Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is enjoying a late surge in the polls for the Republican nomination, especially in the crucial early caucus state of Iowa. Part of his appeal is a sense of humor, as evidenced by this clever appropriation of the Chuck Norris Facts meme:
Chuck Norris, in addition to his considerable thespian credentials, is a proud creationist who wants the Bible taught in public schools. So it is not surprising to find Mike Huckabee denying the reality of evolution during a televised debate.
But this video, while also quite funny, is pretty scary. Via Cynical-C, it’s a 2004 speech to the Republican Governors’ Association.
A phone call from God! Quite the thigh-slapper. Huckabee artfully includes an assurance that God doesn’t take side during elections — although we all know his preferences, apparently.
I understand that it’s a joke. But there are moments of solemnity during the “phone call,” when Huckabee is being perfectly serious. One of those is at the 2:00 mark, where we are reminded that the President talks to God. And then we receive a list of instructions, including “protecting marriage.” (It needs to be protected from The Gays, for those who don’t have your decoder rings.) George W. Bush himself has occasionally mentioned talking to God, although usually in private meetings where it’s difficult to get objective verification, and admittedly his theology is somewhat unsystematic.
A lot of people who don’t really believe in the old-fashioned supernatural nevertheless think it’s a good idea to appropriate spiritual terminology for their own uses — re-defining “faith” as “any hypothesis that has not yet been proven,” or “God” as “the warm feeling I get when contemplating the universe,” or “religion” as “a nice kind of social club that brings people together to reinforce each other’s goodness.” It’s not a good idea. These are words, and they have meanings when you say them — people think they know what you have in mind. When you say “God,” most people think of the dictionary definition — “the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.” They’re not thinking of “the laws of nature.” And they honestly believe in this dictionary-definition God. And they let that belief affect, or at least justify, how they govern the country. Shouldn’t every non-religious person be deeply alarmed about this state of affairs?
At the Beyond Belief II conference, Stuart Kauffman gave an interesting (although flawed, I thought) talk about complexity and reductionism, and then ruined the whole thing by suggesting at the end that we should re-define “the sacred” as something arising from the radical contingency of the empirical path of biological evolution. Or something like that, it was a bit vague. What an abysmally bad idea. If you want to choose a word that refers to something other than the traditional religious conception of supreme beings and all that, then don’t use religious language. Because there are other people out there — far vaster in number than you — that are using those same words to mean exactly what they straightforwardly denote: a supernatural power with a vested interest in smiting the wicked, especially boys and girls who fall in love with boys and girls, respectively. And they’re running this country at the moment, and their beliefs are enacted into policy.
Of course, arguing with Mike Huckabee and his friends runs the risk that Chuck Norris will come along and kick your ass. That’s just the chance we have to take.
Yeah, Huckabee is cute, but I wouldn’t want him President either. I do want to support honest science, and am well aware of what happened in for example The Republican War Against Science. But there’s “religion”, there’s “science”, and watching over it all is “philosophy” about which I have things to say.
Sean, there is not one simple “dictionary definition” of “God.” If you consider the history of philosophical theology, you appreciate the wide range of views of the ultimate being/ground of being/foundational given reality etc or whatever else to call it, all with their own connotations and implied characterizations. Why should the rabble or one social institution own a concept? There are some crude ideas about ultimate reality and some very advanced ideas about that, from banal grumpy mega people like Zeuss, to more upscale Jehovah, to Hegel’s Absolute, to “The Plenum” (which is sort of an “opposite of nothingness”, to a field which creates but is more general than the “vacuum” which embodies only our specific particles, all with varying degrees of semblance to persons. There are ideas of something with a mind going through specific thoughts at specific times, but ideas of “Mind” which just holds all thought in Platonic majesty, etc. Sure, hard to concieve, but so is the Omega of infinite set theory which holds everything and every set there is in math (i.e., there is nothing which does not belong or is not subsumed) and yet It cannot be analyzed or describe any more than this AFAIK. Also, the various traits ascribed to “God” are mostly separately selectable, like “create” (or serves as necessary ground or pattern for existing), omniscient, omnipotent, etc.
The most subtle but cogent argument is, that there’s no reason for one possible world to “exist” and not others, since “exist” is either not a real distinction (modal realism) or it is the ultimate abstract non-predicate, and therefore cannot perferentially attach logically to a given type of world (like ours - sorry, but your innocent, child-like lament “mabye this is just the way things are” is just not on the ball in the world of deep ontological thought.) I have provided an argument in other threads, that for us to find ourselves in an orderly world (since disorderly but life containing ones would far outnumber ones like ours) supports the idea (there is never “proof” one way or the other in this business, OK!)that some “Orderer” is at work. Well, that may or may not lead to “God,” but either you don’t even ask such questions, or you realize that it’s a game question with no simple put down of the “yes” option.
Furthermore, I am quite bothered by what I see as hypocrisy regarding “woo-woo” issues. Here’s what I said to Iblis about the wooly “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics:
Iblis, you shouldn’t say “The wavefunction of the multiverse is actually static” as if anyone actually knew that - it’s just how those who believe in this conceit think that it should be described. And, it still doesn’t really derive or explain there being any “hits” at all - whether the wave is “static” (in the silly sense of misinterpreting the ultimate significance of the Minkowski diagram, just because time was simply *graphed* with space all in one piece, as if that actually made time go away?) or “dynamic.”
Glib talk of our most fundamental experiences (in the classic shared scientific sense too, not the highly individual/subjective sense) as being “illusions” is presumptous and so antithetical to the orginal spirit of empiricism - I see no reason to surrender the empirical given to a bunch of affectedly too-clever-by-half, post-modern pseudoscientists. If you or I decide to do an experiment, you or I will get such and such result. Denying that is crank science of another sort. Why don’t all the neo-atheists who gripe about “woo-woo-ism” whenever it might support “purpose” in the universe, jump on this flaky indulgence? For the same reason political partisans ignore anything wrong their own party does, etc.
Last: Folks, please don’t frame this business as ultimately being the conflict between “science and religion.” Sure, that’s out there if “religion” is defined as a *tradition* of thoughts and practices about God issues, as it properly should be. But free-wheeling independent arguments about necessary and contingent existence, anthropic coincidences, modal realism, etc, are *not* “religion.” (BTW I am a Unitarian Universalist!) Talking about these questions, *pro or con*, is “philosophy” and that’s what posters here have been doing about these questions, whether they realize or admist it or not. Even talking about what science is or does or makes sense in it is “philosophy” and not the direct practice of science itself.
In one of those not uncommon coincidences, before reading this I was forwarded a link to:
10 Reasons Why Johnny Cash Owns Chuck Norris
http://www.shoutwire.com/comments/full/27579/10_Reason_Why_Johnny_Cash_Owns_Chuck_Norris
Reason 7.
Chuck is a republican. Johnny was close with every president except for GWB. It was said he just didn’t trust that son of a bitch. When Johnny didn’t trust someone, you just knew something foul was going on.
Reason 8.
Johnny was invited to play the at White House in 1972 for Richard Nixon. He was given a list of politically correct songs to sing. He instead metaphorically threw up his middle finger at the establishment, in true ShoutWire fashion, and sang a set full of left leaning, politically charged tunes. Chuck Norris has never told the president to fuck off in his own house.
