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Author | Topic: A Simplified Proof That The Universe Cannot Be Explained | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But there can be an explanation; for example "The first cause has no prior cause." would be an explanation. That wouldn't be an explanation, just an observation.
"It is turtles all the way down." is an explanation. How do you explain all the turtles?
"Brahma slept and dreamed." is an explanation. Why is there Brahma?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
All great questions but irrelevant to the topic of the OP. No, that's very much his point.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
How so? Is the topic not " A Simplified Proof That The Universe Cannot Be Explained"? If the universe is explained then would those not be other questions? As I understand nano, by "the universe" he means absolutely everything, including Brahma, turtles, and so forth.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Surely your proof relies on things not standing on their own. Is the existence of logic necessary? I think talking of logic as "existing" is extremely tendentious; unless one means as a concept or a subject of study, in which case its existence is not at all necessary.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But that is not what he asked, and if the answer to any of those is simply that it has no cause then that is the explanation. But "it just did" is not an explanation.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Since we have explanations for other uncaused things, like radioactivity and the Casimir effect, why not for the origin of the universe? Well, in this context calling those things "uncaused" is at worst tendentious and at best misses the point. When (for example) a radioactive atom decays, there may be no reason why it did so at that point rather than some other, but there are reasons why it did so: there is the atom and its nature. This would not do for the origin of everything: if you had something that had a tendency to turn into everything, then you'd already have a thing.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Another one is where you have half-things in quasi-existence ... That's only a case that we need to consider if the concepts of "half-thing" and "quasi-existence" mean anything. When you think of a universe like that, what are you thinking of?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Something like branes colliding, but after the universe is there rather than before it. Assuming that the physicists are right about branes, in what sense are branes not things? In what sense don't they exist?
It isn't necessary that there are no things and then there are things, there could be intermediate stages. Well, there again, I find it hard to attach any referents to your words. Can you picture an intermediate stage? I cannot. What would a half-existent banana look like? What would there be about it that would make us call it a half-existing banana rather than a completely existing ... uh ... ana?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Because in the "proof", things aren't existing until they are in the universe. So a brane that's there before the universe isn't a thing that exists. No that's not what nano means.
I can live with that. People can usually live with the defects of their own reasoning, but they often find it difficult to convince others. Words need to have referents. If you were to try to overturn (let us say) a theorem in Euclid by saying "But what if the triangle was a four-sided triangle", then your argument would not be persuasive because the phrase "four-sided triangle" does not mean anything.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
But if "it just exists" is true then yes it is an explanation. No.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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What do they mean? Well, he would count the brane as being a thing that exists and so part of the universe.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Perhaps it's the nature of nothing to turn into something. Discussing the innate nature of nothing is like discussing the color of my unicorn.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
It is explained: it can be no other way. Which we prove how?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I don't think one needs to prove an explanation. It just needs to explain. If it can be no other way that would explain the universe, would it not? I was kinda looking for an explanation with a justification. I will concede that anything can be explained badly.
Can you prove it could be some other way? Well, the alternative seems to be logically consistent.
If there is nothing, there is no possibility of there being something. Since we know there is a possibility of there being something *points around at some things* there is no possibility of there being nothing. "If this is square, there is no possibility of it being triangular. Since we know that there is a possibility of it being triangular *counts its sides, of which there are three* there is no possibility of it being square." Well, if that is advanced just to prove that a thing can't be triangular and square at once, then it is innocuous but inconsequential. But if it is meant to prove that the thing is necessarily not square, then it could use a little work. For of course that could have been an unrealized possibility.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
If that leaves anything to salvage from the OP, it is clear then that the OP defines 'explanation' as something that uniquely applies to the universe in a way that it would never apply to anything else. No, it's just in the nature of the question being asked that when an explanation is being sought for everything, any proposed secondary cause is among the things being explained. After all, a secondary cause is only acceptable as an explanation when it is in fact a cause of the thing being explained. If we ask "Why did Fred murder John?", then "Because the bullet penetrated John's heart" is not an answer, because that comes further down the causal chain. It would be no good protesting that secondary causes should be good enough as an explanation. That particular secondary cause is an explanation for something, but not for the thing you're being asked to explain.
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