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Thread: Logically rationalize God

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    Quantum theory has nothing to do with "not having causality" or "observer effect" or any of that quantum woo.

    coeruleum talks out of her ass and she has no idea what she's talking about most of the time. You're welcome.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    Quantum theory has nothing to do with "not having causality" or "observer effect" or any of that quantum woo.

    coeruleum talks out of her ass and she has no idea what she's talking about most of the time. You're welcome.
    I'm not talking about quantum woo. I'm talking about a lack of sufficiently proximal efficient causes to the point they're not the best explanation, not a complete lack of efficient causes. The observer effect is real and documented like evolution and gravity are real and documented. I may not be a philosopher of science like you but I can do physics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    I'm not talking about quantum woo. I'm talking about a lack of sufficiently proximal efficient causes to the point they're not the best explanation, not a complete lack of efficient causes. The observer effect is real and documented like evolution and gravity are real and documented. I may not be a philosopher of science like you but I can do physics.
    The "observer effect" is based on a misunderstanding of quantum theory, based on a very specific "interpretation" of it. It's not real and it hasn't been "documented". Since it's an interpretation, there's nothing to document.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    The "observer effect" is based on a misunderstanding of quantum theory, based on a very specific "interpretation" of it. It's not real and it hasn't been "documented". Since it's an interpretation, there's nothing to document.
    "Gravity" is based on a misunderstanding of Newtonian theory, based on a very specific "interpretation" of it. It's not real and it hasn't been "documented." Since it's an interpretation, there's nothing to document.

    Prove me wrong. Now I see it's a good thing you're not a philosophy of science professor.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    "Gravity" is based on a misunderstanding of Newtonian theory, based on a very specific "interpretation" of it. It's not real and it hasn't been "documented." Since it's an interpretation, there's nothing to document.

    Prove me wrong. Now I see it's a good thing you're not a philosophy of science professor.
    Well I didn't realize that you were trying to use a trick question. No, "gravity" and "evolution" are not "real" and can't really be "documented", but it doesn't matter because we're just assuming that they're true.

    So which "interpretation" are we going to prefer? We're going to prefer it based on criteria like parsimony and rationality.

    In quantum theory, you either believe in the Multiverse, or you don't. And if you don't believe in the Multiverse and go with the Copenhagen route, then it might have to do with "observer effect", but even then that's a misunderstanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of it.

    The quantum theory is based off on the exact same experimental result from the famous double-slit experiment. The problem is how to interpret the result. One interpretation says that the reason why the photon lands on that very specific location, is because out of all sorts of possibilities, it has chosen that specific location, perhaps having an "observer" have had something to do with it, but even then that's a bit of a stretch from that interpretation. There are very few people who claim that the observer had anything to do with it. They would say that it was "random" or "uncertain".

    Another interpretation says that they all happened simultaneously, in the parallel universes, and there was no need for a "wave-function collapse".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    Well I didn't realize that you were trying to use a trick question. No, "gravity" and "evolution" are not "real" and can't really be "documented", but it doesn't matter because we're just assuming that they're true.

    So which "interpretation" are we going to prefer? We're going to prefer it based on criteria like parsimony and rationality.

    In quantum theory, you either believe in the Multiverse, or you don't. And if you don't believe in the Multiverse and go with the Copenhagen route, then it might have to do with "observer effect", but even then that's a misunderstanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of it.

    The quantum theory is based off on the exact same experimental result from the famous double-slit experiment. The problem is how to interpret the result. One interpretation says that the reason why the photon lands on that very specific location, is because out of all sorts of possibilities, it has chosen that specific location, perhaps having an "observer" have had something to do with it, but even then that's a bit of a stretch from that interpretation. There are very few people who claim that the observer had anything to do with it. They would say that it was "random" or "uncertain".

    Another interpretation says that they all happened simultaneously, in the parallel universes, and there was no need for a "wave-function collapse".
    The physical apparatus and act of observing the particle influences it. Particles don't choose things and there aren't alternate universes floating around. This is the standard interpretation. Now, go prove gravity wrong for us and walk off a roof. Thanks!

