An attack on modern science (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Saturday, January 31, 2015, 19:46 (3582 days ago) @ George Jelliss
edited by dhw, Saturday, January 31, 2015, 19:54

GEORGE: I consider Time to be just as much a part of the universe as Space and matter and energy. dhw believes in an absolute Time within which the universe exists or comes into existence. I maintain that this concept is nonsensical. Postulating earlier universes (or phases of the universe as I would prefer to say) does not get rid of the problem of the origin of Time, it just puts it back further. Putting it back to an infinite regression with no origin is what I would characterise as "occult" thinking.
DAVID: I agree with you.-David's agreement indicates the pointlessness of such arguments without clear definitions. He believes in eternity, in a “before”, and in a sequence of cause and effect going back to an intelligent first cause that might even have created universes before ours. None of these are possible with your concept of time. You also said earlier that Time and Space have a common zero point, but David insists that nothing can come from nothing. I'll offer my own definition later, but first:
 
Dhw: "Your aversion to infinity, and authoritative statements that there is no such thing as infinity or eternity or before or outside are as speculative and as unprovable as all the different theories about how we got here."
GEORGE: The logical difficulties with concepts of infinity cannot be dismissed out of hand like this. They are well known and not at all speculative or unprovable. 
Here is an interesting discussion on mathematical philosophy that touches on such issues, though I realise it may be rather heavy going!-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uWS7Kwau1A&feature=youtu.be-Heavy going is an understatement, and he doesn't even touch on the issue, beyond saying you can always add a thought or grammatical construction to an earlier thought or grammatical construction. No mention of eternity. Why do you refer me to a mathematician anyway? Do mathematicians know all the answers? To set the record straight, I also find logical difficulties with concepts of infinity and eternity, but I find limits to space and time equally difficult. I ask what lies beyond or before the limit. The stock answer from those who share your beliefs is “nothing”, and “nothing” is as illogical to me as infinity and eternity. Mathematically, it may make sense to you, but do not ask me to believe that you can prove time and space began from nothing and end in nothing! According to Smolin and Unger, “time is real and therefore there are no unchanging physical laws”, “mathematics is of strictly limited use in explaining the cosmos”, and apparently they also believe that ours is one in a series of universes. I have no idea who is right, but I do know there is no consensus, and so I see no justification for dogmatic statements such as there is no such thing as infinity, eternity, before etc. -I do, however, accept the argument that to have a “before” you have to have time. For me, time is an onward flow from past to present to future. We measure it by events, and so we can only measure it by events we know of or think we know of. But if the BB happened, I don't see why we should not ask what caused it, which means a before, and it's as speculative to say there were no events (causes) before as to say that there were. We simply don't know.
 
dhw: "But I must confess I'm disappointed that you've rejected the statistical support that previous universes would offer for your faith that chance could assemble the ingredients for life. Ah well, I did my best!"
GEORGE: This is the old "faith in chance" nonsense again! We've argued this before at length, so I'm reluctant to go over it all again.-Faith = “a strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp. without proof or evidence” (Chambers). I thought you believed strongly that the mechanisms for life, reproduction and evolution originally assembled themselves by chance (for which there is no evidence). My apologies if I've got that wrong.