Can physics and chemistry account for ... ?

[jlay]

Exactly Byb.

But every time people do an experiment natural laws hold. So, with very high probability, there are natural laws.

1, no one is arguing there aren't natural laws. Or, that an atheist can't acknowledge them. But, it seems to be like one burying their head in the sand when it comes to searching out why laws not only exist, but they are consistently upheld. Saying they exist because they exist, IMO, is willful ignorance. It's refusing to honestly admit where the evidence is leading. Theism not only accounts for natural laws, but it is 100% consistent with our universe. And too my knowledge, Christianity is the only religion that scripturally accounts for a God who creates, sustains and upholds these laws.

"For by him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether they are kings, lords, rulers, or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things are held together." (Col. 1:16-17)

Gravity was not non-existent before humans with very high probability. Why? Because we observe e.g. gravitational lensing.

We observe. When? In the present. You light the fuse that blows up your argument.

[1over137]

I planned to ask something very similar Proinsias asked above.
Theism: God explains everything. We can't explain the reason for God.

Really? Is that only your opinion? Because classical philosophy certainly disagrees with you.

My mistake - was easy to get me

[1over137]

But every time people do an experiment natural laws hold. So, with very high probability, there are natural laws.

1, no one is arguing there aren't natural laws. Or, that an atheist can't acknowledge them. But, it seems to be like one burying their head in the sand when it comes to searching out why laws not only exist, but they are consistently upheld. Saying they exist because they exist, IMO, is willful ignorance. It's refusing to honestly admit where the evidence is leading. Theism not only accounts for natural laws, but it is 100% consistent with our universe. And too my knowledge, Christianity is the only religion that scripturally accounts for a God who creates, sustains and upholds these laws.

"For by him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether they are kings, lords, rulers, or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things are held together." (Col. 1:16-17)

I agree.

Gravity was not non-existent before humans with very high probability. Why? Because we observe e.g. gravitational lensing.

We observe. When? In the present. You light the fuse that blows up your argument.

I was talking about higher probability that gravity was existent before. Why higher? Let's assume that gravity was non-existent and you look into universe in given direction and you see galaxies in given distance deformed by gravitational lensing. What can account for that? Let us assume that some force X. How should this force look like to get the same results? Let's see the picture below. Photons from the galaxy could e.g. travel along the green lines. But why? Why not differrent green lines? What causes the photon to make a sharp turn? Why that sharp turn right there where it is on the picture? Plus given many more photons and given many more gravitational lensings in different part of the universe, it seems that such a force X cannot be constructable. I just try to explain that making one assumption that gravity existed even before, one could explain the gravitational lensing plus other phenomena.

[B. W.]

Question:

Does gravity need mass to exist?
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[Silvertusk]

Gravity is a law that acts on existing property - it is not an entity in itself - although there was some theory that gravity was caused by something called gravitons - I don't know whether that theory is still around - but as far as I know - gravity does need something to act upon for us to see it.

(Disclaimer: I almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about there......almost.)


Silvertusk.

[DannyM]

First, how can naturalism account for the uniformity in nature? According to freedictionary the naturalism in philosophy means 'the system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws'.

That source is wrong. The laws of nature are generalised descriptions of how the natural world normally operates. Scientific laws don't control or explain events, they are merely records of those events.

So, it is not the task for naturalism to explain the uniformity in nature. Naturalism presupposes the existence of repeatable patterns

This is where you are wrong. Why should naturalism get a free pass and not have to account for the uniformity in nature? Saying naturalism presupposes the existence of repeatable patterns is to beg the question. These necessary functions presuppose a correspondent metaphysical foundation. This is where the whole of naturalism comes tumbling down.

I was talking about jumping and returning back to the ground. Since the very existence of human beings this is holding. So, here you have the whole earth (all places on the Earth) and a large time span. We observe the universe we observe and have not seen any place where gravity would behave differently. Well, in Newton times one could also wonder whether gravity is the same in all places. Here are we now, observing much more from the universe (I would say observing what is observable at all) and the law of gravity is still holding.

If you want to assert that the law of gravity holds throughout the whole universe, then you must have knowledge of the whole universe. If not, then the most you can say is that, in your immediate environment at that specific moment in time there exists uniformity and regularity in the law of gravity. There would be no justification under such a claim to say that this uniformity would be true of your immediate location tomorrow. But we make inductive inferences necessarily, we act as if induction is valid; we assume its inherent validity. The fact that you are here using inductive inferences shows that you function in a way that requires a certain state of affairs. How does naturalism justify this necessary state of affairs? On naturalism, we are merely left with a tautological “induction is valid because induction is valid,” which any reasonable person should dismiss out of hand.

[1over137]

Does gravity need mass to exist?

Let's look at the Einstein equations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_equations section Mathematical form). Rs have to do with curvature of spacetime, Lambda is the cosmological constant (dark energy) and the tensor T contains energy and momentum. So matter tells spacetime how to curve (what is the metric tensor) and metric tensor tells the mass how to move. If there is no energy/mass, there is no curvature of spacetime.