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    The physical apparatus and act of observing the particle influences it. Particles don't choose things and there aren't alternate universes floating around. This is the standard interpretation. Now, go prove gravity wrong for us and walk off a roof. Thanks!
    ...No it doesn't. Nobody is saying that the observer is influencing the result or any of that quantum woo. We're interpreting the exact same result in different ways.

    But you clearly don't understand what is being said here.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    ...No it doesn't. Nobody is saying that the observer is influencing the result or any of that quantum woo. We're interpreting the exact same result in different ways.

    But you clearly don't understand what is being said here.
    That's not quantum woo. The eye and instruments are physical objects which interact with the particle(s) in the experiment. That's much less woo-ey than magical sci-fi other universes (pun intended.) This is why libertarian free will is nonsense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    That's not quantum woo. The eye and instruments are physical objects which interact with the particle(s) in the experiment. That's much less woo-ey than magical sci-fi other universes (pun intended.) This is why libertarian free will is nonsense.
    Well it's just ironic that someone who claims to be against God is for observer effect, since the observer effect creates paradoxes like the Wigner's friend, where it becomes an infinite regress of everyone needing to observe everyone else.

    The paradox can be resolved if you come up with the "ultimate observer", or God.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    Well it's just ironic that someone who claims to be against God is for observer effect, since the observer effect creates paradoxes like the Wigner's friend, where it becomes an infinite regress of everyone needing to observe everyone else.

    The paradox can be resolved if you come up with the "ultimate observer", or God.
    ...I already stated I'm a pantheist, so you're confused, and anyways, I mean observation as a physical act which doesn't require an infinite regress, not as a part of consciousness.

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    Like I said, in quantum theory, you pretty much only have two options: Either you believe in the "Wigner's friend", where it will eventually "prove" the existence of a monotheistic God as the "ultimate observer", or you believe in the Multiverse because it resolves all those paradoxes, as well as it being the purest and most straightforward "interpretation" of the equations from the quantum theory.

    Either are incredibly counter-intuitive and highly disturbing conclusions that we have no choice but to accept, if we were to take the quantum theory seriously as a description of reality.

    The Realist's approach is to accept the Schroedinger's equations as being the literally true description of reality, that everything IS happening all at once. The cat IS both dead and alive at the same time - in parallel universes. Those are not "possibilities" that all but one suddenly disappear after the "collapse".

    Or you can say that the "collapse" is responsible for the cat being dead or alive. Or your very existence depends on somebody else's observation, or God's.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    Like I said, in quantum theory, you pretty much only have two options: Either you believe in the "Wigner's friend", where it will eventually "prove" the existence of a monotheistic God as the "ultimate observer", or you believe in the Multiverse because it resolves all those paradoxes, as well as it being the purest and most straightforward "interpretation" of the equations from the quantum theory.

    Either are incredibly counter-intuitive and highly disturbing conclusions that we have no choice but to accept, if we were to take the quantum theory seriously as a description of reality.

    The Realist's approach is to accept the Schroedinger's equations as being the literally true description of reality, that everything IS happening all at once. The cat IS both dead and alive at the same time - in parallel universes. Those are not "possibilities" that all but one suddenly disappear after the "collapse".

    Or you can say that the "collapse" is responsible for the cat being dead or alive. Or your very existence depends on somebody else's observation, or God's.
    1. The physical act of observing is identical with the mental act of observing. It's possible, in contrast, to have a particle whose location isn't uncertain even though it hasn't been observed by anyone (unless you believe in and include God or other spirits, but their act of observation wouldn't necessarily work like ours and probably wouldn't.) The photon/other particle being observed is basically being lassoed in by interacting with the particles involved in the act of observation (e.g. electrons in the eye or artificial instruments.) The "collapse" consists of this physical interaction. I thought this is commonly accepted knowledge but I guess not.

    2. Though not metaphysical proof for my viewpoint, observation happening on what strongly resembles a "ground of being" is a good argument for a pantheistic or panentheistic God in the form of evidence rather than proof. However, regardless of your metaphysics, it doesn't require a multiverse or the god found in the (seemingly misnamed) Kalām cosmological argument.

