The Sudden Dawn of the Cosmos and the Constancy of Physical Laws

There is no certainty in the universe. No certainty in life. Big revelation. Nothing ever is proven. Not your god your jesus your flud not your genesis.What we have is a very high degree of confidence in the efficacy of our models, many of which have never, ever, failed unlike your god your jesus your flud your genesis. And it doesn't matter who you are, when the science says you are wrong then you are wrong. Ask Fred Hoyle.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Stop right there.The ONLY things we can say about this universe are those things evidenced. There is nothing else.Anything else is a charlatan's game.

How do you know that evidence proves anything, or that anything can be learned from it?

I won't deal with this slopsist bullshit.We operate in an objective reality. With properly functioning senses we can discern the reality around us. We have no reason to doubt this and no reason to abandon that principle in favor of some religious wet dream.

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Maybe you're not an atheists, but many atheists affirm that God is a logical impossibility.

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In other words you are allowed to attribute beliefs to me just because you think I might believe them? That does not seem either good or sensible - or in the interests of honest discussion.

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You still started out with a few bacteria, and they replicated, not contrary to the laws of math.

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Then it wouldn’t be contrary to the “laws of math” for you to have more or fewer apples. It’s the behaviour of apples that matters, not your “laws of math”.

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Just coin a new word and you can express the same meaning. Just add a new part of speech, or a new grammatical rule, or a new syntax, or use more words, and you can express the exact same meaning.

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Obviously it’s not that simple or translators would do it all the time (your new word might not be accepted or might change in meaning). More importantly the whole idea is in line with my beliefs, not yours. If language is a tool we use to represent reality then changing it to better reflect reality is obviously good. But if language governed reality changing the language would change reality - whic( it obviously doesn’t.

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I know all that.

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You asked, I answered. It’s past time you started answering my questions.

Is there a reason that you think that the universe is under any obligation to make sense to us?The universe makes more sense to us today than it did 500 years ago. Does this mean that it violated the laws of meaning and logic more then than now? Do we have to understand everything about the universe for it to exist? I think it more accurate to say that a mind is required to think anything about the universe. Quantum Mechanics makes no sense at all to meaning and logic, does this mean that the universe doesn't exist? The universe had no minds in it at all until we came along a few hundred thousand years ago but it seemed to get along just fine.

Let us consider your syllogisms - or just the first since the others don’t add anything.

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A: Every non-miraculous occurrence in the universe makes sense according to meaning and logic.
B: This would not be true if there were no minds to observe them.
C: Therefore, at least one mind exist for the universe to make sense according to meaning and logic.
D: Therefore, if no minds existed, the universe would not make sense according to meaning and logic.

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A is not known to be true (at the least it has required a lot of investigation to make sense of many things and some are still not understood)B seems to be very likely false - certainly there is no good reason to believe it or to think that the mere existence of an observer could force the universe to “make sense according to reason and logic”Further if minds must themselves “make sense according to reason and logic” (and I would suggest that they do at least as much as the universe does) then your argument creates a vicious circularity.Indeed all you can say for B is that in the absence of an observer there would be nobody to make sense of the universe - but that does not suggest that the observer makes the universe behave differently at all.

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In other words you are allowed to attribute beliefs to me just because you think I might believe them? That does not seem either good or sensible - or in the interests of honest discussion.

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No, I made a mistake. Sorry.

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Then it wouldn’t be contrary to the “laws of math” for you to have more or fewer apples. It’s the behaviour of apples that matters, not your “laws of math”.

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I'm talking about when it's not the behavior of apples, but a clear violation of math and logic. From now on, I will just say logic, (although I'm not sure if we can say that math is a form of logic. What do you think)?

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Obviously it’s not that simple or translators would do it all the time (your new word might not be accepted or might change in meaning). More importantly the whole idea is in line with my beliefs, not yours. If language is a tool we use to represent reality then changing it to better reflect reality is obviously good. But if language governed reality changing the language would change reality - whic( it obviously doesn’t.

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But not every mind needs to understand the universe; but the universe must make sense according to meaning and logic, otherwise it is violating the laws of meaning and logic, in whatever mind is capable of understanding it. Therefore, seeing the universe cannot violate these laws, it must make sense according to meaning and logic, and therefore one mind must exist for the universe to exist.No doubt not every language is capable of expressing everything. And no doubt there are different minds, among humans, among animals, with various forms of consciousness and senses to see the world, but they all make sense of the same universe, and it make sense to them, and we all operate in one world, in one global ecosystem, where, although there is conflict, there is no failure to recognize the other life form, whether the observer knows what that life form is or not. Every creature with tactile senses, whatever their touch may feel like to them, can feel a rock. If not, it doesn't matter, because the human mind understands the universe to a great degree, as we are the most intelligent life forms on this earth. And I imagine that, the most intelligent and most capable being in the universe, if they were to fully understand the universe, would make perfect sense out of all of it. And if this were not so, then the universe would not make sense according to meaning and logic.

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I'm talking about when it's not the behavior of apples, but a clear violation of math and logic. From now on, I will just say logic, (although I'm not sure if we can say that math is a form of logic. What do you think)?

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Modern mathematics can certainly be seen that way, but that gets away from the utilitarian origins.But logic keeps things simpler.

