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We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

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Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#461

Post by edmcnulty101 »

eis wrote: post #441
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #438

I think we're limited by our genetics. There's a limit to our species intelligence. To a monkey an iPhone is just a rock. To humans the universe is equivalent to a piece of chorizo on a telescope.

Yes we are limited by our genetics but what does that mean when you consider that we are starting to learn how to manipulate our genes? Evolution doesn't seem to stop. Science is advancing at an increasing pace and the boundary is pushed forward each and every day. What might become of humans in a million years?

This is a very good point. As from, so to.

All it takes is one person with a mutant super-intelligence gene to bring forth a new step for human kind or one scientific discovery on how to hyper evolve a new babies intelligence.

And we have several billion more years before the sun shuts down, so hopefully that will emerge.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#462

Post by tsol »

rwbt wrote: post #380

Reminds me of something Karl Popper philosophized about. I'm completely butchering it ofcourse, but it goes along something like this - Every scientific theory is waiting to be falsified by future generations. He concludes that everything in Empirical sciences cannot be proven, but instead they're only falsifiable.

The fact that things we have accepted as scientific fact have, in the past been proven to be utterly false points to the fact that any of the scientific facts we believe in may be false. And then there's always the possibility that you're a brain in a jar and this is just a dream so everything you believe is actually false. (wake up)

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#463

Post by Fezzik »

tsol wrote: post #456
Fezzik wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the whole premise and foundation of religion is that you ought to believe things absent evidence and without good reasons (that’s what faith is). If you have good reasons to believe something you give the reason; religion does not and should not, especially with its centuries-long history of malice and suppression towards free and scientific thought, deserve any credibility when it comes to matters of facts.

I don't know why people do this so often on the (english)internet. People will write off all religion, while obviously speaking from the perspective of Christianity only. People have bad experiences with Christianity, and then decide that Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, and Shinto are all a scam. It's a strange fallacy that people should know better by now, it's just straight up a sweeping generalization.

It’s not writing it off (whatever that means here) but if you’re asserting Buddhism, Daosim, and Shinto do not have many foundational faith-based/supernatural elements you may want to review their sacred texts. Jainism I am less familiar with, but the other three are entirely founded in faith-based tenants that have no supporting evidence.

Background: degree in philosophy, focussing on philosophy of religion. I have read all the books. They are all fantasies, many very well written and fun to read, but no more fact-based than The Silmarillion.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#464

Post by eis »

al_mandi wrote: post #445
0134340 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like he's wanting to borrow science or at least some logic when it supports his argument but when it comes to the gods, he wants to say they exist outside of science and logic. This is a common argument and it's not ultimately falsifiable, ie, 'I say it's true because you can't prove otherwise'. And so too do invisible flying fairies exist who render themselves outside the realms of science due to magic pixi…

And so is any other argument to attempt to explain what was before the universe. Those are outside the realms of science. And furthermore, just because something is not falsifiable does not make it untrue. We exist in this world after all, so something had to have happened at the start. I posted that lecture as an intro to broaden people's perspectives. It is then a proof by induction to reach the correct religion th…

  > And so is any other argument to attempt to explain what was before the universe. Those are outside the realms of science.
That's the point of the submitted article. That any theory that cannot be proven should not be paid much attention to. They are nice thought experiments but that's it.

  > And furthermore, just because something is not falsifiable does not make it untrue.
Neither does it make it true. The point is if there can't be proof then it's pointless to think too much about it.

  > I posted that lecture as an intro to broaden people's perspectives.
Unfortunately the video failed miserably at that. It was full of wrong claims and conclusions, logic errors and on top used the same attacks on certain groups that it in the beginning complained about.

  > It is then a proof by induction to reach the correct religion that explains our world. Some signs are summarized on www.provingislam.com. There are lots of great scholars who have presented many proofs on the matter.
You said there were proofs in the video. There were none whatsoever. You can't follow a proof of induction based on wrong premises. Religion does not explain our world, science does (to some extend). Religion is a tool that has been used for good and bad throughout history.

Please don't refer to more outside sources that supposedly contain proof but bring one solid proof here yourself. So far everything has been debunked.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#465

Post by mrcartmeneses »

tsol wrote: post #449
lupire wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even secondary states might be impossible to explain, by the GP argument. > Yet there has to be an origin because an infinite history makes no sense. The origin has infinite history. > God must be laughing at us. No, because God is, like us, the descendant of something else, or else has infinite history. What if the history is cyclic? Then there is no origin.

>No, because God is, like us, the descendant of something else, or else has infinite history. God could have no beginning. This makes sense because God exists outside of our conception of spacetime. We have to have a beginning, because in the universe we live in the laws of time and nature say everything has to have a beginning.

All of your questions will be answered in the next season of Loki.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#466

Post by lazide »

tsol wrote: post #449
lupire wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even secondary states might be impossible to explain, by the GP argument. > Yet there has to be an origin because an infinite history makes no sense. The origin has infinite history. > God must be laughing at us. No, because God is, like us, the descendant of something else, or else has infinite history. What if the history is cyclic? Then there is no origin.

>No, because God is, like us, the descendant of something else, or else has infinite history. God could have no beginning. This makes sense because God exists outside of our conception of spacetime. We have to have a beginning, because in the universe we live in the laws of time and nature say everything has to have a beginning.

The laws we know of anyway.