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    There's yet to be an explanation of the mechanism of how that "collapse" works, and there's yet to be a clear definition of what that "observer" means. You might say that it's human-level consciousness, and fine, but then that'll create the paradox of Wigner's friend, which can only be resolved by the "ultimate observer".

    But none of this really matters, because "collapse" is just an unnecessary complication added to the theory. We can simply accept the Schroedinger's wavefunction equation as is. We never need to bother with "collapse" and just say that collapse is unnecessary or never happens in the first place. Collapse adds more problems than it solves, so we can just cut them all off with Okham's razor.

    To get back to the topic, I doubt this has anything to do with the existence or the non-existence of God, but I think what we can all agree from quantum theory is that it allows for the multiple possibilities in the future, or we might say that quantum theory allows free-will in the subjective sense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    The "collapse" consists of this physical interaction. I thought this is commonly accepted knowledge but I guess not.
    No... that's due to misunderstanding of quantum theory, because you didn't actually bother looking into quantum theory. "Collapse" isn't a physical process and there's no physical interaction whatsover. Collapse is a mathematical equation, or more like mathematical trickery. It's basically a way to "collapse" or "invalidate" the Schroedinger's wavefunction.

    Schroedinger's wavefunction tells us that a photon or an electron or whatever are actually in all sorts of places simultaneously. And that's weird, because a single electron can't be in multiple places at the same time. Collapse is a way to "resolve" that, by saying that say, at the moment of observation or measurement, the wavefunction equation somehow magically "collapses" and somehow stops working, and we only see an electron in a single location, instead of many.

    Of course, that just seems like common-sense. But scientific theories have always defied our preconceptions of "common sense". If we were to take the Schroedinger's wavefunction literally, then we have no choice but to accept that those electrons are indeed in all sorts of places simultaneously. Or we could say that the world "splits" into "many-worlds".

    Being a Realist means taking that equation seriously as a literal description of reality. The idea of having an unexplained, magical mechanism of "collapse" is just bizarro.

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    It's not a magical mechanism of "collapse." It's a quantum object being forced to act as a classical one by being acted on by classical forces (the eye/instruments.) A quantum world may be equivalent to many classical worlds, but we can still say they're in many places within a single universe or we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I guess making things happen by looking at them could be considered magic like stage magic or "occult"/hidden forces, but it's also perfectly explicable and the accepted hypothesis outside of your cult and the pseudo-Kalām people's other cult.

    So, you hate God and magic, which are not scientific but don't contradict science's mere existence, but unfalsifiable universes, which remarkably do contradict science's mere existence, are OK. Gotchya.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    It's not a magical mechanism of "collapse." It's a quantum object being forced to act as a classical one by being acted on by classical forces (the eye/instruments.) A quantum world may be equivalent to many classical worlds, but we can still say they're in many places within a single universe or we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I guess making things happen by looking at them could be considered magic like stage magic or "occult"/hidden forces, but it's also perfectly explicable and the accepted hypothesis outside of your cult and the pseudo-Kalām people's other cult.
    No, again that's not at all what the Schroedinger's wave function equation is saying and what the "collapse" equation is saying.

    Look here for a pretty good explanation of how all the equations work or what it is actually saying:

    https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-m...tion-collapses

    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    So, you hate God and magic, which are not scientific but don't contradict science's mere existence, but unfalsifiable universes, which remarkably do contradict science's mere existence, are OK. Gotchya.
    I already said that I don't care for God's existence or non-existence either way.

    And Many-Worlds does make actual predictions, and it actually is testable. It would be testable once we have quantum computers (and apparently we already have one working on a small scale).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    No, again that's not at all what the Schroedinger's wave function equation is saying and what the "collapse" equation is saying.

    Look here for a pretty good explanation of how all the equations work or what it is actually saying:

    https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-m...tion-collapses



    I already said that I don't care for God's existence or non-existence either way.