It should be noted that Chuck is deeply invested in education in Texas, owning a large share of a company that stands to make a great deal of money from providing curricula materials for the “new science standards” that are to be unveiled next year. He has contributed large funds to the campaigns of politicians to influence the Texas education board. His handiwork is in evidence today with this latest story out of that big state.
Well we certainly would want our state school boards to remain “neutral” when it comes to whether ID/creationism is science i suppose, because, heaven forbid some court might rule that it clearly is not. Oh wait, a Federal judge did issue a ruling that said the teaching of ID is religious and therefore not constitutional. Maybe Texas has a different understanding of the US Constitution, one more closely aligned with the Chuck Norris school of faith and ass-kicking.
Neil B, you say about the word God, “Why should the rabble or one social institution own a concept?” But you can say the same about the swastika (or the star of david, for that matter). Common meaning is common meaning and needs to be respected if we want to be properly understood.
off-topic: dear cosmicvariance bloggers, any thoughts on Mattsson’s paper saying dark energy is a mirage due to selective optical observations http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.4264 Looks very sensible to me but I’m a non-specialist…
It’s hard to get alarmed about a state of affairs that’s been the status quo for, oh, the last ten thousand years or so.
The list of things that have been status-quo for the last ten thousand years and yet I find extremely alarming is too long to fit on this blog.
I am deeply, religiously agnostic. I was raised in a liberal christian tradition. I am not appropriating the language; it was given to me. In many cases, the language is more properly described as having been hijacked by fundamentalism, which is, we should remember, a modern ideology.
Religious liberalism is too, of course, I’m not trying to claim otherwise. But I think it’s disingenuous to insist that only the conservatives have a valid claim on the religious tradition, or that I should give it up because they have a greater public mindshare.
My biggest problem is their use of ‘faith’, which you’ve accepted here as the only valid one. Look at the secular uses of faith: I have faith that my friends will not abandon me at difficult times, for instance. Is this a statement of proud irrationality, that I will reject all other evidence, etc.? Of course not. It’s not even properly a statement of belief, which is something that I think needs to be carefully divorced from the notion of faith. What it, rather, is a statement of hopefulness, of optimism, and of trust. It is also reciprocal; one must also act in good faith.
I am not a believer, but I am of the faithful.
I also, however, believe in using the appropriate terminology. I will cheerfully describe myself as an atheist when the situation, and clarity merits it. It is also a statement of fact, and in no way impinges on my exploration and use of religious language. I have no need at all to get into fine points of my particular liberal theology with the vast majority of people. It’s pointless, and not worth doing in the slightest.
However, in private, and with like-minded people, I’m going to speak appropriately to that situation. Sometimes that means talking about god. Sometimes, for me, that means talking about Eris. Sometimes it means professing agnosticism, or atheism, and sometimes, like now, it means a more careful explanation. They’re all true, and my usage is careful to reflect how my audience is going to understand it and how I want it to be understood at the time. It’s not going to work perfectly, of course, but that’s alright by me.
From today’s “What’s New” by Bob Park, making much the same point as Sean does
“1. FAITH: THE WAR BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION.
It’s time we had a little talk. The New York Times on Saturday published
an op-ed by Paul Davies that addresses the question: “Is embracing the
laws of nature so different from religious belief?” Davies concludes
that, “until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the
universe its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.” Davies has
confused two meanings of the word “faith.” The Oxford Concise English
Dictionary on my desk gives the two distinct meanings for faith as: “1)
complete trust or confidence, and 2) strong belief in a religion based on
spiritual conviction rather than proof.” A scientist’s “faith” is built
on experimental proof. The two meanings of the word “faith,” therefore,
are not only different, they are exact opposites. Davies, who won the
1995 Templeton Prize is not the only physicist to make that
mistake. “Many people don’t realize that science basically involves
faith” Charles Townes said in his 2005 Templeton statement. On laser
physics I would happily defer to Townes, but this is a matter of the
English language. Here we defer to the dictionaries.”
If you want to choose a word that refers to something other than the traditional religious conception of supreme beings and all that, then don’t use religious language. Because there are other people out there — far vaster in number than you — that are using those same words to mean exactly what they straightforwardly denote: a supernatural power with a vested interest in smiting the wicked, especially boys and girls who fall in love with boys and girls, respectively.
Sean, while I wouldn’t necessarily endorse it, I think an argument can be made that it’s precisely because the other side invokes Mr. G. so much that “our” side has to do it too. I.e., given that religious terminology is not going anywhere, at least put forward an alternative vision for what that terminology can be taken to denote. Adopting your opponent’s language while subverting its meaning is a classic debate tactic…
Scott, I know where you’re coming from, and I wish I had time to be less superficial about this point, but I think in this case it’s a terrible tactic. It’s not subversive appropriation, it’s surrendering (I would argue) to a wrong way of conceptualizing the world. And it’s powerfully enabling to a bunch of fuzzy-minded nonsense, from blue laws to horoscopes in daily newspapers. (Here I am being careful enough to refer not simply to the effects of religion, but to the corroding effects of the acceptance of religious language — if the world is a spiritual place, all sorts of crazy things follow.)
bob (and Sean, and Scott), there is a world of difference between stock symbols closely associated with a given institution (and “common usage” too) versus a wide-ranging concept like “God. ” If we are talking about something in philosophical discourse, we can certainly frame it in a way suitable for that purpose regardless of what average people think, *as long as we say that when we start* - that’s what matters to being understood in any discussion. Otherwise, we couldn’t talk about special meanings of “spin” in physics etc. that weren’t the same sort of thing that common people meant! Indeed, most scientific/philosophical discussion is very much about such specially defined or contexed terms and ideas.
BTW, the thread in which I quoted myself, comment #38 , was in http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/11/27/things-happen-not-always-for-a-reason/.
Before Darwin, how else does the human race come to exist? It would have been easy to believe in deities.
Now we know the natural cause maybe almost all the way back. No deities.
I’m hoping we turn out to be programs. That we are parallel computations of a single I. Who, of course, in the end, turns out to be me.
Jennifer, I’m not sure Davies did the best job of having his say, but: at least one sort of “faith” he was referring to is the faith that scientific method and forms of thought can give us all the answers we want about the universe (or even the universes!) That strikes me as being like the simplistic faith of ultraconservatives in “the free market” to solve all problems (you know, we don’t even need public schools etc.) That is indeed faith, because it’s a good record so far but trends don’t always continue. Actually, I don’t even think it has succeeded that well so far if we are going to be honest about it. We have the collapse problem and the origins of true acausal randomness (genuine mathematical processes are deterministic and can’t even produce true randomness as I explained, and see my digs at many worlds and decoherence in recent threads), the infinities (and many of the best admit that renormalization is rather phony in respects, which I take their word since being more philosophy-trained, I don’t get the details), problems integrating gravity with QM etc.
PS, to give proper credit to Sean about this ill-phrased “science versus religion” tiff, since I keep griping about “simplistic” framings etc (but how unfortunate that the “better” quality lines of debate are indeed so under the radar in most intellectual life):
Comment #23 in http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/07/11/consolations-of-materialist-philosophy/#comments
Sean: I think that complaints of a false dichotomy, or that I should have included a different-colored pill for every possible nuanced philosophical stance one could imagine taking, are missing the point a bit here. I wasn’t talking about which such stance is right or wrong, or what would be the best of all possible worlds in which to live. I was just imagining a choice between my own world view (which is shared by many atheists) and that of a typical, traditional religious believer, and suggesting that I am “fortunate enough” that the one I believe in is also the one I would prefer to have be true. Nothing that I said implies that those are the only possible views.
