, not really.

The axiom is that an observer must be present for it to be possible to say that an event happened. You have not justified this. Nor have you defined what an observer is in your "proof", and explained why it must be defined as it is.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
No, not really.

The axiom is that an observer must be present for it to be possible to say that an event happened. You have not justified this. Nor have you defined what an observer is in your "proof", and explained why it must be defined as it is.
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This seems self-evident. Take the Big Bang. Obviously, there were no observers present (I think there were, but I'm a nutty idealist), but SOME observer down the road was required to look at the evidence and say the Big Bang happened.
 
JayUtah said:
Yep, you called it. I'm still chuckling over the syllogism
Theologians make circular arguments.
I am not a theologian, therefore
My argument is not circular.​
Maybe his time really is better spent at the beach because logic is certainly not his strong suit.
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Yes, I noticed his sinellogism.


Have you noticed how "Buddha" operates like a player who cannot control the game but he tries to gain control of the scoreboard. According to him, there is a "solid argument" from himself and a bunch of "opponents" presented a single "argument" -he insist in using this word, in singular- that he dismissed. It's the typical "I cannot present a reply to every argument thrown at me so I am going to lump them up and declare the lump to be wrong and myself victorious".
 
Buddha said:
...

There was a big argument, which started in 1930s, between the positivists and their critics; it was not about the Creation, it was about the pre-historic species. Critics contended that, since there were no intelligent observers during pre-historic times, the positivists cannot tell with certainty that the pre-historic animals existed.

This argument was a sticking point for many positivists, although not for Wittgenstein – for him God was the observer who existed in pre-historic times. ...
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I'm surprised to hear that. Do you have a cite or a quote for that?
 
Fudbucker said:
This seems self-evident. Take the Big Bang. Obviously, there were no observers present (I think there were, but I'm a nutty idealist), but SOME observer down the road was required to look at the evidence and say the Big Bang happened.
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Yes, such deductive paths are acceptable even to Popper. A hypothesis is falsifiable if observations can be made that directly falsify it. A hypothesis is also falsifiable if what must deductively follow from it can be falsified by observation. Logical calculus is allowed -- demanded, in fact, as a moment's thought reveals. Deductive consequents are not bound to the same time frame as the phenomenon or event itself, which was one of the flaws in Buddha's first formulation of his thesis. The second formulation attempts to ignore the error by simply not mentioning it.
 
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JayUtah said:
Yes, such deductive paths are acceptable even to Popper. A hypothesis is falsifiable if observations can be made that directly falsify it. A hypothesis is also falsifiable if what must deductively follow from it can be falsified by observation. Logical calculus is allowed -- demanded, in fact, as a moment's thought reveals. Deductive consequents are not bound to the same time frame as the phenomenon or event itself, which was one of the flaws in Buddha's first formulation of his thesis. The second formulation attempts to ignore the error by simply not mentioning it.
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Buddha's argument is a hot mess. I tried to imagine where he was coming from. Maybe they're making an argument that an observer was required to collapse the universe's wave function?
 
"Buddha" said:
Only one of my opponents raised a very strong contra-argument, he wrote that some processes do not require presence of an observer...
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More novocaine from you. Many arguers pointed to that, and also pointed that your argument lacked an observer from its very beginning.

The whole threesome you laid down as your argument is observerless. It's the circular logic in your argumentation what makes your third point a "god observer" which really gives no testimony of itself. That's the problem with go/d/evils, fairies, ghosts and leprechauns: they cannot come up and be noticed because they are reluctant to do it or simply because they don't exist.
 
Nay_Sayer said:
Buddha said:
Apparently some of my opponents have no idea what scientific realism is. One of them even wrote that scientific realism is an equivalent of empiricism. That is real funny!

Here is the link to an excellent article about scientific realism. Please read it, it will help you avoid embarrassing mistakes.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

This is all for today. It's a wonderful day in the Big Apple. A man has to take his girlfriend to the beach sometimes, doesn't he?I'll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend!
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This is a very arbitrary and needless thing to point out. Overcompensating?

Anyway It appears where stepping foot into 'The definitions game' today's grand prize will be a trip to space camp
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We'll have something meaningful for him about scientific realism when he comes back from Coney Island.
 
