Good Without God?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
121

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…a chinese couple killing their female offspring is wrong because, as you point out, it upsets the natural order of things…
[/quote]

It does, but so does lots of stuff. That’s a slippery slope. Breathing machines, birth control, medicine, homosexuality, etc. All upset the natural order of things.

And they could balance things out by simply killing off a bunch of dudes to even things out, wouldn’t that be wrong too?
[/quote]

You don’t even know what the natural order of things is meant to be, let alone make judgments on them.

122

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

God wouldn’t control me even if I wanted him to, otherwise I would not have freewill.

[/quote]

…i don’t believe in freewill either…[/quote]

You would not be consistent if you did…What is the determining factor for what happens next?[/quote]

…just a random throw of the dice…
[/quote]

Determinism cannot be a random throw of the dice.

Besides, where the dice come from and who threw them?[/quote]

…it was a figure of speech. There’s no-one throwing dice pat; the attic is emtpy…
[/quote]
You do realize that if you claim complete randomness, you invalidate the stuff of science. You cannot trust the results because they happened randomly.[/quote]

…not necessarily. Order from chaos and chaos influences order. Science can predict what happens in our ordered universe, but on the quantum level all is unpredictable…
[/quote]

It’s unpredictable because we don’t know why it behaves like it does. Hopefully that’s one of the questions the Hadron Collider will answer. I can make a prediction at the quantum level and I will be right every time. Take the double-slit experiment, You can fire a single electron at the screen and not know where it will end up. But if you shoot enough of them, they will make an interference pattern every time. So I predict that if you shoot enough electrons at a 2 split screen, you will get a interference pattern in the behind screen. You may not know where on behind screen it’s going to hit, but it will hit the screen.
There is no chaos, just lack of knowledge and understanding.[/quote]

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.

123

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…

124

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

So . . . . order comes from chaos and the law of entropy is backwards . . .got it . …wait! what?

125

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

So . . . . order comes from chaos and the law of entropy is backwards . . .got it . …wait! what?[/quote]

…indeed. What?

126

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

So . . . . order comes from chaos and the law of entropy is backwards . . .got it . …wait! what?[/quote]

You have some serious misunderstandings on how the law of entropy works. Order arises from chaos and recedes to entropy.

127

It has been pointed out by others that morality likely evolved, so that humans could survive better in groups. Aside from our physical evolution, we’ve also been undergoing a cultural evolution. So, I imagine most of us have some shared innate sense of morality, as well as several ideas about morality that are more relative and arbitrary. Ultimately, the ideas that survive and become prominent in our culture need not match our physical desire to survive - “society” could evolve to demand your death.

When talking about society, you have to ask why it evolved. It evolved because people live better going it together than going it alone. It likely started with family units, and then grew bigger thanks to co-evolution with human intelligence. When my society tells me that I deserve to die because I’m crippled, Jewish, or whatever, I think I have pretty good grounds on which to say, “Fuck society.”

I need not replace one authority I already believe to only exist in someone’s head, with another authority that definitely only exists in someone’s head. See, the problem here is authority itself. When I read a book, I don’t just take the author’s word for it because he’s an authority on the subject (that is a matter of credibility). I try to examine the merits of the arguments being made, and the evidence that supports them. Most moral rules have proven benefit to each and every one of us. But there are also plenty that are just stupid - like rules against homosexuality or prostitution. Some things are just nobody’s damn business, and don’t harm anyone or prevent us from communicating.

128

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

Just so we’re on the same page, I need what you define chaos. I define it as where stuff happens with out rhyme or reason. If anything would to occur from it, it could not be predicted. There is not such thing as randomness with subsequent predictability, there is simply no logic. Out of randomness to randomness, what happens happens and you can never know what that will be. Out of order to order, there in lies predictability.
The scientific definition maybe different as was the case with nothingness. Scientific nothingness is a vacuum absent stuff, but that’s not true nothingness.

If you can figure out why the electrons behave the way they do, it ceases to be random. If it is random, why something does what it does is not knowable. We haven’t discovered the quantum mechanism, but there is one, because at a “group level” quantum particles always behave the same way.
You can’t apply “chaos” to things we don’t know, that even worse than “God did it”.

