Origins of existence, presuppositionalism with colby

colby
when im here, you should bother to talk about more interesting things
colby
maybe it's love, that all anybody cares about is the sound of their own voice. but this is philosophy!
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colby
philosophy is the love of wisdom. but what is wisdom?
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paradiso
colby: What is wisdom?
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colby
paradiso: it's been said that fear of god is the beginning of wisdom. so maybe i dont wanna be wise. i think it's applied understanding.
colby
paradiso, it's why the ivory tower doesn't help the poor
00:34 colby
paradiso, it's why the russians were never really communist
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paradiso
So, to understand "wisdom", I need to understand "god".
paradiso
What is "god"?
colby
god is who we deem responsible for life and death
you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JiTGmjyEQ

colby
all i know is, this can't be right
colby
this political economic organization
colby
truth is easy to define because logic proves the infinity of space and time
colby
and there is only one true thing
colby
and it is eternal
paradiso
Does "god" exist?
colby
of course it does because something can't come from nothing
paradiso
To understand wisdom, I need to understand "god". You have assigned properties to entity "god", which is not the same thing as it existing. See, mathematics.
paradiso
colby: Are you assigning a new property to "god"?
paradiso
It is now the creator of "something"?
paradiso
We have arrived at the cosmological argument.
colby
the application of knowledge generally assumes political opinions, which would be soemthing you'd say is within the realm of god
paradiso
How do you know that "something can't come from nothing"?
paradiso
(The cosmological argument is extremely weak.)
colby
paradiso: because then "nothing" wouldn't really be nothing, would it?
paradiso
I don't follow.
colby
if it contains potentiality for bringing forth things, it's not really nothing
paradiso
Maybe we have a misconception of "nothing".
paradiso
Maybe the "nothing" our minds have abstracted from events on Earth don't apply at this level of existence.
colby
nothing is nothing. what's hard about that?
paradiso
Maybe it's impossible for "nothing" to exist, and there is an underlying generative process beneath the underlying universe which has a stochastic process generating universes.
paradiso
colby: I agree that you agree you've created a concept of "nothing" in your brain.
paradiso
I don't know if your concept maps to anything.
paradiso
Do see why?
paradiso
How did you abstract the concept of nothing?
paradiso
First, you started with some objects and you counted them. You assigned a number to that amount of things. Eventually you abstract number away from any particular set of objects.
paradiso
You learned about zero, which was the absence of objects, and nothing is like that, but not just the absence of objects in your counting space, but all entities everywhere.
paradiso
However, this does not follow from your experience with "nothing".
colby
paradiso: if nothingness as i conceive it does not exist, as the absolute void of anything, then you prove my belief in an eternal source of all reality
paradiso
Your experience of nothing always occurred in the context of an environment in which you were running computational processes.
paradiso
You can *posit* there is a state of "nothing", in the way you're describing, but you can't abstract it from the experiences you've had on Earth.
paradiso
Do you follow?
paradiso
It's an axiom or postulate, not an observation or derivable quality.
paradiso
It appears impossible to prove.
colby
logic proves it
paradiso
There is no unified logic.
paradiso
There are dozens of logical systems utilized by philosophers, many of them mutually inconsistent.
paradiso
To which logic are you referring?
paradiso
colby: You have never conceived of "nothing".
paradiso
You have conceived of "nothing in a given, extant computational frame, which exists in a subsuming context".
paradiso
This is an entirely different concept, something akin to zero.
paradiso
There is no reason to think "nothing" is a coherent concept.
paradiso
No experiences on Earth lead to that conclusion.
colby
paradiso: a thing exists, or it does not exist, right? well, the universe exists, because it has always existed
paradiso
colby: According to Sean Carroll, a majority of cosmologists believe the universe/existence is eternal.
paradiso
This defeats the entire premise we're engaging of 'something'/universe coming from nothing.
paradiso
Things as we conceive of them inside existence either exist or do not exist is a reasonable assumption that appears to always be true at our level of existence.
paradiso
It's unclear if this is always true through the universe.
paradiso
The fact that quantum mechanics allows for, and there have been observations of, entities popping into existence and out of existence would pressure that notion, arguably.
paradiso
In Aristotelean logic, though, the law of excluded middle affirms your assertion.
paradiso
Aristotelean logic is not how the universe works, however, generally.
paradiso
Which makes sense, as Aristotle was just this one dude who lived 2300 years ago couldn't have possibly figured out Universe works.
paradiso
+and
colby
paradiso: if quarks can come from a void, it's not really a void.
paradiso
colby: I think that all human knowledge is contingent on existence, as human brains exist inside an evolutionary process inside existence. It's not clear how one would meaningfully engage a question like "What is the origin of existence, if any?"
paradiso
colby: That is a model of reality.
paradiso
It may or may not be true.
paradiso
colby: It is generally presumed there are no hidden variables in QM, though.
