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Agnostic nonsense…

Comment a comment by Peter Bell (gnifyus), published on 03 July 2009
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has to be included here.

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Another situation your atheistic teachers cannot resolve is; where is the Cause which might enable a perfect vacuum “full” of nothingness to fluctuate.

All of these conversations eventually reach the same philosophical asymptote. Asking, “what causes the vacuum fluctuations” continues on an infinite vertical progression, but comes no closer to answering the underlying question of “how did we get here”, and barely touches “Why?”

It creates room for statements such as, “It is just as amazing that this entire universe came about of its own accord as it is that it was created by a supreme being.” Both would be equally wondrous for different reasons.

And, you can always ask, “Well, where did God come from, and why?”

The great circle of conversation has a tiny gap at this asymptote, a waiting room where believers either continue to believe, and unbelievers continue to disbelieve based on the last experience from their trip around that circle.

Much of science as it pertains to answering these metaphysical questions is sort of like trying to find the architect of a building by studying the molecules and atoms of the wood from which it’s built. Science is not trying to answer any metaphysical questions; it’s only trying to find out what’s there and how it works.

Whichever way you go from this waiting room, this break in the circle; it’s still a tremendous distance to travel towards believing that a disembodied hand wrote prophetic words on a wall for Belshazzar , or that stem cell research is morally wrong.

In the words of Bertrand Russell, “I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence.”

But even that would not fully convince the rest of humanity, only he alone.

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RE: Agnostic nonsense… by scottb :: NR7

Asking, “what causes the vacuum fluctuations” continues on an infinite vertical progression, but comes no closer to answering the underlying question of “how did we get here”, and barely touches “Why?”

I think there’s a more subtle issue. Isaac Newton used to say that he formulated his laws of gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree. Most people generally accept “gravity pulled it down” as an answer to the question, “Why did the apple fall?”

But most people won’t accept discussions of friction, musculature, nervous systems, and such in answer to the question, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

This is, ultimately, a manifestation of a kind of naive dualism. It’s perfectly natural for us to instinctively feel that the mind and the body are somehow different entities — that the “me” who thinks the thoughts has a brain, as opposed to being a brain.

As soon as we perceive an entity to possess an “anima”, we push it into a different mental category in which simple physical cause and effect is no longer sufficient to explain “why” actions happen.

But this sort of naive dualism has testable implications — it’s a scientific question — and they don’t hold up. Nobody’s been able to show that there’s something essentially different about the mind (or spirit, or soul, or whatever) that exists independent of the body, despite serious attempts at doing so. Like creationism, mind-body dualism was the default assumption during the early days of scientific progress. Like creationism, it was discarded because it doesn’t match observed reality.

The mind, to all evidence, emerges from the activity of the body in the same way that a virtual “world” emerges from the activity of a video game’s program.

So, you suggest that questions of vacuum fluctuations don’t address the question of why we’re here — but I think you’re wrong. I think they address them quite profoundly.

Of course, another interpretation of “why” questions is teleological — to word the question more precisely would be to ask, “To what purpose are we here?”

It may be emotionally unsatisfying, but the best evidence we have today suggests quite strongly that “no purpose whatsoever” must be considered a valid possible answer. Just because you want an answer doesn’t mean you get one.

Posted 04 July 2009, Hide, Parent, Reply

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