Well put, even though I don’t agree with that particular world view (or that of traditional religious believers either.)
PS: If anyone is going to complain about using “God” in other than the ostensible “traditional” or “common” sense (even though every Medieval university student heard very high-quality abstract musings about prime movers, necessary and contingent existence, could even God make the angles of a triangle add to other than 180 degrees; heh, etc.): Just consider the original, common, logical meaning of “universe”! Hel-oo-oo: umm, “uni” you know … means “one”, get it? Like, it was “by definition” the whole shebang, “all that existed” (whatever that means) or at least the one material world that God made or etc. Now we see all these meta-physicists blithely throwing about talk of “multiple universes”, “are there other universes?” etc. (Well at least “the multiverse” is an appropriate new name, but not always used.)
Sure, I know (I guess) what that means: a contiguous space-time (or at least, space) continuum and why must there only be one (but what are they all “sitting in”?) Yet consider the object lesson of how well meta-physicists were allowed to get away with that, not just semantically but also breezing with little fraternal complaint right past old empirical and positivist standards (now that maybe there was an unlicensed something that could be useful to atheism instead of to mysticism, etc.)
Sean,
I realize you must be a very smart person, but your political instincts seem rudimentary. If there is one thing the conservative mindset needs, it is a clear opponent. Just as Bush needs bin Ladin and vice versa, conservative religion (the version that insists on the paternal deity) needs equally strong minded atheism. Their worst enemies are not those who directly oppose them, but the ones who do breach the walls of religious terminology with meanings that confuse the tribal function of us vs. them.
Maybe, if you were to look within, there might also be some sense of tribal identification motivating your rejection of all religious content and context.
I think that from a purely logical perspective, the most rational refutation of monotheism is to point out that the absolute is conceptual basis, rather than apex, so if there is a spiritual absolute, it would be the essence out of which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. I admit I don’t get a lot of response when I bring that point up, so maybe it isn’t as obvious as it seems to me.
[…] a scientist weighs in. In this post, the blogger discusses this video (along with the Chuck Norris […]
It would be a wonderful thing to be at a point in one’s life where they could say as Sean did in Things Happen, Not Always for a Reason, “Of course, sometimes things do happen for a reason. And sometimes they don’t. That’s life here at the edge of chaos, and I for one enjoy the ride.” However, in this universe a relatively few number of people achieve this stoic perspective. For many non-scientific folks, the fuzzy-minded nonsense of their religious beliefs provides them with a level of subjective security that is unobtainable through cosmology or particle physics. I imagine that neither cosmology nor particle physics, nor science in general will ever provide this comfort and therefore the fuzzy-minded nonsense is here to stay as it has been for ten thousand years. The founders of our nation understood this fact and appreciated the human need for a balanced approach between spiritual and rational thought. As long as people continue to populate this universe, even if it is one of many and the worst of any, and as long as the concept of death completely negates the concept of life, the concept of a transcending god who is both creator and lawgiver will endure. As a nation, we would be smart to recognize our human condition and seek to balance it with both faith and reason.
John Merryman said;
Possibly because it sounds like gibberish.
We like to dither on the possibility of ‘free will’ and ‘freedom to choose’
but ultimately who gets to choose whether they get cancer or not?
who gets to choose from a myriad of ‘inherited’ or ‘acquired’ diseases.
And who gets to choose death. Doesn’t Our mortality deny any real ‘free will’
A military state or empire will always conjure up some higher if not divine authority. And the US whether you like it or not is a military state run by the Pentagon, with the US President as the C in C. Just think how much news coverage there has been about Son of Bush’s foreign policy and war in Iraq - (threats to Iran & North Korea …) compared to the home front whether floods in New Orleans, or raging fires in California.
I’m sure the 100,000 plus troops in Iraq could have been better used at home to defend from the ravages of ‘nature’. But I guess MACHO men and teenagers who play shoot me ups, then want to go to Iraq and shoot rag heads for real. Of course unlike x-box and computer games where you play without getting hurt (and you can even have unlimited lives or inmortality or omnipotence) in the real world, the other side sometimes gets to kill some of your mates, and invites you to share in their ‘pain’.
I would say that what drives US foreign policy is not so much a god talking from a burning bush to the president, but the military tactic: hit them before they get too powerful (Gulf War I) and kick them again while they are down (Gulf War II).
Not so much survival of the fittest, as survival of the technologically advanced. But then technological advances also threaten Armageddon and extinction, and some medical advances keep the likes of Dick Cheney ticking - like a bomb.
Philip,
Personally, I don’t like to flaunt my own ignorance, so when someone says something I don’t understand, I ask questions before making declarations as to its validity, but I realize that not everyone is equally curious.
Here is an idea; Why don’t you google Plato’s concept of ‘Ideal Forms’ and see if you do or don’t think the particular paradigm of God espoused by monotheistic religions isn’t essentially an ideal form of personhood, specifically adult male personhood. Of which we are therefore imperfect copies of and so seek to return to that model of perfection.
Another thought to consider; Do you think Pat Robertson, who just endorsed Guliani, is more concerned with ‘godless liberal academics,’ whom he has made untold millions railing against, or by liberal theologians cutting into the younger generations of his flock/tribe?
Nature has seen fit to create people who define their sense of identity in religious terms, so if scientists are as objective as they claim, they should be more accommodating of the religious issue then religions will be of scientific enquiry. Just as democracies need to be more accommodating of diversity then dictatorships are.
Politics is being able to see the entire board, not just the next move.
In our present era, it is possible for people to win fortune and fame in practicing cosmology just as it was in our past for people to win fortune and fame by practicing astrology. Both invoke an ingenious blend of determinism and randomness in developing their worldviews. While cosmologists insist, their efforts uncover truth instead of falsehood, what difference does either of these disciplines make to the human condition? Unless faith can give fullness to our reasoning, both disciplines have less value to human beings than any one of the world’s faith-based religions.
Sean for President!
There is a sudden burst of hope and optimism in me from this spontaneous thought, that there actually are people in the U.S.A. whom I would be proud to have as President (despite many election cycles of contrary evidence in my lifetime). Perhaps some day a majority of us will realize how much better we could do, and rise up and draft such a person. Or not. (The feeling is draining away as I write.)
Thomas,
What is “the human condition” and why does it need to be changed ?
[…] ویدئو را نخستین بار در وبلاگ Cosmic Variance […]
Mathieu, the “human condition” is despair. And changing it is the rational and caring thing to do.
John Merryman in #16 (are you descended from any of Robin Hood’s crew?
Heh, I can never forget Worf: “Sir, I object! I am not a Merry Man!”
If there is one thing the conservative mindset needs, it is a clear opponent. Just as Bush needs bin Ladin and vice versa, conservative religion (the version that insists on the paternal deity) needs equally strong minded atheism. Their worst enemies are not those who directly oppose them, but the ones who do breach the walls of religious terminology with meanings that confuse the tribal function of us vs. them.