129

[quote]madman27409 wrote:
It has been pointed out by others that morality likely evolved, so that humans could survive better in groups. Aside from our physical evolution, we’ve also been undergoing a cultural evolution. So, I imagine most of us have some shared innate sense of morality, as well as several ideas about morality that are more relative and arbitrary. Ultimately, the ideas that survive and become prominent in our culture need not match our physical desire to survive - “society” could evolve to demand your death.

When talking about society, you have to ask why it evolved. It evolved because people live better going it together than going it alone. It likely started with family units, and then grew bigger thanks to co-evolution with human intelligence. When my society tells me that I deserve to die because I’m crippled, Jewish, or whatever, I think I have pretty good grounds on which to say, “Fuck society.”

I need not replace one authority I already believe to only exist in someone’s head, with another authority that definitely only exists in someone’s head. See, the problem here is authority itself. When I read a book, I don’t just take the author’s word for it because he’s an authority on the subject (that is a matter of credibility). I try to examine the merits of the arguments being made, and the evidence that supports them. Most moral rules have proven benefit to each and every one of us. But there are also plenty that are just stupid - like rules against homosexuality or prostitution. Some things are just nobody’s damn business, and don’t harm anyone or prevent us from communicating. [/quote]

It is the innate sense that we need to examine. Like facial expressions there is that innate sense of right an wrong that we all share. What is it, where does it come from and why is it there?

130

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

Just so we’re on the same page, I need what you define chaos. I define it as where stuff happens with out rhyme or reason. If anything would to occur from it, it could not be predicted. There is not such thing as randomness with subsequent predictability, there is simply no logic. Out of randomness to randomness, what happens happens and you can never know what that will be. Out of order to order, there in lies predictability.
The scientific definition maybe different as was the case with nothingness. Scientific nothingness is a vacuum absent stuff, but that’s not true nothingness.

If you can figure out why the electrons behave the way they do, it ceases to be random. If it is random, why something does what it does is not knowable. We haven’t discovered the quantum mechanism, but there is one, because at a “group level” quantum particles always behave the same way.
You can’t apply “chaos” to things we don’t know, that even worse than “God did it”.[/quote]

…if you believe that a “something” is behind it all, chaotic randomness is not an option, but you do realise that in the vastness of this universe, throughout it’s empty space countless particles appear and disappear every nano second? That is chaos pat…

…perhaps you could explain why a particle behaves in a specific experiment, but that doesn’t explain the behaviour of particles in the vacuum of space…

  1. A particle is formed at the core of the sun. It interacts with other particles on it’s way through the sun’s mantle, and finally after months or even years is free to soar through space. What determins the nature of that particle? You cannot predict that; it’s random…

  2. Chaos = the events right after the Big Bang. Or, such an huge amount of variables that nothing meaningful can be derived from it until it simplifies…

…speaking from our human perspective ofcourse, not taking into account a deified overseer…

131

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

Just so we’re on the same page, I need what you define chaos. I define it as where stuff happens with out rhyme or reason. If anything would to occur from it, it could not be predicted. There is not such thing as randomness with subsequent predictability, there is simply no logic. Out of randomness to randomness, what happens happens and you can never know what that will be. Out of order to order, there in lies predictability.
The scientific definition maybe different as was the case with nothingness. Scientific nothingness is a vacuum absent stuff, but that’s not true nothingness.

If you can figure out why the electrons behave the way they do, it ceases to be random. If it is random, why something does what it does is not knowable. We haven’t discovered the quantum mechanism, but there is one, because at a “group level” quantum particles always behave the same way.
You can’t apply “chaos” to things we don’t know, that even worse than “God did it”.[/quote]

…if you believe that a “something” is behind it all, chaotic randomness is not an option, but you do realise that in the vastness of this universe, throughout it’s empty space countless particles appear and disappear every nano second? That is chaos pat…

…perhaps you could explain why a particle behaves in a specific experiment, but that doesn’t explain the behaviour of particles in the vacuum of space…

  1. A particle is formed at the core of the sun. It interacts with other particles on it’s way through the sun’s mantle, and finally after months or even years is free to soar through space. What determins the nature of that particle? You cannot predict that; it’s random…

  2. Chaos = the events right after the Big Bang. Or, such an huge amount of variables that nothing meaningful can be derived from it until it simplifies…

…speaking from our human perspective ofcourse, not taking into account a deified overseer…
[/quote]

You guys have got yourselves into an interesting tangent here. God or no God, the universe could still be completely random, or completely deterministic. Neither option would bode well for free will as most people conceive it. The presence of a god might save free will, but not necessarily. God could exist, but he may not have a plan. Anyways, I think physicists are leaning towards statistical randomness, not whales falling out of the sky randomness. Things can be predicted within a certain window of probability. So, I guess that makes our universe something in between random and deterministic.