    And Many-Worlds does make actual predictions, and it actually is testable. It would be testable once we have quantum computers (and apparently we already have one working on a small scale).
    Quote Originally Posted by [COLOR=#333333
    Domino Valdano[/COLOR], PhD Theoretical Physics]Wave function collapse means the same thing in quantum mechanics as it does in classical statistical mechanics.

    I see a lot of misleading answers to this question. Most have some validity, but I think in one way or another, they miss the point.

    The most important thing to realize about wave function collapse is that it's not specific to quantum mechanics. The history is that in 1931, Koopman and Weil discovered a way of reformulating classical statistical mechanics in terms of a complex Hilbert space of wave functions. A year later, von Neumann made this formulation more rigorous and adapted it to quantum mechanics. Wave function collapse is an important part of how statistical mechanics works in this Hilbert space formalism, known as the Koopman-von Neumann formalism. There is nothing different about it in terms of the physics, from ordinary statistical mechanics, rather it's just a different way of looking at it, and it happens to be a particularly useful way of looking at it for many applications in quantum mechanics. (Whereas in classical mechanics, it turns out to be useful only for a few obscure things, and for the most part just adds unnecessary complexity to the usual way of looking at classical mechanics).

    The idea is that from the point of view of some observer trying to understand a system, there is often some uncertainty about various properties of the system which could be measured. These are represented by the wavefunction as a superposition of different possibilities.

    For example, if a friend of yours tells you that this evening she's going to flip a coin, and if it's heads she will read a book, and if it's tails she will watch some Netflix, then assuming you are not with her you will have a model in your head of what's going on in her house that involves a 50% probability that she's reading, and a 50% probability that she's watching Netflix. If she then texts you and says "wow, this book is really good, you should read it!" the 2 possibilities collapse to 1. Note that there is nothing spooky about this, it's just that you've updated your subjective information about what's going on. If there is another mutual friend who stayed in closer contact with her throughout the evening, then his model of her house would involve less uncertainty, hence it would not involve a superposition like yours did.

    It's important to realize that in Bohr and Heisenberg's interpretation of quantum mechanics (Copenhagen), the wavefunction is something that represents epistemic knowledge about a system, it was never intended to represent the objective "state" of a system. Von Neumann also emphasized that when the "collapse" occurs is arbitrary, and doesn't refer to any physical process. You can use many different wavefunctions to represent a given system, some of which involve superpositions and some of which don't, as long as they make the same predictions in the end. Of course, in quantum mechanics there is a minimum amount of uncertainty required for some observables whereas in classical physics there is not.

    In 1956, a precocious student of John Wheeler's, Hugh Everett, proposed that perhaps there is a "universal wavefinction" that provides a God's eye view, such that any specific wavefunction used by a particular observer just contains a subset of all the information contained in the universal wave function. If that's true, then this universal wavefunction could be regarded as objectively real, rather than epistemic. And it is clear that if you accept the wavefunction as real, as Everett did, it never collapses. As interesting as this proposal is, it's still regarded as controversial among most physicists. Some believe in it, others do not, and still others shrug the question off as metaphysical and essentially meaningless. But it doesn't affect the question of whether wavefunction collapse is a physical process--just about everyone on both sides agrees that it is not. It's merely a useful representation of how an observer gains information about a system.

    An important difference between the wavefunction in classical statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics is that in classical mechanics, there is no interference between different possibilities in the superpostion, at least for the normal observables like position and momentum that physicists usually care about. In quantum mechanics, different possibilities can interfere constructively or destructively before a final outcome is registered. But when you have large ensembles of particles, there is enough noise that the different possibilities are always decoherent, which guarantees that they cannot interfere with one another.

    Because of the interference, and the uncertainty principle (both of which arise as consequences of the non-commutativity of observables), the Hilbert space formalism is a much more natural way to view things in quantum mechanics than it is in classical mechanics, which is why it's used so much more in quantum mechanics. But even so, it's not absolutely essential. For example, in 1948 a different student of Wheeler's, Richard Feynman, developed a new formulation for quantum mechanics called the path integral formulation. In this formulation, there is no need for a Hilbert space of wavefunctions, and hence no need for the concept of a collapse.
    This was right on your linked Quora page. My parents tried to push me into theoretical physics starting in middle school, which I didn't want to do because all the new theories seemed misguided at the time and that's not worth staying locked up in your head over. All I have to say is you'd be better off learning more about physics before you talk about it. The universal wavefunction for particles would just be the natural result of a deterministic universe and with enough ingenuity could be smuggled into a non-deterministic one in ways less annoying than unfalsifiable entire universes or the "Kalām" cosmological argument but with observers instead of "causes."

