DAMABO of course I can have no evidence for the absense of an immaterial being, as I explained many times. belief in something immaterial is more faith, since there can never be presented evidence for it.
I assume you have no evidence for this statement either. How are these statements consistent? You have no evidence and yet you know for sure.God is uncaused and never begin to exist. We need to discuss the Kalam Argument elsewhere on topic.for materialism however, the evidence is plentiful. Nobody believes that things just pop into existence, that is correct, for every effect there must be cause. but if you postulate god, you will resort into postulating another god (etc), unless of course you think he is uncaused. If you think god is uncaused, you might as well suppose a more parsimonious explanation: the universe was not caused (this actually would be consistent with the law of conservation of matter). this way, no need for an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
How come you didn’t deal with the Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem nor Hilberts Hotel since this is about Hawking. Since I have recently posted on BGVT, I will ignore it and give information on Hilberts Hotel at the end of this post. The point is the cosmos is finite no matter what model you use and infinity is impossible. You have said nobody believes the universe just popped into existence which is what we are talking about in this thread.
Wrong, a universe that has a beginning has to have a cause, (Kalam Argument) The universe had a beginning, therefore the universe has a cause. The law of the conservation of matter does not apply here.
Consciousness is not material nor are laws. Read this paper.
http://www.pdfdownlo..._Laws_draft.pdf
Every real thing isn’t material (prove it) and the present limitations of the scientific method are causing you all kinds of errors. Let me identify at least two different kinds of real things.
THE MATERIAL WORLD. In it you find:
Matter
Energy
Physical Laws - see the paper I posted above relating to this. Laws may be immaterial.
Light
Gravity
Forces
Rocks
Water
Snowflakes
Weather
Chaos & fractals
THE IMMATERIAL WORLD OF INFORMATION. In it you find:
Symbols
Copies
Replication
Purpose
Competition
Evolution
Intent
Truth
Falsehood
Judgment
Codes
Messages
Rules (and the possibility of breaking them) (maybe Physical Laws as well)
Expectations
Language
Instructions
Meaning
Neither of these lists are exhaustive. For example where would we put consciousness and intelligence? Where would we put God? You are to simplistic and limited with your hard atheistic materialism. Saying that materialism is the only real thing is atheistic ir-rationalism.Of course, I have no way of knowing that only that that which we can detect now, or will be able to detect ever with extremely advanced technology, is truth. however, to postulate the existence of immaterialism is quite inparsimonious, and impedes science itself, for explanations for what happened before, or did this event even happen, can of course always be explained by this immaterial being and never be rejected as an explanation. So whether, there really is an immaterial being would not even matter ( ), since we would not be able to abstract any useful information of it, and it would only be a strong impediment to our science.
You sure know a lot about what you claim you can know nothing about and if you did it would be unimportant we are assured. Some things that are real are immaterial. Science has limitations but then science never clammed it could solve all kinds of issues. No one ever proved Science was the only way to know everything. Who proved science?
THE IMMATERIAL WORLD OF INFORMATION. In it you find:
Symbols
Copies
Replication
Purpose
Competition
Evolution
Intent
Truth
Falsehood
Judgment
Codes
Messages
Rules (and the possibility of breaking them) (maybe Physical Laws as well)
Expectations
Language
Instructions
Meaning
Consciousness clearly arises from the brain, if you define consciousness as 'being self-aware' (this is clear when the higher you go into the animal kingdom, the more chance it will recognize itself in the mirror). If you define consciousness as 'things that are alive, seem to react', a more scientific standpoint however would be to posit that consciousness does not exist, since we are but molecules brought into motion by chemical affinities. it should be clear that molecules have chemical reactions, and thus move and change, 'react' constantly. If you want to call in some spiritual, immaterial life force, you have been debunked many years ago by science: molecules are just as alive as people, so there is no distinction between living and dead.
Truth is a manmade concept. Meaning is a manmade concept. Are you saying that all human thoughts and concepts are immaterial? thoughts reside in your brain. Thoughts will be easily predicted (or created in AI in the future). Immaterial is a nonsensical concept made up to somehow lift humankind up from nature, from an extremely anthropomorphic standpoint (complex thinking should form some special thought world, very different from animals no, a soul or something? Wrong, less complex brains just give less complex thought.) Language is clearly located in your brain, or if you mean the sound, it comes in material soundwaves. messages are always in a material form. this one is clearly represented by a physical LCD screen or the other kind of screen, again soundwaves are clearly material. funny that you seem to believe all motivations are immaterial. motivations stem clearly from our biological disposition: to survive, and to reproduce. This distinction between material and immaterial is based on your the faulty reasoning that anything you cannot touch and detect (directly, without MRI for instance)does not exist in the physical world (and is immaterial).
I didn't say I believe the universe had a beginning. Even stephen hawking (who you quote as thinking the universe sprang to existence at the big bang) doesn't think this is the only universe, but rather a multiverse exists. So this multiverse would then be your universe. This multiverse is unexplored however. This is what the other person meant with ignoring his post.
Explain this hilbert thing. Why should infinity not exist? And, if infinity doesn't exists, your favorite speaker Marc Craig Lane (or something) postulates (in of those videos) that there is a 'timeless' being. Clearly, if infinity does not exist, then a being can not be timeless (eternal) can it? (oh no that's right, in the immaterial world everything which is not possible (if we try to be consistent with your argument) in the material world is possible, how handy).
The video, you mentioned, I have not seen but you said something of infinite space-time regression. Maybe you can talk to me directly about that, or whatever you wish to share (I'm usually to lazy to watch all those videos you send, so perhaps, if you'd wish, you can discuss the idea instead of posting videos; i like responses toward me to be direct arguments against what I say, so I don't have to listen to all the superfluous things, and can focus on what is relevant to our conversation, what your point is. See it as a challenge: my belief is that, if you can't tell it in you own words, you don't know what argument you are giving.)
Yes "I sure know a lot for something that no-one can be sure about": immaterial would be the last thing that would come to mind for any scientific explanation. And yes science is the best explanation possible with the current available methods. If you however believe that you are somehow smarter than the whole of science by making up concepts that don't have basis in physical reality (definition of immaterial) and can never be tested (side-effect of being immaterial), be my guest, that is what religion has always been about: prophets who claim absolute truth, with lack of any empiric/experimental basis. Speculation with lack of empiricism < speculation based on empiricism.
Edited by DAMABO, 13 April 2012 - 09:43 PM.