132

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html

…the plot thickens…

133

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…yes, it is predictable that an interference pattern will form, but you can’t predict how the single electron acts in order to pass through the slits. See, i can use an unrelated experiment to support my argument too!
[/quote]

No what your saying it that interference patterns will never be understood. So your saying that no knowing why something is the way it is chaos theory?
We don’t know why it does what it does yet…That doesn’t make it random. Especially if you can predict something from it. It’s not random. Just not understood.

Chaos does not exist.[/quote]

…no on both claims; that’s not what i’m saying at all. Remember the physicist you emailed? He said the vacuum of space is a brothing mess of quantum particles: this is chaos. From this chaos ordered systems emerge. These systems behave in a predictable manner. That is all…
[/quote]

Just so we’re on the same page, I need what you define chaos. I define it as where stuff happens with out rhyme or reason. If anything would to occur from it, it could not be predicted. There is not such thing as randomness with subsequent predictability, there is simply no logic. Out of randomness to randomness, what happens happens and you can never know what that will be. Out of order to order, there in lies predictability.
The scientific definition maybe different as was the case with nothingness. Scientific nothingness is a vacuum absent stuff, but that’s not true nothingness.

If you can figure out why the electrons behave the way they do, it ceases to be random. If it is random, why something does what it does is not knowable. We haven’t discovered the quantum mechanism, but there is one, because at a “group level” quantum particles always behave the same way.
You can’t apply “chaos” to things we don’t know, that even worse than “God did it”.[/quote]

…if you believe that a “something” is behind it all, chaotic randomness is not an option, but you do realise that in the vastness of this universe, throughout it’s empty space countless particles appear and disappear every nano second? That is chaos pat…
[/quote]
No, if it were random, anything would appear not just particles. Perhaps a fire breathing goat with tenticles and 16 testicles would pop in for no particular reason. Second, they don’t just appear they come from elsewhere. Like putting a empty bucket in to a pool. The water will either force the bucket out, or spill over into it. Subatomic particle are not bound by space or time, so they can jump around from place to place. Nature abhors a vacuum. There are reasons this occurs, it’s not random, just not understood.

  1. A particle is formed at the core of the sun. It interacts with other particles on it’s way through the sun’s mantle, and finally after months or even years is free to soar through space. What determins the nature of that particle? You cannot predict that; it’s random…
    [/quote]
    Again not random, just not understood. The particle isn’t form from nothing, it’s derived from “information” that already exists, it pools it together to create said particle. Information can neither be created, or destroyed, except in blackholes…

Again, not knowing or understanding processes does not make them random. There are theories which suggest that there are no voids in space, but that every bit is filled with something.

Not understanding a process doesn’t make it chaotic or random. If it is, it cannot ever be understood and no predictions can be made on the basis of it. Something acting weird doesn’t make it random, there is a reason it does what it does. It’s well know the quantum world doesn’t follow the law’s or Newtonian Physics.

134

[quote]ephrem wrote:
A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html

…the plot thickens…[/quote]

That’s cute. What plot?

135

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

…if you believe that a “something” is behind it all, chaotic randomness is not an option, but you do realise that in the vastness of this universe, throughout it’s empty space countless particles appear and disappear every nano second? That is chaos pat…
[/quote]
No, if it were random, anything would appear not just particles. Perhaps a fire breathing goat with tenticles and 16 testicles would pop in for no particular reason. Second, they don’t just appear they come from elsewhere. Like putting a empty bucket in to a pool. The water will either force the bucket out, or spill over into it. Subatomic particle are not bound by space or time, so they can jump around from place to place. Nature abhors a vacuum. There are reasons this occurs, it’s not random, just not understood.