    Also, I can personally perceive and understand what quantum weirdness is on a classical level and it's almost laughably trivial.

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    Please, the other worlds interpretation is nonsense. Wavefunctions do have other states, and staring at a fan with the light on among many other things will show you several of them, but those other states aren't in other coherent worlds. They cohere in the actual world, which is what "quantum" means by definition. You could call the other worlds non-actual worlds, but then you're more or less substituting the pseudo-Kalām God for the Devil if you have an even cursory understanding of what "actual" means in philosophy, how that applies to a world, and how the Devil/demonic/evil is defined in various theistic philosophies. So no, I don't support using God or the Devil as a pseudo-scientific explanation when I know the proper scientific one.

    In that case, I can't wait for the singularity. I'll turn into our demon overlord and we'll get to blow it up and it'll take all the "transhumanists" with it. Heroes of myth will be put to shame, but at the same time life will go on pretty much as normal after we blow it up.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh View Post
    @ashlesha
    I am not @God.
    Modesty does not befit the likes of we.
    And it was good.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    Please, the other worlds interpretation is nonsense. Wavefunctions do have other states, and staring at a fan with the light on among many other things will show you several of them, but those other states aren't in other coherent worlds. They cohere in the actual world,
    Well the actual photon in "our world" is interacting with the other photons in the "other world". A single particle doesn't magically turn into a wave, just because it feels like it.

    "Collapse" is just a stubborn refusal to admit that the Schroedinger's wave function equation might be true, which you know, we're kinda forced to admit that it is true.

    The many-worlds interpretation is simply the only "interpretation" of quantum physics without having the baggage of all the nasty paradoxes, like the Wigner's friend or the EPR paradox. Those paradoxes exist because "collapse" is just an unnecessary complication.

    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    In that case, I can't wait for the singularity. I'll turn into our demon overlord and we'll get to blow it up and it'll take all the "transhumanists" with it. Heroes of myth will be put to shame, but at the same time life will go on pretty much as normal after we blow it up.
    Technological singularity is unlikely to happen, because it's the explanations that will grow our knowledge... and not "intelligence". So those super-intelligent AIs will have to come up with explanations, just like we do.

    Anyway, the way we might be able to test many-worlds is interesting. If we have a quantum computer working, then we'll have a very large object, a quantum computer, in a superposition state. And if we have human-level consciousness AI running on that quantum computer, then we'll have an AI experiencing quantum interference or "quantum consciousness". Which the "collapse" might say that that very consciousness will cause "collapse". And so if "collapse" is true then the AI will... die. Or at least it will experience a different kind of consciousness.

    Or even if that's unlikely, then how the heck can we even have quantum computers running in the the first place, without utilizing the power of the atoms in the "other" universes? And it does seem like we'll have quantum computers actually running.

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    Well, "many worlds" is defined as non-interacting worlds. I told you the "other worlds" are easily perceptible... as shadows. Physicists seem to have a lot of problems with shadows in general.

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    Personally I like the many-worlds interpretation or some variant but as I understand it, it is as equally plausible as the Copenhagen interpretation, but Copenhagenists don't like it because they consider it unappealing.

    For me, all possible outcomes are what will happen, or they would not be possible. (I ascribe to the Level IV multiverse of Max Tegmark and Hugh Everett's intrepretation).