Yes, very cogent. That means that philosophical theologians like me, mystics, and other religious third-party types are the worst enemies of the religious conservatives, not Sean and other atheist types. Well, am I going to get any credit for that? ;-|
I think that from a purely logical perspective, the most rational refutation of monotheism is to point out that the absolute is conceptual basis, rather than apex, so if there is a spiritual absolute, it would be the essence out of which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. I admit I don’t get a lot of response when I bring that point up, so maybe it isn’t as obvious as it seems to me.
It isn’t obvious because it isn’t true. Think of a snake eating its own tail. The Absolute is both a basis and the holder of All, so it is an apex as well as a foundation. There is no specific final state but a receding boundary condition, it’s like Omega in infinite set theory - any attempt to describe it fails, but yet we can refer to it the way I am now. (You’ve just got to read Infinity and the Mind by Rudy Rucker.) You don’t really have to think of anything we “fell” from, although some imagine we have to be reduced to a lower state here to learn something, as in Theosophy. I don’t know what’s true, but neither does anyone else (pro or con: really, that isn’t what distinguishes what you can get away with.)
Thomas said that
and that
That kind of obsession with death, concept of the divine, and insistence on faith represent but a few strands in the world tapestry of religion.
Thomas, you speak only for yourself, not humanity.
John Merryman, John Phillips perhaps was a bit rude with his comment, but he really has a point. When you write something like that, you might want to try putting yourself in the shoes of readers who aren’t acquaintances.
As far as Platonic idealism goes, the genocidal deity of the Old Testament and the eternal-gulag creator of the New seem about as far as you can get from desirable adult-male personhood, ideal or otherwise.
“Sean for President!” Now there’s an idea to conjure with!
Of course, I speak for myself and not humanity; nonetheless, Bob is correct with his description of the human condition. Knowing we have only a finite numbers of tomorrows and encumbered by our inability to reanimate our yesterdays, despair at life’s fleeting nature should be no surprise.
People react in all kinds of ways to the fact of being alive, and in different ways at different times.
Despair is only one color on the palette. Gratitude, acceptance, joy, curiosity, delight, and wonder are a few others. What stance we take is often dependent on our circumstances: David Sloan Wilson has some nice comments relevant to that toward the end of this.
Cheers!
As soon as the Democratic Atheists party gets on the ballot on all 50 states, I’d be happy to run.
Thomas, Michael, et al: I do take a fancy to fancy upscale Platonic idealism, and you’re right that traditional religions fall well short of that. (Well, why not then become a neo-Platonist? Now that I think of it, that’s probably the best title for me, which as a Unitarian Universalist I can add on to my fraternal affiliation.) But note about Christianity: It was ruined by the substitutionary atonement glimmerings and developments in John (written much later) and Paul (ditto, who never met Jesus, and whose wrongly centralized scheme is a misguided diversion I call “Paulianity.”) Jesus had many cool liberal type things to say (I mean too, the ones that are likely real sayings) like “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone” and how the division of sheep and goats for heaven and hell is not based on whether you belive He “died for your sins” (what happens to those who never even heard of it, or before that time?), but on who fed and clothed the hungry, etc. - it seems hand crafted to target Republicans; how ironic! Maybe instead of rejecting a twisted and self-serving development of it (see how justification by faith and not works makes it easy for the wealthy clients of conservative fundamentalism?) Christianity should be reclaimed from the religious right and not surrendered to it.
As for survival, I indulge fancy thoughts of how computer programs are still existing even though the computer doesn’t anymore, hence our minds in superspace, or even “quantum woo” (I wish those who complained about quantum mysticism would hit against unempirical BS operations like many worlds and maybe even decoherence, instead of hypocritically referring to things like “the appearance” of collapse, as some poor post-modern meta-physicist bubbleheads are doing even now in these pages….) But I do respect the idea, appreciated from others in my denomination, that life here and now does have meaning as such. I admit to being touched by Leo Buscaglia’s charming and poignant The Fall Of Freddie The Leaf, about the leaf that forms on the tree, has it’s time, and then falls to it’s death and yet lives on as part of nature. I think there’s more than that, but I respect this little story very much - if that is all, then I can see it being worthwhile anyway.
And BTW yes it’s scandalous that an atheist would have so much trouble getting elected President in this country.
Sean, the Democratic Atheist Party will by definition be even more diverse than the religions of the world, if all you have in ‘common’ is atheism.
Atheism does not make one a pacifist per se
Atheism does not make one a socialist working for the greater common good per se
Atheism does not make one inmune to suffering or disease per se
Atheism does not guarantee happiness or ‘jobs’ & homes for all per se.
And Democracy? - which democracy?
Greek (Athenian) democracy?
The Roman Democracy of the Roman empire?
The British democracy of the United Kingdom? - kingdom???
The Spanish democracy - when a nonentity non-elected wanabee king thinks he has the right to sit at the table and tell the President of Venezuela to shut up, because Chavez accuses the Spanish Popular Party of being a Francoist fascist party
or
the US democracy of the founding fathers (with black slaves?)
the US democracy - where foreign policy dictates any terms on oil, trade or climate - do not hamper or threaten the US economy, or rather the status quo of the well off in the US. For lets face it, workers or workers rights have never been a concern in any democracy whose god is ‘profit’
PS - Would Sean a Democratic Atheist President of the US, defend the right of every citizen to believe in whatever god or religion or custom or tradition, as long as they don’t attempt to ram it down the throats of others.
But more important can a democratic atheist US President explain the purpose of living (or rather dying) in suffering and pain from whatever disease, any better than a ‘religious’ president. Does atheism have a magic wand that will make all the ills of the world (or rather the human condition) evaporate into thin air. Or will it be just as powerless as any other absent or non-existent god?
Or will an atheist society still be lost in the same turmoil of crime, unfulfilled desires, unreturned love, hate, disease, pain, suffering and … ‘death’.
Is ultimately an atheist ‘heaven’ any different from any ‘theist’ heaven, other than the decidedly unlikelyhood of 99 virgins - though one can surgically have a hymen cosmetically restored. But before stem cells promise us self-replacing hymens, I should like to see stem cell research offer us self-replacing’ teeth. After all sharks have them, and one can safely presumne sharks are not ‘theist’.
It should be a piece of cake to mimmick for atheist researchers, don’t you think.
Quasar9, many good points. Oh, plenty of atheists are quite illiberal:
Atheism does not make one a pacifist per se
Atheism does not make one a socialist working for the greater common good per se
Atheism does not make one inmune to suffering or disease per se
Atheism does not guarantee happiness or ‘jobs’ & homes for all per se.
Oh yeah, especially the miltant Objectivists, who I run into a lot in Mensa for some reason (eh, snobbery and heartlessless run together? I still find it a gratifying engagement overall.)
BTW, I suspect you are rather much a neo-Platonist, true?
Quasar9,
Yeah, but one common thread in atheism seems to be skepticism and rational inquiry. There is enough opposition to rational inquiry among other demographics that this alone is enough to unify some rather diverse groups. And there is good enough reason to promote rational inquiry.
Hi Jason,
the common thread of any religion or belief system, is that they are different from another - and think themselves more logical or ‘rational’
As far as humans can be considered ‘rational’ beings, it would be a leap of faith, or an assumption (not an indisputable fact or statistic) to claim that atheism makes humans more or less rational than theism.