Maybe we’ll eventually figure out that when something passes through a singularities event horizon, that is the superheated ‘all energy’ state the universe was/is/has always been born from.

It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened!

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#467

Post by eyelidlessness »

lisper wrote: post #410
necovek wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is, effectively, religion/faith in a particular set of base presumptions (axioms of set theory or logic theory guide all "logical" reasoning). Basically, limits of human mind understanding things come with just having to trust some things are simply so. The biggest difference from things more commonly referred to as "religions" is that science invites you to challenge all these assumptions and look for a bett…

> Science is, effectively, religion/faith No. No no no no no!!! Science is a process . The result of that process is explanations for phenomena. And the reason this matters is that the particular explanations produced by the scientific process turn out to give you the power to make extraordinarily accurate predictions about (certain aspects of) the future, and thus give you a tremendous amount of leverage in becoming…

Not to lend any credence to the antiscience above, but nothing about science being a process or even the falsifiability and other safeguards of that process preclude it from religious adherence. Even if they’re extraordinarily accurate processes, “it” absolutely can be and sometimes is treated as religious. Elevating science as a process of knowledge acquisition does it a disservice too. Scientists make mistakes, have attachments to their areas of study, and have a lot of complicated incentives that nominally would be anathema to the “process” even if they’re following the process … faithfully.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#468

Post by eis »

al_mandi wrote: post #452
eis wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument. That is a wild claim. Science is very much in the domain of answering "why". Science is selfcontious enough to know it can…

I think we keep talking past each other. > Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god. Which is why in Islam we have three sources of truth: observations, logic, and the honest news. We have established that Muhammad, Prayers of God be upon him, existed, and the Quran is preserved, and the authentic Hadiths are preserved. He…

  > I think we keep talking past each other.
On this I guess we agree! :)

  > Which is why in Islam we have three sources of truth: observations, logic, and the honest news. We have established that Muhammad, Prayers of God be upon him, existed, and the Quran is preserved, and the authentic Hadiths are preserved. He performed miracles, and foretold events, some of which only came true in the past couple of decades (more at www.provingislam.com). As such, we trust what he brought forth to us.
Again I can't follow your reasoning. You say that Islam is based on three sources of truth, one being logic but you at the same time claim that god does not follow logic and that we should not try to apply our logic to understand him and his rules. This makes no sense.

  > I believe Islam is 100% correct. If I don't, then by definition I am not a Muslim. We don't get to pick and choose what we like and don't like. Of course, you're going to have to mention exactly what you mean by "some parts of Islam", that's quite a vague term.
But there is more than one version of Islam, isn't there? That means you also believe that only your version is the one true version. It also means you believe there cannot have been any mistakes in any of the writings. In any passed on stories. If there is no room for errors then there is no room for improvement. These prophets and scholars were 100% perfect. New knowledge can not supersede old knowledge. This is the definition of blind belief. You don't accept the possibility of errors. You leave no room for another view.

"Some parts of Islam" is intentionally vague because I asked if you believed if it is 100% true. It does not matter what parts of Islam I was refering to because 100% by definition covers it all.

There have been a great number of religions throughout thousands of years. Or iterations and versions of the certain religions. I find it arrogant and shortsighted to believe that your version is the final one and no other that comes after it will be better.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#469

Post by tsol »

pronlover723 wrote: post #296
aortega wrote: post #93

If we will never know, then there should be some kind of proof that the beginning of the universe is un-knowledgeable, sort of like Godel's theory of incompleteness. But there is none, so the affirmation is incorrect: We don't know if we will never know.

There are plenty of things we will never know and that there is no way of ever knowing. Here's some. Given this 10k year old pot https://factsanddetails.com/media/2/20120207-JomonPottery.JP... What is the name of the person that created this pot, What day did they create it? Were they in a relationship at that time? Did they have children? How many siblings did they have? There's no way to know. You can theorise time…

Human history stretches back 200,000 years according to some estimates. The agricultural revolution started about 12,000 year ago in multiple locations around the world. The first civilization was Sumer, started some 8,500 years ago. The first known writings are from Mesoamerica around 5,300 years ago. Socrates was put to death 2421 years ago. Cesar was killed 2066 years ago. Christianity began 2000 years ago, and Islam began 1412 years ago.

Most of human history we will know nothing about. At most we'll find a few hints of complex cultures and technology spread out across time. These people were just as intelligent as you and I, yet their lives will forever be shrouded in a mysterious past.

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#470

Post by tresqotheq »

eis wrote: post #428
tresqotheq wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me, how many scientific "claims" that you rely on a day to day basis, have you verified personally? Or How many such claims can be verified with a single average person's limited resource?

> Tell me, how many scientific "claims" that you rely on a day to day basis, have you verified personally? Many. Science claims when I push the brakes in my car I will slow down due to the friction. Seems to be working pretty well so far. How does religion explain it? You fell into the trap of thinking that each person needs to verify each claim in order to put general trust in science. That's not how it works. If I…

>You fell into the trap of thinking that each person needs to verify each claim in order to put general trust in science.

I am not falling into any trap. Science and religion has its legit original purpose (religion was never meant to explain nature, though it does it as part of its own way of accomplishing its goals). But both are prone to exploitation by selfish entities, because of the need or requirement of laymans belief in the ir claims.

So ultimately, a religious claim and a scientific claim that cannot be realistically verified by 99.9 % of people are both similar, and both can end up casuing similar evils.

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