paradiso
So, yes, in our complete picture of existence at that scale, things pop in and out of existence with nothing but a stochastic, generative process.
paradiso
Though, that may only be a meaningful statement in some interpretations of QM -- I can't remember.
paradiso
colby: All historical theism which posits causation for the universe is wildly speculative and unfounded.
colby
paradiso: so you're content to say to yourself that quarks arise out of pure nothingness, and leave it at that, without any sense of wonder as to how that could ever be logically possible. just call it nothing. the whole universe is just chance
paradiso
It's possible it may be possible to re-generate some of those models through a modern process, but it's necessary to essentially fully abandon those lines of thinkings.
paradiso
-s
paradiso
colby: What you mean by logic is the experience of our brain's generation/modeling of causality inside existence at a range of values for size, times, and energy.
paradiso
That is, the support of our brain's model of causality, which we're describing as 'logic' doesn't have a support over all parameter values for existence.
paradiso
It is not surprising whatsoever that outside that support reality behaves differently than our model.
paradiso
That is observed frequently in mathematical models in all domains of science.
paradiso
For example, if you model glucose uptake in a neuron at some temperature, and you change the temperature, who knows what happens then.
paradiso
Likely, there will be some temperature at which sufficient changes occur for which you model will break down.
paradiso
Logic is a model of causality, it's not 'truth'.
colby
paradiso: it's just there's no other way that existence could come to be if it were not eternal. can you imagine another way?
paradiso
colby: If the universe is not eternal, then I think the entire 'universe' popped into existence, stochastically.
paradiso
These two alternatives appear to be the two dominant possibilities among contemporary cosmologists.
paradiso
So, yes, I am okay with quarks popping in existence.
colby
paradiso: but that's a superficial disconnection of the chain of causality. if something can pop into existence then it does so from something eternal
paradiso
My model of causality doesn't have support in the region you're describing.
paradiso
There's no basis upon which I can have a privileged orientation in this space.
paradiso
The correct orientation is "How does it work here?"
paradiso
And experimental evidence indicates, "Things pop in and out of existence with no hidden variables."
paradiso
To which my response is, "Oh, interesting, that's different than when you observe giraffes and human economic systems."
paradiso
To which physics methodology says, "Correct."
colby
paradiso: eternity is the only answer, because, there's no other answer
paradiso
It's something like 60% of cosmologists think the universe is eternal, and like 30% of cosmologists think it popped into existence with no causation.
colby
even a child can prove eternity
paradiso
colby: The Deep Nature of a existence is probably a very high dimensional quantum mechanical wave evolving according to the mathematics of QM.
paradiso
What we call 'existence' is a way that wave perceives itself.
paradiso
Like this conversation.
paradiso
The observable universe is part of that wave.
paradiso
Nothing exists besides that wave -- that's the best model I'm aware of.
paradiso
It's incoherent to ask what else exists.
colby
yeah, proof of eternity doesn't do much for me either
paradiso
I'm essentially quoting Sean Carroll, one of the world's leading cosmologists.
paradiso
There is no coherency in a question of like "Why are the mathematics of the wave the way they are?"
paradiso
A question like that is step 300 trillion in the wave's evolution and presumes the mathematics of QM.
paradiso
This is a presuppositional argument, founded on the best empirical our data has about existence.
paradiso
As opposed to theistic presuppositional frameworks that are projections of human social existence in the form of 'beings' and 'minds'.
colby
it's almost instinctive to even animals, the will to live is almost the same as the belief in eternity
paradiso
Presuppositional answers rooted in empirical observations would be one of the common solutions the Munchhausen trilemma, notably the foundherentism approach.
paradiso
I am a foundherentist.
paradiso
Theistic presuppositionalism would be axiomatic rooted in basal human cognition, given derived theories like evolution.
paradiso
That is, it seems to subsume TP and appear to be strictly superior.
paradiso
Basal human cognitive patterns remain entities in physical realism, and we could ultimately identify through derived methodologies that it's optimal.
paradiso
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma
paradiso
What's your selection in the trilemma?
paradiso
colby: There is a meta-system to all of these alternatives, you see.
paradiso
Maybe theistic presuppositionalism is correct -- as a physical realist, I'm capable of knowing that.
paradiso
I can put a probability distribution above all of these mutually exclusive explanatory frameworks. One case of that is with all probability on TP
paradiso
Putting probabilities on things follows directly from a Bayesian version of physical realism.
paradiso
That is why it is the best system -- it's strictly the most expressive.
colby
paradiso, i dont understand alot of the things you say, but i know it's mumbo jumbo, and i think you know it too. now, i've proven the existence of eternity to you, and im gonna go play morrowind now
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paradiso
Smart Tech Customer : Well, 'aight, check this out, dawg. First of all, you throwin' too many big words at me, and because I don't understand them, I'm gonna take 'em as disrespect. Watch your mouth and help me with the sale.
paradiso
:D