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    Also, if a thing exists, it is meaningless to say it is contingent: it can only be necessary. And you cannot make a thing exist simply by calling it necessary.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh View Post
    Personally I like the many-worlds interpretation or some variant but as I understand it, it is as equally plausible as the Copenhagen interpretation, but Copenhagenists don't like it because they consider it unappealing.
    I think Copenhagenists just never bothered to update their "interpretation", up to this day. Which is understandable, since Many-Worlds wasn't proposed until a while later. People were still trying to understand what the quantum equations meant, and Many-Worlds does seem like an incredibly "radical" and a counter-intuitive explanation. But if they want to limit everything to this universe only, then sure, it might make sense.

    I think Realists like Einstein were right in assuming that Copenhagen was basically nonsense, and that quantum theory was incomplete and needed more understanding.

    Einstein said, "A moon does not cease to exist, if you don't look at it!", which is a Realist interpretation that things objectively exist whether we have anything to do with it, or not. Saying that our observations have something to do with it is a Subjectivist interpretation.

    He also said, "God does not play dice", because he doubted the supposedly random and probabilistic nature of quantum theory, which would do away with things like locality and causality, which would violate many principles, including elementary rationality.

    The thing with probabilities is that it's subjective, and it's not referring to anything that's occurring in the physical world. It's referring to our subjective view of things, such as this universe's view of the multiverse.

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    There's no way to logically prove God until you can at least show sufficient evidence of a supernatural realm. Until that time, any argument for God which does not first show evidence of supernaturalness is baseless.

    The bible doesn't cut it in so far as evidence of God goes. A book about supernatural phenomena is not evidence of supernatural phenomena which we can then base a logical argument for God on.

    Millions of books have been written by men, women alike, and published for distribution to the public. Thousands of books contain stories about Gods, Mythologies, magical worlds, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. People pick up a pen and write words onto page and tell stories all in conformity with space and time. Writing is a craft. Publishing books is a business. The bible is the result of the same action sets by which books came into existence before and after.

    So whenever a Christian says the bible is proof of God, they are not using logic. That is not a logical argument. It's merely a baseless assumption. Assumptions do not equate to evidence. You can pile up as many assumptions as you want or as many congregations as you want, and that doesn't mean shit in terms of logically proving God.

    Likewise for Muslims, Jews, Hindus and everybody else. Probably its human nature to create these mythologies. The Greeks had their Zeus on Mt. Olympus, the Christians have their Jesus in Heaven. So on.

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    FWIW let's not forget that science demonstrated to a 100 percent degree of scientific certainty that virgin birth and human resurrection are biologically impossible. Furthermore, the earth is billions of years old. So anybody in today's day and age who believes in the Bible must be operating inside of some heavily fortified mental weaknesses. If they are being honest with themselves, the religious person has no method of rationalizing God except through faith. Given that faith and intelligence are fundamentally incompatible, no intelligent argument for God is possible.

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    I have an intuitive relationship with the Universe.

    I find intellectualization of "God" to be a waste of time. Life is better experienced.

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    I dunno what kind of conflict and shit has occurred in the last several pages of this thread, haven't read it. But this quote I came across on tumblr reminded me and seemed relevant.

    “Well, if there were a divinity then it would be utterly separate from both scientific enquiry and human longing… If there is a god, we should not be able to find it. No divinity in which I would wish to believe would declare itself by means of what we would recognize as evidence. […] If I detected proof of a deity, I would distrust that deity on the grounds that a god should be smarter than that.”
    — Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey

    Why is it "smart" to remain undetected? I do think it's more fitting of a God, to be beyond comprehension

    For anyone who gives a shit... I've reached a point where the question in the op is personally irrelevant and I can suspend disbelief with regard to religious concepts if necessary. But I have a personal conception of a God with an infinite degree of understanding that gets in the way of having any rules (though I feel compelled to emulate that and forgive and be loving, which i see as a sort of loose "rule" in a sense)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kill4Me View Post
    There's no way to logically prove God until you can at least show sufficient evidence of a supernatural realm. Until that time, any argument for God which does not first show evidence of supernaturalness is baseless.

    The bible doesn't cut it in so far as evidence of God goes. A book about supernatural phenomena is not evidence of supernatural phenomena which we can then base a logical argument for God on.