It would simply imply a pre-sumption on your side that theism and therefore theists are irrational - or that one needs to be an atheist to understand the world. I’ll agree one may need to be an atheist to ‘fully’ understand an atheist view of the universe, though in my eyes - “god only knows what that might really be or mean” - so to speak. However one does not need to be an atheist to understand maths or physics or chemistry, or that which describes the observable universe. After all as you know, there is more to the universe than meets the eye.
Just an attempt at being humorous. Does not require a counterargument.
Neil,
It comes from old English religious festivals, as in Merrie Olde Englande. My ancestors came from Herefordshire in the 1600’s, to Maryland! The closest town is Hereford, so we haven’t moved much since.
Only if we succeed in transcending the current impasse. Religion is inherently top down as a social institution, while science is predicated on bottom up process. The problem is that with the western tendency toward structured monistic thinking, we lack the appreciation of paradox that is at the heart of eastern Taoist dualism. So it’s the usual us vs. them. Sean prevails upon his readers not to use theological terms to describe objective concepts, not for scientific reasons, but for expressly political reasons; That it might provide aid and comfort to the likes of Mike Huckabee.
As we have both argued, the scientific bias against religious concepts goes to ridiculous lengths. Science is willing to propose other dimensions and universes to explain the physical reality that it presumes to have some grasp of, but won’t accord similar features to the understanding of consciousness. For one thing, atheists tend to have little understanding of the evolution of religious constructs and insist on putting up the most childlike versions as strawmen. Biology has found the line between organisms and eco-systems to be illusionary and the only definition we can currently define life by is that it only exists on this planet, so it could reasonably be argued that the planet is one large, multicellular organism and this Gaia paradigm is quite similar to the original tribal conception of God as a larger spirit of the group.
Yes, absolute is both everything and nothing, but it isn’t ideal form, because it doesn’t have form. Form is subjective, it follows function. Evolution is an upward process in terms of increasing complexity and we can only view it downward, from the perspective of our biologically complex apex. Which is simply the furtherest state of process, not any final destination, as it’s a horizon line of perception, since we cannot know what it is that we haven’t yet learned. Both western religion and science view it from this top down perspective, both looking for their unified field theory. Monotheism declares it to be God. Science is still chasing its tail, as it just can’t escape the reality of paradox.
Michael,
That is what I’m trying to make, since most of the people I know personally are more involved with horses then philosophy or science. By putting my ideas out there, I’m looking for feedback, as that is how I learn and improve my understanding of reality. That I was a little sharp in my response to John Phillips was balanced pushback to his opinion of my efforts.
That’s a good example of top down perspective of early twenty first century idealism. Not exactly the perspective of eighteen hundred BC. male virtues. I think monotheism has destroyed the natural knowledge and psychology of early religions. All those gods, goddesses, heros, nymphs, centaurs, etc. were archtypes that provided educational models for communication of concepts, virtues, vices, laws, principles etc. Much as children learn from narratives, examples and fables. Monotheism has been especially detrimental to the balance of powers between the sexes. Women represented lifegiving and therefore had a strong basis of power, with males as providers and protectors. Monotheism claims both spiritual source and political power as dominant male attributes, seriously tipping this balance for thousands of years and even today we don’t respect the foundation from which everything rises, only the apex to which it aspires.
Regards,
John
Eve was created from Adam’s rib? Try the other way around.
Religious stuff aside - Huckabee is a progressive and wants to save you from yourself and is a ‘big government’ conservative on steroids. If you thought Bush had no grip on spending, wait until the Huckster gets a hold of the checkbook.
Not in the least. Theism requires adherence to at least one irrational belief (the positive belief in the existence of an unevidenced entity, a god). Atheism has no such requirement. It is certainly possible for atheists to be irrational. Humans are rather prone to it after all. But it is at least not required, as atheism, in and of itself, contains no beliefs.
Furthermore, as I stated, a common thread among those who label themselves atheists is active championing of rational inquiry as a good thing in and of itself, something which is sorely lacking among the theists, and is even actively denounced in many circles. This isn’t to say that theists denounce all rational inquiry, rather they tend to separate the world into two separate “domains”, one of which can be investigated through rational inquiry, the other which cannot. And they are invariably rather confident that they know certain aspects of the area which they claim cannot be analyzed rationally. And that is very irrational behavior.
beezle,
Personally, I’d like to see an Obama/Edwards ticket.
Jason,
Rational inquiry is presumably objective, but structure requires some subjectivity. Such as that a calendar requires some essentially arbitrary starting date, otherwise it is worthless. It is a simple fact that it is far easier to recognize others subjectivity, then it is to admit to one’s own.
Are three dimensions an objective description of space, or are they the coordinates of the center point?
Not at all. Rational inquiry is built upon the principle of non-contradiction. This principle is entirely objective. If this were not the case, there could be no progress in science, as arguments could never be settled: you would instead have continual splintering as new ideas gained popularity among certain groups, but failed to gain popularity in others.
Dimensions are not coordinates. Nor are they a description of space. They are a property of space. Whether or not that property applies exactly is open to observation. The description is that space has this property.
John wrote: Science is willing to propose other dimensions and universes to explain the physical reality that it presumes to have some grasp of, but won’t accord similar features to the understanding of consciousness.
I’m not sure that I can clearly present a proposition that suggests the difference between atheism and theism is related to the objective and subjective aspects of human consciousness. Suppose that within space and time God had to evolve in order to survive–just as we will have to evolve to survive. I am sure the classical unchanging nature of God will be presented as a argument against this concept of God being the standard theological concept of God; however, if we consider, as a model, a function that equals one at one and whose first and second derivatives are also one at one, then we can conceptualize a unity that is subjectively unchanging at unity. Please understand, this is offered as an idea to explore not as a statement of fact.
Jason,
again we know the affairs of humans and human emotions are for the most part irrational - there is no grand mathematical equation that tells you whether you should cry or laugh, be happy and be sad when your grandmother dies. And as we know, how people feel when their father dies will depend entirely on what their ‘relationship’ was, oh and perhaps some social commitment or other.
Neither theists or atheist are free from human emotions, or from telling little white lies to their spouses, and more little white lies to their children - ok it may not be about santa claus or tooth fairies or little green - but hey you may tell them they are cute, or that they’ll be ok when they are sick - even though they may be ugliest thing on two legs (supposing they have legs), and it may take a ‘miracle’ for them to get well.
Atheists (and theists) may get drunk and have unprotected sex with strangers, or drive recklessly whilst drunk. That does not mean that when they are sober they are not capable of ‘rational’ inquiry, supposing they make it thru to the next day.
Therefore your argument that holding a belief - which in your eyes is irrational - makes those who do not adhere to any such belief more rational, is irrational. The Belief in or lack of belief in the ’supernatural’ does not make one more or less amenable or adept to ‘rational’ inquiry. It is a ‘wholly’ false presumption on your part - and therefore quite irrational of you.