Gravity is a law that acts on existing property - it is not an entity in itself - although there was some theory that gravity was caused by something called gravitons - I don't know whether that theory is still around - but as far as I know - gravity does need
something to act upon for us to see it.

Gravitons are not the cause of gravity, they are carriers of the force, similarly like photons are carriers of the electromagnetic
force. As far as I know, gravitational wawes have not been detected yet.

[1over137]

I'd like to ask you, according to you, what is the right definition of naturalism? Just curious.

If you want to assert that the law of gravity holds throughout the whole universe, then you must have knowledge of the whole universe. If not, then the most you can say is that, in your immediate environment at that specific moment in time there exists uniformity and regularity in the law of gravity. There would be no justification under such a claim to say that this uniformity would be true of your immediate location tomorrow. But we make inductive inferences necessarily, we act as if induction is valid; we assume its inherent validity. The fact that you are here using inductive inferences shows that you function in a way that requires a certain state of affairs. How does naturalism justify this necessary state of affairs? On naturalism, we are merely left with a tautological “induction is valid because induction is valid,” which any reasonable person should dismiss out of hand.

Hmmm. Good post. I am running out of ideas on defending naturalism.

I also want to ask you what do you think about pantheism. Can this philosophy be defended?

[DannyM]

I'd like to ask you, according to you, what is the right definition of naturalism? Just curious.

I think Oxford has an acceptable definition:

naturalism

the theory that everything in the world and life is based on natural causes and laws, and not on spiritual or supernatural ones

I also want to ask you what do you think about pantheism. Can this philosophy be defended?

In short, no. If all is God then what of evil? Or irrationality? What do you think?

[La Volpe]

I also want to ask you what do you think about pantheism. Can this philosophy be defended?

Define "God" as "almighty" and there is no need for any others. If one God is god of good and evil, then you don't need a god of evil; he's redundant.

[neo-x]

Interesting discussion, ppl

[1over137]

I also want to ask you what do you think about pantheism. Can this philosophy be defended?

In short, no. If all is God then what of evil? Or irrationality? What do you think?

This I found on one Standford webpage:
"Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole—in fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique, productive, necessary being just is what is meant by ‘God’. Because of the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There are no “final causes” (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God does not “do” things for the sake of anything else. The order of things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an anthropomorphizing fiction."

So, evil seems to be a fiction. People's contrstruction.

Now, what about irrationality. On the same webpage I found:
"The human mind, like God, contains ideas. Some of these ideas—sensory images, qualitative “feels” (like pains and pleasures), perceptual data—are imprecise qualitative phenomena, being the expression in thought of states of the body as it is affected by the bodies surrounding it. Such ideas do not convey adequate and true knowledge of the world, but only a relative, partial and subjective picture of how things presently seem to be to the perceiver. There is no systematic order to these perceptions, nor any critical oversight by reason. “As long as the human Mind perceives things from the common order of nature, it does not have an adequate, but only a confused and mutilated knowledge of itself, of its own Body, and of external bodies” (IIp29c). Under such circumstances, we are simply determined in our ideas by our fortuitous and haphazard encounter with things in the external world. This superficial acquaintance will never provide us with knowledge of the essences of those things. In fact, it is an invariable source of falsehood and error. This “knowledge from random experience” is also the origin of great delusions, since we—thinking ourselves free—are, in our ignorance, unaware of just how we are determined by causes.

Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are formed in a rational and orderly manner, and are necessarily true and revelatory of the essences of things. “Reason”, the second kind of knowledge (after “random experience”), is the apprehension of the essence of a thing through a discursive, inferential procedure."

So, irrationality comes from superficial acquaintance.

[RickD]

This I found on one Standford webpage:
"Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole—in fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique, productive, necessary being just is what is meant by ‘God’. Because of the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There are no “final causes” (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God does not “do” things for the sake of anything else. The order of things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an anthropomorphizing fiction."

1over137,
That is truly a sad philosophy. Also, the meaning of that paragraph contradicts itself, IMO. If nothing exists out side of nature, then there is no ultimate meaning to anything. Then the statements in that paragraph have no meaning.

1Corinthians 15:19

[DannyM]

This I found on one Standford webpage:
"Nature is an indivisible, uncaused, substantial whole—in fact, it is the only substantial whole. Outside of Nature, there is nothing, and everything that exists is a part of Nature and is brought into being by Nature with a deterministic necessity. This unified, unique, productive, necessary being just is what is meant by ‘God’. Because of the necessity inherent in Nature, there is no teleology in the universe. Nature does not act for any ends, and things do not exist for any set purposes. There are no “final causes” (to use the common Aristotelian phrase). God does not “do” things for the sake of anything else. The order of things just follows from God's essences with an inviolable determinism. All talk of God's purposes, intentions, goals, preferences or aims is just an anthropomorphizing fiction."

1over137,
That is truly a sad philosophy. Also, the meaning of that paragraph contradicts itself, IMO. If nothing exists out side of nature, then there is no ultimate meaning to anything. Then the statements in that paragraph have no meaning.

1Corinthians 15:19

Indeed. Trust Stanford to get it all so hopelessly wrong...

1over, how does any of that relate to pantheism?

[1over137]

That was from Spinoza. I thought he was pantheist.