    Millions of books have been written by men, women alike, and published for distribution to the public. Thousands of books contain stories about Gods, Mythologies, magical worlds, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. People pick up a pen and write words onto page and tell stories all in conformity with space and time. Writing is a craft. Publishing books is a business. The bible is the result of the same action sets by which books came into existence before and after.

    So whenever a Christian says the bible is proof of God, they are not using logic. That is not a logical argument. It's merely a baseless assumption. Assumptions do not equate to evidence. You can pile up as many assumptions as you want or as many congregations as you want, and that doesn't mean shit in terms of logically proving God.

    Likewise for Muslims, Jews, Hindus and everybody else. Probably its human nature to create these mythologies. The Greeks had their Zeus on Mt. Olympus, the Christians have their Jesus in Heaven. So on.
    But, lightning is proof of Zeus. Checkmate atheī!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kill4Me View Post
    FWIW let's not forget that science demonstrated to a 100 percent degree of scientific certainty that virgin birth and human resurrection are biologically impossible. Furthermore, the earth is billions of years old. So anybody in today's day and age who believes in the Bible must be operating inside of some heavily fortified mental weaknesses. If they are being honest with themselves, the religious person has no method of rationalizing God except through faith. Given that faith and intelligence are fundamentally incompatible, no intelligent argument for God is possible.
    All of Christian religion is allegorical, even if the materialist scientific literalists claim it was thought, mistakenly, that people believed all the biblical stories was live news, like CNN.

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    But, lightning is proof of Zeus. Checkmate atheī!
    Ya congrats you grew up in the modern world. so smart. much rational. no supernaturalist here.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Singu View Post
    I think Copenhagenists just never bothered to update their "interpretation", up to this day. Which is understandable, since Many-Worlds wasn't proposed until a while later. People were still trying to understand what the quantum equations meant, and Many-Worlds does seem like an incredibly "radical" and a counter-intuitive explanation. But if they want to limit everything to this universe only, then sure, it might make sense.

    I think Realists like Einstein were right in assuming that Copenhagen was basically nonsense, and that quantum theory was incomplete and needed more understanding.

    Einstein said, "A moon does not cease to exist, if you don't look at it!", which is a Realist interpretation that things objectively exist whether we have anything to do with it, or not. Saying that our observations have something to do with it is a Subjectivist interpretation.

    He also said, "God does not play dice", because he doubted the supposedly random and probabilistic nature of quantum theory, which would do away with things like locality and causality, which would violate many principles, including elementary rationality.

    The thing with probabilities is that it's subjective, and it's not referring to anything that's occurring in the physical world. It's referring to our subjective view of things, such as this universe's view of the multiverse.
    I recently read something posted by hatch.

    Basically newtonian physics says all future and past events exists as is. Determinstic universe, but not because of a domino effect. More so, all exists in time and only your speed in relation to the event snap shots you into a time line of past present future.

    Einstein thought the Universe was blocked as well. Not open and free. No hidden variables. All constants. All givens. What was going to happen did happen, no matter how randomness got it there.

    In this way, the cats' future is already determined and really the question of dead or alive is just a function of our limited capacity as deluded creatures who believe in free-will.

    I don't know, something like that.

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    What blows my mind is that the light photon that leaves the star arrives in my eye at the same time.

    Literally that light is instantly in my mind from its perspective, even if separated by millions of years. From the light's point of view, everything is instant.

    I think pure materialists are kinda of smart, but something pitiful there as well. The reason they even think that way was because of yesterday's superstition.

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    Quote Originally Posted by valhalla View Post
    What blows my mind is that the light photon that leaves the star arrives in my eye at the same time.