Jason,
There is an old saying that the opposite of small truths are false, but the opposite of large truths are also true. What about the concept of matter and anti-matter, don’t they essentially contradict each other? Existence is a function of contradictions. Content must be in opposition to context, or it would be neutral and therefore not exist. Think of electric polarities, you can’t have positive without negative. Do being and not-being contradict each other, yet how would you be able to define either, except in terms of the opposite? Doesn’t expansion contradict contraction, yet how could you have one without the other? Are left and right opposites? Yet wouldn’t either be meaningless without refreence to the other? No form is absolute.
Dimensions are coordinates. A plane is two dimensional, but if you didn’t define where these two dimensions are, you wouldn’t be able to locate that plane. Same for a line being one dimensional. Unless you specify the specific line/dimension, it could be anywhere, therefore meaningless. So what about space, you say it is three dimensional, yet say the specific dimensions do not have to be defined, so what good are they, since you wouldn’t be able to use them to reference anything in that space? Dimensions are a map of space, not space itself. They are the model, not the ideal. Suffice to say, any number of such coordinates can be used to map the same space. People do it all the time, then fight over it.
Thomas,
Unity and unit are different concepts. Unity implies neutrality, thus is zero. A unit is a set, which is defined by what is internal and external to that set, so it is not neutral. An eco-system can possess unity, but it is made up of innumerable, everchanging organisms, which balance each other out. When we define an ecosystem as a unit, it becomes a multicellular organism and is separated from some larger ecosystem. This is why the concept of the one universal God breaks down. Unity is not a unit and a unit isn’t about unity.
I may not know much, but I recognize wisdom when I see it. John Merryman, thanks for your words. The idea that “doesn’t get much response” is a deep and perceptive one, concerning a subject that is notoriously difficult to approach linguistically.
In response to your comment #45, I’d point out that “unity” in its typical usage is not a neutral concept but expresses the idea of existence, i.e. other than void, thus its identification with the number 1. The state or concept which represents that which is prior to the void is, in my experience, literally impossible to describe or define in language, but the term nondual is sometimes used to indicate it. But now we’re getting deep into philosophical bulls^H^H^H^H^H discussion more appropriate for another venue.
Stephen (comment #8), if you’re ever in Portland, Oregon I’d like to buy you a beer or coffee or something. You sound like my kind of person.
=================
Not everything is politics. I’ve read Stuart Kauffman quite a bit, and while I agree his tendency to jump from very cogent scientific argument into discussions of the “Sacred” can be disconcerting and, in some cases, undermines the presentation of his ideas, after reading enough of his writing I know what he means by “sacred” and am fine with it. I don’t feel exactly what he feels, I think, but I respect the presentation, especially since his main contribution has been to attempt to bring rigor to a field that needs it.
As for politics: if one is merely trying to approach the issue tactically, avoiding key words like this one is in effect a concession or retreat, and I think quite an unfortunate and unsophisticated one.
There is a linguistic (or socio-linguistic, or whatever) concept known as revalorization which is in play here. The idea is to take a symbol (word or otherwise) which has taken on negative connotations, and instead of running away from it, attempting to create new positive meaning or force a return to prior, neutral or positive meaning. One example is the US LGBTetc community’s use of the word “queer”. The classic example of a symbol which cannot be revalorized is the swastika, though note this is a cultural judgment, and on the Indian subcontinent and in some Native American tribal cultures this symbol has kept its ancient meanings.
Religious conservatives hate it when we use their terms in ways that contradict their own meanings. By refusing to cede the linguistic territory we are in effect fighting their attempt to move the Overton Window by claiming certain words which have positive associations among a large percentage of the voting population as their own. Another classic such word is family.
For me, “sacredness” is a feeling I get at certain times when I am able to perceive a larger-than-usual slice of reality and its absolutely staggering complexity and densely interdependent causal structure across scales from the Planck to the horizon. I see no need for “eternal” forms in any Platonic or prior sense, no need for a creator of any kind, no need for it to “mean” anything except subjectively, no need for any kind of causal explanation, no need for anything but the thing itself. It is profoundly beautiful to me, in fact this is the definition of beauty for me, and I am frequently stunned and amazed that the world is thus.
I will not stop using the term “sacred”, though I will try to make what I mean clear, and offer it as a counterbalance to the faith-based view, which I believe is detrimental to our species in that it restricts the natural path of human cultural evolution.
If the term “sacred” literally corresponds to nothing inside you, then don’t use it, and please accept my condolences. If what it means to you simply doesn’t match what the Bible-thumpers mean when they say it, why let them get away with it?
Jason, you are wrong that believing in an unevidenced entity (UEE for short! and not to be confused w/ a counterevidenced entity or CEE) is irrational. If an entity is unevidenced (like alien life, “other universes”, the multiple worlds of QM, or even borderline issues like the exact words spoken at an unrecorded meeting in the past, claims about the future (unevidenced until then, and so “irrational” until then?) - then it’s all about how good an *argument* you have for or against it. Not even the claim that the “not exist” option is an inherently preferable default for a UEE (I mean, over and above the specific sway of the particular pro and con) despite the commonly fostered pretense that it is - I have never seen other than circular take it or leave it bluster about that. Some good thinkers say, very to the contrary, that “everything exists” unless it can’t!
BTW I am a theistic philosopher, not a very-different “religionist.” I do separate things into the realms of what we actually have available to know (like that specific hits from ostensible “wave functions” actually happen… A-hem…) and the things we have to speculate and provide mere arguments about (one of which is the question of God, but there are many more that aren’t religious type questions.)
tyler,
Much appeciated. Any wisdom on this end has been earned the hard way. You sound like you have a good grasp of the larger issues.
My description of wisdom is that intelligence is knowledge, while wisdom is editing.
Even the absolute can be dual, as both everything and nothing. I think the concept of the universal one is a goal that has us running in circles.
Neil B. wrote:
whether the wave is “static” (in the silly sense of misinterpreting the ultimate significance of the Minkowski diagram, just because time was simply *graphed* with space all in one piece, as if that actually made time go away?) or “dynamic.”
If by “static” vs. “dynamic” you refer to eternalism (all times are equally real, time is just a sort of dimension) vs. presentism (only the ‘now’ is real, the past and present don’t exist), I think the reason most philosophers and physicists tend to favor eternalism is not just because time is graphed as a dimension on Minkowski diagrams, but because of the relativity of simultaneity in the theory of relativity–two events which happen at the “same instant” in one frame can happen at “different times” in another, and the laws of physics place all reference frames on equal footing.
Neil B. wrote:
Glib talk of our most fundamental experiences (in the classic shared scientific sense too, not the highly individual/subjective sense) as being “illusions” is presumptous and so antithetical to the orginal spirit of empiricism - I see no reason to surrender the empirical given to a bunch of affectedly too-clever-by-half, post-modern pseudoscientists.
Would you consider the notion of time “passing” as opposed to just being a dimension to be one of our most fundamental experiences? If so, do you think Einstein was being a post-modern pseudoscientist when he said “For we convinced physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent” (see here)?
Jesse,
Isn’t that simply due to the fact that given constant rates of transmission of information, ie. the speed of light, the perception of events at different locations is going to reach observers at separate locations at different times? If a star 10 lightyears away blows up at the same time as one 100 lightyears away, we will perceive the closer event as happening 90 years prior to the more distant one. While for an observer equidistant between the two, they would appear to occur at the same moment.
Saying this makes time and space the same is like saying the windchill factor makes temperature and windspeed the same. If you stick a glass of water out on a windy day, when the temperature is above freezing, it doesn’t freeze, no matter what the windchill factor is.
