Occam’s Razor says that the hypothesis with the fewest new entities or unproven assumptions that completely explains the outcome is probably the best. This is much different than “the simplest” explanation is best.
I won’t address any other arguments, but going strictly by Occam’s Razor, the idea of god fails spectacularly. It has the mother of all new entities and unproven assumptions, a magical being that is more complex, more powerful, more intelligent than any other ever known, and which has existed since before the beginning of the universe and still exists outside of the laws of our universe.
So you should really quit using Occam in your pro-god argument. It only shows a non-understanding of the entire idea.
First, I’ve not offered it in support of my position. I’ve simply defended against it. and both arguments add an extraordinary component. Mine adds the existence of a Creator. The other adds the existence of causeless items and introduces the concept of perpetual existence going back in time infinitely. I find mine explanation much more plausible.
According to Occam’s Razor, your hypothesis is LESS likely. To quote the Razor exactly, it multiplies entia without necessity. It introduces extraordinarily complicated factors for absolutely no reason.
To be precise, Occam’s Razor says Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. “Entities should not be multiplied beyond their necessity.” What that means is that no hypothesis should be introduced without there being a need for it. If a number of elements is already sufficient, then you don’t need to introduce more.
That’s not logic, it’s pure asssertion and it’s made without any demonstrated necessity.
This is what we’ve been trying to get across to you, but you don’t seem to be able to understand that that the multiverse does not require a “creating force.”
I don’t assume that at all.
We’re not. Everything doesn’t need a cause. That’s a religious assumption on your part, not a demonstrated scientific necessity.
I’m not stuck at all. It would have to be shown that the other universe required a beginning. The conclusion that THIS universe had a beginning is not assumed simply because the universe exists, but because we can tell it expanded from an original singularity. That doesn’t mean the same has to hold true for every universe or for the underlying quantum matrix beneath a hypothetical multiverse.
False choice. Newtonian physics do not apply on a quantum level. To simplify , there’s nothing wrong with a quantum “perpetual motion” machine.
It means you haven’t PROVEN it exists and that I cannot assume as a fact that it does. There are many ways you COULD prove it, though, which makes it a poor analogy to sky gods.
It doesn’t have to be DISproven. You’re the one asserting a necessity, you’re the one with the burden of proof.
Your magical creator.
I am not making any positive assertion that a first cause is impossible, I’m saying there’s no demonstrated necessity for it. Your question is fatuous. It is not proven that everything needs a cause, and positing a sky fairy as the causer only begs your own question anyway.
No, I’m not exressing a preference for any particular conclusion, only for the method of seeking that conclusion. You simply want to leap there with no steps in between, no necessity, no evidence, no logic, no rational inference and basically no method at all. I want to actually follow the evidence. I don’t care where it goes.
This is just handwaving on your part. Your assertion that everything needs a cause is your own. Prove the quantum field needs a cause.
And for like the billionth time, if everything needs acause, then so does your fairy. If your fairy doesn’t need a cause then everything doesn’t need a cause. You can’t have it both ways.
Or indirect either.
Yiu are utterly mistaken in your fundamental assumption that everything needs a cause. Particles come out of the quantum field, yes, but there is no prtoof that the quantum field requires a beginning, nor is there any known reason why a a multiplicity or infinity of universes can’t come out of it.
I’d like to add a first needn’t have any self control either. The Colorado river couldn’t help but make the grand canyon even if it could have a will not to. The canyon is an inescapable consequence of the river existing.
In other words a first cause may not be all powerfull nor self aware. It may just be a river digging reality out of the bedrock of something else.
We are, but I was exploring the mechanism behind morality to draw conclusions for that.
I submitted that morality is an instinct because it’s psychological enforcer, the conscience, compels them to follow the moral codes they’ve learned. Even if they’re not exactly happy doing it. Absolution of a guilty conscience, and avoiding it in the first place can be an irresistible compelling urge in people, and influence their behaviors in a heaping pile of ways. Sure what is defined as right and wrong is left to how you were raised and your own personal thoughts, but when something does fall in your “wrong” definitions most people will attempt to avoid it without even thinking about why they avoid it.
Usually when a species is born with potentially irritable urges to do certain actions we call this an instinct. Rocks don’t have instincts, but animals do and social animals are known to demonstrate codes of conduct for dealing with other. Maybe not learned codes like our morality but maybe protomorality. Although I do believe they’re having problems with juvenal bull elephants in Africa being way too aggressive without older bull elephants for them to model after so maybe there is learned behavior codes in the animal world too.
Humans are evolved to live in communities, not as individulas. We are social animals. As such, we have evolved certain physiological responses to others of our groups. For instance, we are programmed to bond with and be protective of our own children and to be protectiveof children in general. We are programmed to bond with sexual mates. We also have a physiologically programmed empathic response to seeing others of our groups being harmed. We feel distress when we see someone we know or who we perceive as part of our ingroup being hurt. We feel distress (i.e. “guilt”) when we cause harm ourselves. These purely biological responses form the basis for what we call “morality.” It’s all just brain chemistry. We don’t think it, we feel it, just like ants or bees.
