The Paradox Of Nothingness And The Case For The New Deism

[GreyICE]

Wow. Normally I don't complain about long posts, but that was the first two chapters of a novel.

Wall of Text Crits me for 102476.

 

[Robin]

Two comments on your critique Beerina (which I'm afraid just boils down to an assumption materialism is true)

Ah, I was wondering where the old "..you are assuming materialism is true ... " canard would show up.

 

[Robin]

I think this is my favourite part:

Thus I have little reason to believe materialism is true because all it offers is a circular argument, an unexplainable infinite regression, or a contradiction that suggests logic is an illusion built on a mystery. All the while ignoring the obvious question, “Why is there a 'tower of turtles' at all?”

But idealism (the view the world is basically nothing more than a concept) follows directly from the definitions of being and nothingness themselves and suffers from none of those problems.

So apart from the imbecilic straw-man representation of Materialism, the bad science and the irrelevant mathematics, this just crashes and burns where every other form of Idealism crashes and burns.

The world is just a concept. A vast, complex concept, requiring a vast complex mind which implies some sort of underlying order to make it work.

So where does this order come from?

So your response to "turtles all the way down" is to yell "More turtles!"

 

[Beerina]

Yes that was very impressive, Beerina.

This is Minnie Driver, Anne Hathaway, Sela Ward, and Sandra Bullock, Beerina's lovers. He's still in a coma, but we'll be sure to pass along the compliments if and when he awakens.

 

[Mashuna]

This is Minnie Driver, Anne Hathaway, Sela Ward, and Sandra Bullock, Beerina's lovers. He's still in a coma, but we'll be sure to pass along the compliments if and when he awakens.

I'm afraid he's hallucinating again, doctor. Best get the ECT machine ready.

 

[Ed Herbert]

Atheistic Deism Explained

(Sorry I don't have 15 posts so I can't put the following links in directly but they are essential to the argument so I highlighted them.)

There are only two ways we can derive definitions; induction (experience), and deduction (the syllogism). Since we see "something" when we look around us we cannot experience nothingness so we the only way we can define it is by deduction.

You can strip away all the permutations of existence simply by putting a form of the words "is not" in front of "being as a whole". But you are still left with the idea of nothingness (you're thinking about it right now after all). So it is not a void "without property". It is a completely neutral concept. This is consistent with the type of empirical evidence that suggested the laws of mass/energy conservation. So how can the world emerge from that?

Imagine a straight line that extends outward in both directions (see links) personal.inet.fi/private/ilkka/truerta/after_calibration.png . Such a one dimensional line is analogous to nothingness because nothingness has but one property- it is a concept. There are an infinite number of waveforms that exist in potential in such a line plus.maths.org/issue38/interview/sine.gif . If things happen simply because they can happen and they can happen because they don't result in contradiction then as long as the probability of an event does not equal zero it may occur for no reason other than the fact there is nothing to prevent it from occuring. Therefore any of these waveforms may emerge spontaneously by themselves or in combination by simple addition blog.pandora.com/archives/tour/MPI-HarmonicDistortion.JPG . By themselves the most basic waveforms (sine waves) have no meaning but merged with others they can create radically different patterns which are analogous to universes with different physics. Compare this (orange) square wave with the previous waveform sub.allaboutcircuits.com/images/22017.png .

However all the evidence we have says concepts must be observed. You can have nine coins in one hand and nine dimes in the other but where is the number nine apart from what you hold? But that is not a problem because all it has to do is bend back on itself sermononthemountsociety.com/sitebuilder/images/CircleArrow2-132x1... . That makes it self referential. And as there is only one kind of self referential concept, I am, it must be conscious (it also stops an infinite regression). I call this foundational state the Prime Observer because it is literally observing itself. The circle is perfectly smooth and therefore in equilibrium but contains within it an infinite number of potential worlds which may emerge spontaneously as an epiphenomenon or side effect.

Because it is a concept we can say nothingness is not nothing. That is a contradiction thus such a state cannot exist. But an unobserved concept is also paradoxical and therefore unstable. It must collapse into a state that is stable but in order to do that it must have something in common with that state. Since the only property nothingness has is that of a concept it can only be reduced to something else that is also a concept to avoid a non sequitur and all it has to do to accomplish that is bend back on itself, nothing more. Therefore if this argument is correct "God" must exist necessarily. But even though all being is contingent on it the world is not a purposeful creation. And that is why I am an Atheistic Deist and not an pure Atheist.

 

[Hokulele]

You have already done the argument from incredulity.

 

[gentlehorse]

So you are without a belief in god, but you believe in god...

There is a difference between something existing as a subject and something existing as an object.