    Literally that light is instantly in my mind from its perspective, even if separated by millions of years. From the light's point of view, everything is instant.
    I used to marvel at the speed of the internet or thinking about it even of simple phonecalls like that

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    Quote Originally Posted by coeruleum View Post
    But, lightning is proof of Zeus. Checkmate atheī!
    Not that it matters, but the plural would be "atheoi". "i" is the Latin masculine nominative/vocative plural ending of the second declension. "Theos" is from Greek, and while you got the declension, gender, number, and case right, you got the wrong language. ツ

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    Quote Originally Posted by FreelancePoliceman View Post
    Not that it matters, but the plural would be "atheoi". "i" is the Latin masculine nominative/vocative plural ending of the second declension. "Theos" is from Greek, and while you got the declension, gender, number, and case right, you got the wrong language. ツ
    I got the right language. If I wanted to speak Latin, I'd say lightning is proof of Jupiter.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FreelancePoliceman View Post
    Not that it matters, but the plural would be "atheoi". "i" is the Latin masculine nominative/vocative plural ending of the second declension. "Theos" is from Greek, and while you got the declension, gender, number, and case right, you got the wrong language. ツ
    More seriously, atheī is valid Latin and both checkmate atheoi and checkmate ἄθεοι look wrong to me aesthetically, but maybe we could ask the hoi polloi if you think that's an issue.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh View Post
    The Greek historian Herodotus is known as the Father of History (also the Father of Lies), and while his account is very important for informing us about his time period, it has details in that certainly did not happen. For example, if I recall, when the Persians invaded Athens, Herodotus tells us that they were held back by the intervention of Athena and Artemis.

    Tacitus similarly often invokes the supernatural in his accounts - being a good Roman of his time, I do not mean Yahweh. Do Herodotus and Tacitus qualify as historians professionally, or simply because they wrote about their times, often with details that they experienced themselves, but also the hearsay and opinions of others (in some cases, it is not possible to determine any distinction)?
    Numerous and fruitless prodigies also passed: a woman birthed a snake, and another [woman] was killed by a thunderbolt in the [sexual] embrace of her husband; then the sun was suddenly darkened, and the fourteen districts of the city were struck by lightning.

    These things happened with such little concern of the gods that for many years afterward Nero continued his reign and his crimes.
    Meanwhile, without any evident cause, the statue of Victory at Camulodunum fell prostrate and turned its back to the enemy, as though it fled before them. Women excited to frenzy prophesied impending destruction; ravings in a strange tongue, it was said, were heard in their Senate-house; their theatre resounded with wailings, and in the estuary of the Tamesa had been seen the appearance of an overthrown town; even the ocean had worn the aspect of blood, and, when the tide ebbed, there had been left the likenesses of human forms, marvels interpreted by the Britons, as hopeful, by the veterans, as alarming. But as Suetonius was far away, they implored aid from the procurator, Catus Decianus. All he did was to send two hundred men, and no more, without regular arms, and there was in the place but a small military force. Trusting to the protection of the temple, hindered too by secret accomplices in the revolt, who embarrassed their plans, they had constructed neither fosse nor rampart; nor had they removed their old men and women, leaving their youth alone to face the foe. Surprised, as it were, in the midst of peace, they were surrounded by an immense host of the barbarians. All else was plundered or fired in the onslaught; the temple where the soldiers had assembled, was stormed after a two days' siege. The victorious enemy met Petilius Cerialis, commander of the ninth legion, as he was coming to the rescue, routed his troops, and destroyed all his infantry. Cerialis escaped with some cavalry into the camp, and was saved by its fortifications. Alarmed by this disaster and by the fury of the province which he had goaded into war by his rapacity, the procurator Catus crossed over into Gaul.
    A detestable year with so many outrages even the gods marked off by storms and maladies. Campania was devastated by a hurricane, which destroyed villas, plantations, and crop far and wide, and carried its violence to the neighborhoods of the city; in which every class of mortal was swept away by the force of the disease, with no intemperance of the sky which were visible.
    from Tacitus' Annals

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    Natural selection and random mutation is just not enough to make new information.

    Abiogenesis is a pipe dream.

    Irreducible complexity is insurmountable. A flagella just evolved? Not likely.

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    Quote Originally Posted by timber View Post
    Natural selection and random mutation is just not enough to make new information.

    Abiogenesis is a pipe dream.

    Irreducible complexity is insurmountable. A flagella just evolved? Not likely.
    It is known that the appearance of order out of chaos can happen very readily. "Information" is a human notion for patterns they consider meaningfully ordered.

    Flagella are not irreducibly complex: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_1.html

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