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AGuyOnYT t1_j5bho0y wrote

Reply to comment by Placeboresistant in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 16, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

You bring up a good point. I could claim to be atheist, agnostic, or theist depending on what I consider God to be.

There doesn't seem to be a universal definition for God that I could find (some internet searching), which is indeed a problem when it comes to communicating our beliefs on the existence or nature of God with everyone.

Word play aside, I think we can all agree that there is a something that's always existed. Ourselves, what we see around us, etc. couldn't have come from nothing or it wouldn't really be nothing.

Curious what definition you base your atheism on (I presume you are)?

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el_miguel42 t1_j5bud94 wrote

I dont agree that "something" must have always existed, I also dont agree that everything couldn't have come from nothing. I just came across this and I dont know the first thing about philosophy. Im a physicist.

Time is a function of our universe. That is to say that time is not linear. It does not pass at a constant rate. It appears to for us as humans. However, we know that time infact changes depending on relative speed. This is a known fact (time dilation, special relativity)

There are objects inside our own universe where the fundamental rules of the universe (time, matter, 3 spatial dimensions etc etc) seem to break down e.g a black hole.

Why is this relevant? Its because you are applying the ruleset of our universe - time, causality, matter, energy etc to a scenario outside of our universe. Essentially, your entire premise requires this assumption to work.

So you say "What happens before the big bang? There must be something? There must be a cause? We cant come from nothing" - Why? All those are rules OF our universe. It is a assumption to assume that any of that ruleset would exist outside of our universe. If there is no time, what do the words before, after, begin and end even mean anyway?

So thus God cannot be the logical outcome. If you need to make a string of assumptions in order to reach your logical conclusion... then its probably not a logical conclusion.

EDIT: your point on freewill in of itself is an entire assumption. You have no idea whether brownian motion or quantum phenomena are truly random, or whether the same answer would repeat if you were to go back in time and observe the event again. Using the current model for quantum theory if you went back in time and observed a quantum event again, it could change. However, there is no way to know as it cannot be tested.

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AGuyOnYT t1_j5c24lm wrote

God as far as I and many religions are concerned exists outside of time.

The idea of things coming about involves time. For there to be nothing and then something implies time as well. So for there to be no change, there are two possibilities:

  1. There was/is/will be nothing
  2. There was is/will be something

We can cross out number 1 as we know there is indeed something right now. So no change means there always was something.

But let's suppose there was nothing but that changed and something came about as you say. Now, because time is involved as a change occurred, I can pose the question, "where did that something come from?" A true nothingness, and I mean absolutely nothing, cannot spawn something or else it would be the "thing that caused something" and would be something itself.

With regards to free will, the "rewind" thing was a very small part of my argument. If random phenomena dictate our reality, then I think there's an even better case against free will - more outside of our control. If it would rewind the same (not random), my argument stands exactly the same.

Speaking of time, I've been spending a lot of time in this sub and have enjoyed these discussions, but I gotta take a break for the day at least haha

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kataraks t1_j5c7v0y wrote

if i understand things correctly, the idea that "true nothingness cannot spawn something" isn't necessarily true outside the universe as that's a rule of the universe. thus invalidating the premise of "where did that something come from" (the premise being that it must've come from something) and everything that follows

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AGuyOnYT t1_j5c9q4i wrote

It's not really a rule, it's just logic. I don't know how else I can phrase it. Do you also think that 2 + 3 can equal 4 outside the universe?

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kataraks t1_j5cak0s wrote

whatever it is, it's "of the universe"

2 + 3 could equal 4 outside the universe. idk. i doubt those numbers, as we understand them, exist outside the universe at all

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el_miguel42 t1_j5ccrd2 wrote

you've just hit the nail on the head. 2+3 can absolutely equal 4 outside the universe. *Obviously we have defined the axioms that make this work so if our definitions hold then no, but barring semantics and all that rubbish aside, thats the exact point.

You have no idea what 2+3 equals outside our universe because we come up with all these logic rules through observation. Macro level observation at that, the quantum world works completely differently. There you can get very strange results like 2=4=5 for fractions of a second, before it then becomes 2+3=5.

So no, logic is defined on the actions of the observable universe and are thus an assumption you are applying to outside of the universe. You have no idea of the ruleset outside the universe, so you cannot apply any "logic" to it.

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AGuyOnYT t1_j5ceqsd wrote

What do you think exists outside of the observable universe?

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el_miguel42 t1_j5edij5 wrote

I dont...

Whatever I could think up would be wrong, hence its an exercise in futility. if I postulate that there is a fluffy land with unicorns running around in it, thats just as likely to be correct as some old father-like dude watching us from his seat in some mythical kingdom, nothingness, some weird 9-dimensional spacetime etc etc. Its all just arbitrary guesswork with no frame of reference. So you can make up whatever story you like and be content that its just as likely as whatever other story you've heard.

Maybe the Christian God did it, but then again, maybe I made it all. And seeing as how you're actually talking to me right now, then im probably more likely to have made the universe than the Christian God, because at least you have evidence that I exist.

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Placeboresistant t1_j5bm14o wrote

I don’t disagree that “something” preceded existence as we understand it, although I wonder what the implications of that are? I guess I’m more agnostic about anything that by definition can’t be comprehended.

I generally base my atheism as opposed to religious theism. If I were to roughly boil it down I’d say I don’t believe in any omnipotent entity that passes judgement on our existence.

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