John Merryman wrote:
Isn’t that simply due to the fact that given constant rates of transmission of information, ie. the speed of light, the perception of events at different locations is going to reach observers at separate locations at different times? If a star 10 lightyears away blows up at the same time as one 100 lightyears away, we will perceive the closer event as happening 90 years prior to the more distant one. While for an observer equidistant between the two, they would appear to occur at the same moment.
No, the relativity of simultaneity in SR is about the time-coordinates retroactively assigned to the events themselves in a given reference frame, not the time-coordinate at which a given observer sees the light from an event. In other words, if I see the light from a supernova in the year 2010, and that supernova is 100 light-years away according to measurements in my frame (different frames measure distances differently because each frame sees moving rulers contract), then I will say the supernova happened at a time-coordinate of t = 1910 in my frame. Likewise, if in 2050 I see the light from a supernova 140 light-years away in my frame, I’ll also say the second supernova happened at a time-coordinate of t = 1910 as well, so the two supernovas are “simultaneous” in my frame. But if someone in a different frame uses the same procedure of noting when they saw the light from each supernova and subtracting a number of years equal to the distance in light-years in that frame, they may find that these two events happened at different t-coordinates in their own frame!
Jesse,
Thanks for setting me straight on that. Although I still don’t see how this qualifies time as a dimensional basis for motion, as opposed to a measurement of it. It all boils down to how light travels in different frames, it doesn’t really argue that sequential events co-exist, as two points in space co-exist.
If I’m driving down the road and time is a dimension, it would seem that I was at all points on that drive, just as the entire road exists in space. So why don’t I blurr together with all the other people driving before and after me?
It seems to me that past and future do not physically exist because the energy of which these events consist is manifesting the present. If it was different energy then what the present consists, how would it be in a causal continuum with other points in time, as it was previous states which lead up to this one and the conditions in this one which will define future states.
I feel that change is real and the dimension of time is the construct, ie. distilled narrative. Here is a further exploration of my point;
http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/11/27/things-happen-not-always-for-a-reason/#comment-305426
Of course it means this. If person A is otherwise identical to person B (on average), but person B holds some irrational beliefs while person A does not, then person A is more likely to be rational.
Yes, a both a theist and an atheist will make irrational decisions. Yes, both a theist and an atheist will make emotional decisions. But because the theist’s position is rests upon a belief that is irrational, and because the atheist is not more likely than the theist to hold other irrational beliefs besides beliefs in deities, the atheist is, on average, more rational.
John Merryman,
Your view of reality is fundamentally incorrect based upon what we know about the nature of reality. I think I’m done worrying about correcting your incoherent statements, so I’ll just leave it at this: until you learn what we know today about the nature of space-time, you are doomed to be incorrect.
Although I still don’t see how this qualifies time as a dimensional basis for motion, as opposed to a measurement of it. It all boils down to how light travels in different frames, it doesn’t really argue that sequential events co-exist, as two points in space co-exist.
It doesn’t boil down to how light travels, the symmetry between different inertial reference frames in SR extends to all the laws of physics–if relativity is correct there can be no physical reason whatsoever for saying one frame’s way of dividing up space and time is better than any other. So, the only way to preserve the notion of a unique “now” (with only event happening now having any real existence) is to postulate the existence of something like a “metaphysically preferred reference frame”, where the difference between it and other frames has nothing to do with any measurable or observable aspects of reality. This seems rather inelegant, so by Occam’s razor I think there is good reason to say it’s simpler if we dispense with the idea that only events happening “now” really exist and instead put all events throughout spacetime on equal footing.
If I’m driving down the road and time is a dimension, it would seem that I was at all points on that drive, just as the entire road exists in space. So why don’t I blurr together with all the other people driving before and after me?
In the 4D view, you are a sort of 4-dimensional worm, and each 3-dimensional cross-section of this worm represents you at a different moment (different reference frames would take the cross-sections at different angles). For any given spacelike 3D cross-section, of 4D spacetime, the cross-section of “your” worm will be at a different position that the cross-section of someone else’s. So, you don’t blur together with other people any more than two parallel lines on an xy plane, like y=2x and y=2x+4, blur together–it is true that in some sense every line “occupies” every point along the x-axis, but they do it at different values of y (for example, for x=3 the first line reaches that value when y=6, but the second line reaches that value when y=10).
It seems to me that past and future do not physically exist because the energy of which these events consist is manifesting the present. If it was different energy then what the present consists, how would it be in a causal continuum with other points in time, as it was previous states which lead up to this one and the conditions in this one which will define future states.
I don’t understand this paragraph–what do you mean by “energy”? Something different than the ordinary physical notions of kinetic energy, potential energy, and rest mass energy? And causality in the 4D eternalist view is just like a “geometrical” lawlike relation between events in spacetime–we can obviously formulate the notion of “laws” governing sequences even when the sequences aren’t happening in time, like a sequence of numbers (for example, with the sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, … the law is that each number is twice as large as the previous one). Likewise, if I draw some ordered arrangement of dots on a piece of paper you might find a rule which would allow you to predict the arrangement of dots to the right-hand side of a divider based on the arrangement of dots on the left-hand side; this is basically similar to what physicists are doing when they find laws governing the relationships between events in spacetime, in the eternalist view.
Jesse
You wrote, “I think there is good reason to say it’s simpler if we dispense with the idea that only events happening “now” really exist and instead put all events throughout spacetime on equal footing.”
This discussion between you and John Merryman is fascinating. I have always wanted to get ‘my head around’ SR but have usually just become annoyed with myself for having to believe in it as opposed to completely understanding it. Based on your understanding of SR and space-time would you say that for each of us; our birth in the past, our present moment now, and our death in the future are on equal footing and coexistent relative to some reference frame? Thanks
Based on your understanding of SR and space-time would you say that for each of us; our birth in the past, our present moment now, and our death in the future are on equal footing and coexistent relative to some reference frame?
“Existence” is really a philosophical issue–as I said, relativity’s lack of a physically preferred reference frame could never absolutely rule out the idea of a “metaphysically preferred frame”, with that frame’s definition of simultaneity being the “true” one so that the philosophy of presentism (which says only events happening ‘now’ really exist) could still make sense. But like I said, this type of philosophical view does seem considerably more inelegant in light of relativity’s placing all the different frames on equal footing in every possible physical respect.
Even if we just talk about simultaneity rather than existence, there still isn’t any inertial frame in SR where the event of my sitting here typing this is simultaneous with the event of my birth, because only events with a “space-like separation” can be simultaneous in any inertial frame. For a more detailed discussion of what it means for events to have a space-like or time-like or light-like separation, see here and here, but basically if two events have a space-like separation that means that a signal traveling at the speed of light from one event would not have time to make it to the other event; for example, an event on Earth in 2007 and an event on Alpha Centauri 4 light-years away in 2008 would have a space-like separation. In contrast, the event of my typing this has a time-like separation from the event of my birth.
However, what we can say is that in SR it should be possible to find some event E some number of light-years away from Earth such that in one frame the event of my typing this is simultaneous with E, and in another frame the event of my birth is simultaneous with E. So if you do place all frames on equal footing in terms of ontology or “existence”, meaning that if any given event is said to have real existence, then any other event which is simultaneous with it in any frame must have real existence too, then this would force you to conclude that the event of my birth exists in exactly the same sense as the event of my typing this.