Fudbucker said:
This seems self-evident. Take the Big Bang. Obviously, there were no observers present (I think there were, but I'm a nutty idealist), but SOME observer down the road was required to look at the evidence and say the Big Bang happened.
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You obviously haven't read Buddha's "proof".
 
Buddha said:
Well, you do not have to require presence of an observer if you are a follower of scientific realism. Everything depends on person's philosophical views.
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You are incorrect. The universe exists without regard to your point of view. Your requirements have no bearing on the pressence of an observer.
 
Fudbucker said:
Maybe they're making an argument that an observer was required to collapse the universe's wave function?
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No. It's an argument from philosophy that only observed events can give rise to knowledge in the metaphysical sense. The origin of uncreated universes cannot have been observed, therefor must be rejected as false. The creator of an created universe observed its creation, therefore it's the only hypothesis that has metaphysical validity and therefore the only one that holds.

Yes, it's a hot mess from beginning to end. As you might see from reading the last ten pages or so of the thread, it's egregiously wrong on several counts. Buddha seems more interested in making the argument for how smart he is than in making an argument for the existence of God.
 
Guys I just wanted to take a second and let you all know that I have a girlfriend1 so I might be too busy to post later.

I know, I know, in the space I'm using to talk about how I have a girlfriend I could instead be replying to something and so this personal aside comes off as nothing but an odd sort of immature brag but that's not what it is.

Did I mention I've been to Europe? I have, more than once. Just saying. Just... putting that out there. I've read books too, ones that you presumably haven't. Because you're uneducated and don't live in a big city.

Okay anyway, while I'm gone one of you should argue that I'm wrong due to Occam's Razor, that's a good one you haven't used. It's wrong too, but I really like playing the part of the condescending instructor telling what arguments you should have used.

Ta!

1 Guys please don't mention this to my wife, for some reason it's a really sore point for her.
 
Fudbucker said:
Take the Big Bang. Obviously there were no observers present [ I think there were but I am a nutty idealist ]
but SOME observer down the road was required to look at the evidence and say that the Big Bang happened
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The Big Bang is still happening so it is a present event as well as a past one
 
Buddha said:
you do not have to require presence of an observer if you are a follower of scientific realism. Everything depends on persons philosophical views
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My philosophical view is that the Universe does not exist. By your logic this makes me a follower of scientific realism. But what happens when
someone else [ also a follower of scientific realism ] has a philosophical view that the Universe does exist. Now we cannot both be right since
that would violate the Law Of Non Contradiction. This is why the scientific method is the most brutal and rigorous methodology ever devised
And why it has inter subjectivity as one of its fundamental axioms. Philosophical views by contrast dont have to be remotely inter subjective
 
Dave Rogers said:
No, it doesn't; it correctly declines to attribute the status of scientific law to what is, by your own admission, an ad hoc engineering approximation that hasn't failed yet.



Irrelevant and nonsensical; this thread is about your claimed proof, and your apparent disinclination to defend it effectively.



Re-read the post you just replied to. Try to understand it this time.

Dave
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""According to a widely accepted view -- to be opposed in this book -- the empirical sciences characterized by the fact they use "inductive methods" as they called. According to this view, the logic of scientific discovery would be identical with inductive logic .."
Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg 27.

In the first chapter of his book Popper goes to a great extent to explain what, in his view, is wrong with inductive logic.

Control system engineers use inductive logic to build their models from sparse experimental data to what they believe to be acceptable general representation of a system under control. Popper rejects inductive logic.

I could go on and quoting his book. Could you quote his book to prove your point of view? If you can, I will gladly discuss your quotations with you. Our argument is all about Popper's original works, isn't it.

If you don't have his book, you could provide links to his articles, so I could read them. As I said before, I respond only to original works of a scientist or a philosopher, not to someone's interpretations of them.
 
Buddha said:
In the first chapter of his book Popper goes to a great extent to explain what, in his view, is wrong with inductive logic
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And in the first chapter of his book Hitler goes to a great extend to explain what, in his view, is wrong with Jews.

Stop pointing at other people's work (that you obviously barely understand) as your sole argument.

And beside Popper was, at most, a hand-off style agnostic and I'm not sure how exactly you've been introduced to his criticisms of inductive logic and somehow came to the conclusion he was saying that you couldn't/shouldn't figure stuff out and should make stuff up at random.
 
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