 

[Ed Herbert]

Read it before you judge it. That's what fundies do. The mods here won't let me refer to the original post. Why? What reason do they have to censor it? Could it be it actually challenges their own beliefs? Are they only "skeptics" when it suits them? If you they don't cut this response as well go to the site godvsthebible and look up The Paradox Of Nothingness And The case For The New (A-theistic) Deism and actually read it. You can't have any credibility in discussing it unless you do.

 

[Hokulele]

Right. So when was the last time you observed nothingness?

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Right. So when was the last time you observed nothingness?

Maybe he reads his own posts?

I still prefer Logical Deism.

 

[Hokulele]

I still prefer Logical Deism.

I prefer Sauvignon Blanc, but to each his own.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

You know, I had to get tutored in calculus, but I'm reasonably sure this makes no sense.

"Imagine a straight line that extends outward in both directions (see links) personal.inet.fi/private/ilkka/truerta/after_calibration.png . Such a one dimensional line is analogous to nothingness because nothingness has but one property- it is a concept. There are an infinite number of waveforms that exist in potential in such a line plus.maths.org/issue38/interview/sine.gif ."

A straight line, being one dimensional, cannot contain sine waves. A sine wave waves across two dimensions.

 

[Theophage]

Woohoo! Now both threads are in play.

 

[Theophage]

Read it before you judge it. That's what fundies do.

One does not have to eat feces to know that it is not a good thing to eat. Similarily, one does not have to read nonsense in order to dismiss it as such. You are the author, give us compelling reasons why it is not nonsense. You don't have to go through the whole spiel, just one aspect that stands out in your mind as important and informative. Then we can decide to go further in.

The mods here won't let me refer to the original post. Why? What reason do they have to censor it? Could it be it actually challenges their own beliefs? Are they only "skeptics" when it suits them?

Yeah, because there are no opposing viewpoints here on this board Maybe the problem is on your end? I just brought your old thread up to the main page for you, with the help of Hokulele's link. How come she was able to find it but you couldn't? Is she in on the C.O.N.S.P.I.R.A.C.Y?

If you they don't cut this response as well go to the site godvsthebible and look up The Paradox Of Nothingness And The case For The New (A-theistic) Deism and actually read it. You can't have any credibility in discussing it unless you do.

Give me some reasons why I should bother first.

 

[Arkayik]

You know, I had to get tutored in calculus, but I'm reasonably sure this makes no sense.

"Imagine a straight line that extends outward in both directions (see links) personal.inet.fi/private/ilkka/truerta/after_calibration.png . Such a one dimensional line is analogous to nothingness because nothingness has but one property- it is a concept. There are an infinite number of waveforms that exist in potential in such a line plus.maths.org/issue38/interview/sine.gif ."

A straight line, being one dimensional, cannot contain sine waves. A sine wave waves across two dimensions.

I'll second that.

If I extrapolate, my bank account is analagous to nothingness because it too is a concept...

Then again, there is more than just analogy in common between nothingness and my bank account...

Cheers,

Ark

 

[learner]

"Atheists are Atheists for the same reason many Theists are Theists. They just want to be".

Erm..No. Everyone is born an atheist. You have no choice. You can only choose to be atheistic if you have deviated from this norm, become a super-naturalist and chosen to return to reality.

Come to think of it, being labeled an atheist kind of implies a chosen stance. The only stance I have ever taken is to not become a super-naturalist. I don't even need the label of atheist, I ain't done nothin.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

@ Ed Herbert

A clue can be found in a problem called Olbers’ paradox (named for a 19th century German astronomer named Heinrich Olber), which is a direct consequence of Newton’s theory of gravity. It asks why, if all the stars in the cosmos are attracted to each other is the night sky black?

That's not my memory of "Olbers’ paradox"

Google. Google.

This is my memory of "Olbers’ paradox":

Why isn't the night sky as uniformly bright as the surface of the Sun? If the Universe has infinitely many stars, then it should be. After all, if you move the Sun twice as far away from us, we will intercept one quarter as many photons, but the Sun will subtend one quarter of the angular area. So the areal intensity remains constant. With infinitely many stars, every angular element of the sky should have a star, and the entire heavens should be as bright as the sun. We should have the impression that we live in the center of a hollow black body whose temperature is about 6000 degrees Celsius. This is Olbers' paradox.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/olbers.html

Sorry, if you can't get the simplest facts correct, I'm not going to wade through the rest!

 

[Piggy]

Ed Herbert, you can write a post that long but you can't learn to think?

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, boy, get your priorities straight!

 

[GreyICE]

@ Ed Herbert



That's not my memory of "Olbers’ paradox"

Google. Google.

This is my memory of "Olbers’ paradox":



http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/olbers.html

Sorry, if you can't get the simplest facts correct, I'm not going to wade through the rest!

Funnily enough, the paradox doesn't prove anything today, even though we know the universe isn't infinite - one of his premises has a large hole shot in it.