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But not every mind needs to understand the universe; but the universe must make sense according to meaning and logic, otherwise it is violating the laws of meaning and logic, in whatever mind is capable of understanding it. Therefore, seeing the universe cannot violate these laws, it must make sense according to meaning and logic, and therefore one mind must exist for the universe to exist.

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You’re just repeating your assumptions without explaining again. If changing language doesn’t change reality then surely the sensible belief is that language is a tool that we use to describe reality rather than something which governs it.So again, why should the existence of a mind make a difference? There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think so other than your assumptions about how logic works. But there’s no good reason to believe this either.If the truths of logic are necessary truths then there is no need for logic to “govern” anything. Reality must conform to logic because it is literally impossible for it not to. And when we consider the fact that logical truths are tautologous it is easy to see how they are necessarily true.

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is not known to be true (at the least it has required a lot of investigation to make sense of many things and some are still not understood)

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But would you not admit, that things not understood one hundred years ago are now understood, and that things that now are not understood may later be understood? And therefore, to that future mind which is to understand it, the universe must make sense. But it does not yet make sense to them, and yet, it cannot violate the laws of meaning and logic, from which it follows, by means of another premise, that the universe makes sense according to meaning and logic. Seeing then as nothing can make sense while not making sense to someone, one must mind exist.

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B seems to be very likely false - certainly there is no good reason to believe it or to think that the mere
existence of an observer could force the universe to “make sense according to reason and logic”

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I didn't say that the minds were forcing them. These syllogisms speak nothing of force.

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Further if minds must themselves “make sense according to reason and logic” (and I would suggest that they do at least as much as the universe does) then your argument creates a vicious circularity.

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I think God, perhaps, understands his own mind, though we do not. Therefore, there is no problem here.

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Indeed all you can say for B is that in the absence of an observer there would be nobody to make sense of the universe - but that does not suggest that the observer makes the universe behave differently at all.

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If there is no one to observe the universe, then the universe does not make sense, as there is no one to whom it can make sense. Therefore, it would be violating the dictates of sense, which means, it would not operate in the same fashion, because there is only one possible greatest mind, to whom, when it exists, the universe must make sense.Edited by Christian7, : No reason given.

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You’re just repeating your assumptions without explaining again.

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You're ignoring some of what I said and not addressing it, just claiming I'm wrong. If changing language doesn’t change reality then surely the sensible belief is that language is a tool that we use to describe reality rather than something which governs it.

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So again, why should the existence of a mind make a difference? There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think so other than your assumptions about how logic works. But there’s no good reason to believe this either.

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When two premise are true, and a conclusions follows from them deductively, the conclusion must be true, necessarily. This is a law of logic. No facts can contradict it. Neither can informal fallacies prove it wrong, for informal fallacies speak of content, not deduction.

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If the truths of logic are necessary truths then there is no need for logic to “govern” anything. Reality must conform to logic because it is literally impossible for it not to. And when we consider the fact that logical truths are tautologous it is easy to see how they are necessarily true.

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Reality must conform to logic, and yet is not limited by logic?That which is not limited by something is not forced to conform it.

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But would you not admit, that things not understood one hundred years ago is now understood, and that things that now are not understood may later be understood?

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“May” is not the same as “will”. That the universe might be comprehensible does not mean that it is. We hope that it is, but it is not yet time to say that it is.

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I didn't say that the minds were forcing them. These syllogisms speak nothing of force.

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That is just pointless nitpicking. You assert that the existence of minds somehow makes the universe obey the laws of logic. But you can’t give any reason to think that’s true.

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I think God, perhaps, understands his own mind, though we do not. Therefore, there is no problem here.

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That is obviously incorrect. “Therefore there is a very real problem here” would be the correct conclusion. After all, you claim that only things “governed by the rules of logic and meaning” make sense.

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If there is no one to observe the universe, then the universe does not make sense, as there is no one to whom it can make sense.

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You know it would help if you understood what I said. I pointed out that that is very different from what you claim. This is an equivocation which makes your syllogism invalid.

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When two premise are true, and a conclusions follows from them deductively, the conclusion must be true, necessarily. This is a law of logic. No facts can contradict it. Neither can informal fallacies prove it wrong, for informal fallacies speak of content, not deduction.

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Well thank you for agreeing with me. Since this negates your argument that really seems to be it.

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Reality must conform to logic, and yet is not limited by logic?

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It isn’t meaningfully limited by logic for the reasons you give above, I.e it is not logic that makes the conclusion true - it is the truth of the premises that does that.

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It isn’t meaningfully limited by logic for the reasons you give above, I.e it is not logic that makes the conclusion true - it is the truth of the premises that does that.

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You still have to prove that my premises are false.

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It isn’t meaningfully limited by logic for the reasons you give above, I.e it is not logic that makes the conclusion true - it is the truth of the premises that does that.

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But it is limited by logic. Therefore, a non-physical reality limits the universe. Logic is not a physical thing.

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That is just pointless nitpicking. You assert that the existence of minds somehow makes the universe obey the laws of logic. But you can’t give any reason to think that’s true.

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No, I said that, the universe cannot obey the laws of meaning and logic without the existence of a mind.

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That is obviously incorrect. “Therefore there is a very real problem here” would be the correct conclusion. After all, you claim that only things “governed by the rules of logic and meaning” make sense.

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God does not have to obey the laws of logic. Therefore this does not apply to Him.Edited by Christian7, : No reason given.