Jesse,
The term ‘now’ is a way to frame time, but any frame is going to blur with what is inside and outside of it. By saying that only the physical exists, it is not a matter of time, but what physically exists and what doesn’t. You are not arguing that your birth and death co-exist, but that they may appear that way to some other frame. Would this be similar to saying that in the frame of a funhouse mirror, my face appears three feet long, so that means that it is? It seems that what distorts the perception of time is propagation of information over distance varies from one frame to another.
It seems to me the problem is that in order to logically conceive any concept, we must frame it, but that there is no absolute frame. It is similar to the point I made to Jason about space not being three dimensional. If you don’t specify the specific coordinates of those three dimensions, it is a useless concept, because you can’t use them to specify locations in that space, so three dimensions are a map of space, not the territory and any number of such coordinate systems can be used to define the same space. Just as any number of time frames can be used to describe the same events, each giving a different perspective, so that the reality is that space is infinitely dimensional, just as any potential clock is its own dimension of time. Saying that space is three dimensions and time is one dimension is the very assertion of a universal frame that you say relativity disproves.
Jason,
Thank you for your efforts. You’ve shown me more patience then most people do.
To clarify that last point, four dimensional spacetime is a frame, but there is no universal frame, so it is only our description of space and time that is four dimensional.
Jesse
I think John Merryman makes a good point when he writes:
“You are not arguing that your birth and death co-exist, but that they may appear that way to some other frame. Would this be similar to saying that in the frame of a funhouse mirror, my face appears three feet long, so that means that it is? It seems that what distorts the perception of time is propagation of information over distance varies from one frame to another.”
Finding a concise meaning to event E and its frame of reference seems more vexing than understanding the arrow of time. I hope not so vexing as to cause our discussion to cease however.
John Merryman wrote:
The term ‘now’ is a way to frame time, but any frame is going to blur with what is inside and outside of it. By saying that only the physical exists, it is not a matter of time, but what physically exists and what doesn’t. You are not arguing that your birth and death co-exist, but that they may appear that way to some other frame.
No, I am arguing that they both exist in exactly the same sense (which I guess is what you mean by ‘co-exist’), precisely because I argue it is natural to place all frames on equal footing in terms of what they say “exists” at a given moment. There is some frame where the event of my death happens at the same moment as some other distant event E; there is some other frame where E happens at the same moment as my birth; so if you say that event E “exists” at some moment, how can you say that one or the other of my birth and death co-exists with E but not both, without privileging one frame over another?
Another way of saying this is just to point out that presentism requires a single universal definition of “now”, and therefore a single “true” definition of simultaneity, and there’d be no way to do this without picking out a single frame and defining it as special, which the laws of physics never do. Like I said, you are free to imagine that one frame is “metaphysically” special even though it is not special in any measurable physical way, but to me this seems too inelegant to be plausible.
Would this be similar to saying that in the frame of a funhouse mirror, my face appears three feet long, so that means that it is?
I don’t know what you mean by “the frame of a funhouse mirror”. In relativity a frame is a coordinate system filling all of space time, and when people talk about the frame of a given object, they mean a frame where that object is at rest, and where distances between position-coordinates and time intervals between time-coordinates would correspond to the measurements of actual rulers and clocks at rest relative to the object.
Perhaps you mean a new type of coordinate system where the distorted apparent distances in the funhouse mirror would be the actual distances, in spite of the fact that actual physical rulers at rest relative to the mirror would not measure these distorted distances. If so, there is a very good reason for not placing this coordinate system on equal footing with all the inertial coordinate systems of SR–in this “funhouse” coordinate system, the laws of physics would have to be written with totally different equations, while the laws of physics all obey identical equations in all the different inertial coordinate systems. If you were given a series of coordinate readings for different causally-related events, you could tell if they were written in some distorted non-inertial coordinate system like the funhouse one or if they were in a standard SR inertial system, but if they were in a standard SR inertial system, there’d be absolutely no way to deduce which inertial system it was, since the laws governing relationships between events look identical in all of them.
It seems that what distorts the perception of time is propagation of information over distance varies from one frame to another.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Again, the key point is that the laws in one inertial frame are identical to the laws in every other.
It seems to me the problem is that in order to logically conceive any concept, we must frame it, but that there is no absolute frame.
As with your earlier comments about “energy”, I think here you are taking a well-defined physics term and mixing it up with some fuzzier definition of the word outside the context of physics. In ordinary language we may sometimes talk about “mental frames”, but these have nothing to do with “frames” in physics, which are just coordinate systems for assigning coordinates to different points in space and time (and in the case of inertial frames in SR it is understood that these coordinates would correspond to the readings on a set of physical rulers and clocks at rest with respect to one another, so if I’m sitting on a ruler/clock system at rest relative to me, and I look through my telescope and see an explosion happen next to the 12 light-year mark on my x-axis ruler when the clock at that mark reads a time of 8 years, then I assign that explosion coordinates x=12 light years, t=8 years).
It is in fact easy to conceive of alternate laws of physics where there would be an absolute frame, or an absolute definition of simultaneity. The old “aether” theory of electromagnetism, in which Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism only held exactly in the rest frame of the aether (a medium which light waves were supposed to be vibrations in, the same way that sound waves are vibrations in air), and you could detect your speed relative to the aether by measuring how light travelled at different speeds in different directions relative to you, does include an absolute frame, namely the aether frame. Likewise, in any theory that does not include time dilation due to movement, like Newtonian physics, it’s easy to come up with an absolute definition of simultaneity–just synchronize two clocks when they are in the same location, then move them apart, without time dilation you can be sure they’ll stay synchronized.
It is similar to the point I made to Jason about space not being three dimensional. If you don’t specify the specific coordinates of those three dimensions, it is a useless concept, because you can’t use them to specify locations in that space, so three dimensions are a map of space, not the territory and any number of such coordinate systems can be used to define the same space. Just as any number of time frames can be used to describe the same events, each giving a different perspective, so that the reality is that space is infinitely dimensional
That doesn’t make sense according to the standard notion of the number of dimensions a space has. For example, on a 2D piece of paper you can create a coordinate system by overlaying a sheet of transparent graph paper with x and y axes drawn on, and you do have an infinite number of choices of the angle at which you orient the x and y axes when you place them over the first paper; but that doesn’t mean the space is infinite-dimensional, it’s 2-dimensional because no matter what choice of coordinate system you make, you only need two coordinates to specify any position on the paper.
Saying that space is three dimensions and time is one dimension is the very assertion of a universal frame that you say relativity disproves.
No more so than saying that the 2D paper above is two-dimensional means you’re asserting an “absolute x-axis” and an “absolute y-axis”–you still have no reason to prefer one choice of orientation for the axes than any other, so there’s no reason to imagine such absolute axes.
ags wrote:
Finding a concise meaning to event E and its frame of reference seems more vexing than understanding the arrow of time. I hope not so vexing as to cause our discussion to cease however.
An event does not have a frame of reference in SR, only objects with persist over time (and move inertially) do. And it’s just a mathematical matter to find the coordinates of some event E such that in frame A, my birth and E are simultaneous, whi