  1. A particle is formed at the core of the sun. It interacts with other particles on it’s way through the sun’s mantle, and finally after months or even years is free to soar through space. What determins the nature of that particle? You cannot predict that; it’s random…
    [/quote]
    Again not random, just not understood. The particle isn’t form from nothing, it’s derived from “information” that already exists, it pools it together to create said particle. Information can neither be created, or destroyed, except in blackholes…

Again, not knowing or understanding processes does not make them random. There are theories which suggest that there are no voids in space, but that every bit is filled with something.

Not understanding a process doesn’t make it chaotic or random. If it is, it cannot ever be understood and no predictions can be made on the basis of it. Something acting weird doesn’t make it random, there is a reason it does what it does. It’s well know the quantum world doesn’t follow the law’s or Newtonian Physics.[/quote]

…look pat, we’re not connecting here. I’m doing my best to explain what i mean, but somehow you are just not getting it. One more try: you cannot predict the charge of a particle that came from the core of the sun, interacted with countless other particles on it’s journey, changing it’s charge as a result of that interaction, and then made it’s way to earth to be measured by a scientist.

…that particle’s charge came about by chance, by random interaction with other particles in the seething nuclear furnace that is Ra, our glorious sun. Okay?

136

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…look pat, we’re not connecting here. I’m doing my best to explain what i mean, but somehow you are just not getting it. One more try: you cannot predict the charge of a particle that came from the core of the sun, interacted with countless other particles on it’s journey, changing it’s charge as a result of that interaction, and then made it’s way to earth to be measured by a scientist.

…that particle’s charge came about by chance, by random interaction with other particles in the seething nuclear furnace that is Ra, our glorious sun. Okay?

[/quote]

I get it, you are just wrong. It’s not random, there is a reason it behaves to way it does, we just don’t know why. True randomness has not predictable qualities period. The second you put constrictions on this supposed randomness, it ceases to be random. Our understanding is that it is “random” with in a constraint. That’s not true randomness. It comes from something or somewhere and it behaves the way it does for some reason. Not understanding the nature of something is not the same as random…It may appear random, but it is not.

http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html
from ^^: “What exactly is chaos? The name “chaos theory” comes from the fact that the systems that the theory describes are apparently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in apparently random data.”

From^^:“Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability,…”

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/randomness.html

I know many atheists want to believe this crap, but it’s far fetched. True randomness does not exist. All it does is replace “I don’t know why” with well it just happens for no reason. It’s hog wash just like every other atheist theory of origin. Nothing begets nothing, there are only unknowns not random events.
People think theists are nuts for believing in an “imaginary” God we made up, yet, athiests believe that nothing creates something, that shit happens for no reason and where you do not understand something’s mechanism of action it’s then just random. Pardon me but the latter sounds crazier. Nothingness, by definition does not exist, and never has.

137

If I create a uniform superposition of states representing, say, the integers 1 to 10, and then make a measurement, the result is a random number. By all means predict what that will be, but you won’t do better than guessing.

138

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…look pat, we’re not connecting here. I’m doing my best to explain what i mean, but somehow you are just not getting it. One more try: you cannot predict the charge of a particle that came from the core of the sun, interacted with countless other particles on it’s journey, changing it’s charge as a result of that interaction, and then made it’s way to earth to be measured by a scientist.

…that particle’s charge came about by chance, by random interaction with other particles in the seething nuclear furnace that is Ra, our glorious sun. Okay?

[/quote]

I get it, you are just wrong. It’s not random, there is a reason it behaves to way it does, we just don’t know why. True randomness has not predictable qualities period. The second you put constrictions on this supposed randomness, it ceases to be random. Our understanding is that it is “random” with in a constraint. That’s not true randomness. It comes from something or somewhere and it behaves the way it does for some reason. Not understanding the nature of something is not the same as random…It may appear random, but it is not.[/quote]

…what do you mean by behave?

139

[quote]pat wrote:
You can’t apply “chaos” to things we don’t know, that even worse than “God did it”.[/quote]

Does this make the God fallacy correct?

No.

The fact is, in 20 years, science will have a better understanding of how the universe began, and the religious side will still be beating that same dead horse.

140

[quote]Rational Gaze wrote:
If I create a uniform superposition of states representing, say, the integers 1 to 10, and then make a measurement, the result is a random number. By all means predict what that will be, but you won’t do better than guessing.[/quote]

If you could understand the how and what part thermal variations that affect the phase, you could predict. But we don’t; yet.