Greebo
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Posts posted by Greebo
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Based on this, then, your "alternative" -- that energy is eternal, has always existed -- is equally arbitrary.
Except for one distinct difference.
Existence exists. We know it exists. We cannot even try to say it doesn't exist without acknowledging its existence by the fact that we exist to say anything at all.
Existence exists and either it came from something else (and what could possibly exist that isn't existence to create existence?) or it is boundless and eternal.
We KNOW existence exists. We don't know any such thing about a divine creator - but even so we do not *know* with certainty if there are origins at all and if there are, what they are.
Then the alternatives presented here to Aquinas's argument are equally arbitrary. Which means that you, as an Objectivist, really ought not to waste any thought on subjects as interesting as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, the nature of existence,......on and on.NOT being proven yet is not equal to arbitrary. IMPOSSIBLE to prove or disprove is arbitrary.
But do we *know*? No. I was simply talking about what physicists theorize, I wasn't making a philosophical argument, just pointing out the theory. There's quite a few out there.
But they have one thing to their favor over Aquinas' (you do not, btw, write s's, it's just s') arguments. They are derived from observable facts. Yes, they're speculations, but they're speculations based on what has been observed, and further, they at least have the potential to be proven or disproved. Aquinas' have no such potential.
But philosophically, do I think any of those theories are epistemological fact? Hell no. But they are also not arbitrary. If I were to take one of them and consider them true and build on my conceptual awareness of reality with that as an accepted premise, however, that would be arbitrary.
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You are correct that it doesn't matter where my argument is flawed. If it is flawed, then it is flawed. However in the course of a debate, the order in which alleged flaws are addressed does indeed matter- especially if objectors bounce back and forth between alleged flaws. It makes it impossible for any coherent debate and it is reminiscent of evasion; whether intentional or not.
Is the above objection against my position (that gravity & energy is an alternative explanation) the only flaw you see in my argument? Are there any more fundamental flaws in my premises/epistemology/etc.. that you wish to point out? I ask because I do not want to back track to those after we've begun discussing the above objection. If we advance with this objection, I will not entertain a retreat back to the previous steps in my argument or sudden fashioning of straw-men.
I'm not here to play by whatever rules you fancy today. I've presented problems in your assertions repeatedly and am tired of your verbose obfuscations.
Either you're going to actually discuss this or you aren't, and history so far seems to be repeating. Understand that I have no need to prove you wrong to you - you have not been interested in checking your own premises and I'm not interested in forcing them on you, so either you discuss with me in a conversation on terms I can agree with - and there's only one term: we go where the conversation leads - or we are done.
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Where did the energy come from? Did it cause itself to come into existence? In which case, is energy volitional?
Religion posits that God is eternal - that either he always existed or created himself.
I posit that existence itself is eternal - that energy (as per physics) can neither be created nor destroyed - so that energy ALWAYS existed.
If your God can always have existed, why not energy? After all, we KNOW energy exists - but we DON'T "know" that it "had to come from somewhere".
What physics suggests is that at one point about 15B years ago, all the energy in the universe (or at least the part we know about) was compacted in a tiny space (space itself was small) and that our universe came into being when that energy began to spread out (taking space with it - or space expanded taking energy with it - ask an astrophysicist) and as it expanded, it began to cool (ie become less dense/excited) to the point where sub-atomic matter could form, and then from that we got a lot of H and He. This expansion was uniform and universal, so matter coalesced in every part of the universe in a uniform, universal spread. It was still very hot though, too hot for gravity to really work yet - but space kept expanding and over time it did cool off enough for gravity to take hold and start forming larger particles.
IIRC matter formation was around 400k years after initial expansion, and 1st star formation was in the early millions. Only after the first stars ignited did we get anything more complex than Helium (He).
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And frankly, it doesn't matter *WHERE* your argument is flawed - if any point of your argument is unsound, your entire argument is unsound, but you give the appearance that you wish to retreat to a bastion of verbosity and obfuscation to avoid that issue.
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Jacob:
You have said, repeatedly, that there must have been a volitional first cause for the first movement, that there cannot have been an involuntarily first movement.
That is a key principle on which your argument rests, and it's major epistemological problem is, it's not a proven argument. In fact, it is anything but proven - because there is an equally viable alternative based on what current theoretical physics tells us - that matter formed as energy coalesced and as soon as matter formed, gravity came into existence (energy has no mass and so has no gravity) and began motion.
You ignore that alternative, and thus you arbitrarily assert that your option is the only option.
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Misunderstanding once again. Existence is the sum of all existing things, which includes all entities. "Existence" is not an entity. No one even said so.
No, I did say that. So did Peikoff, as I read this - see emphasis in last |P.
This term [entity] may be used in several senses. If you speak in the primary sense, “entity” has to be defined ostensively—that is to say, by pointing. I can, however, give you three descriptive characteristics essential to the primary, philosophic use of the term, according to Objectivism. This is not a definition, because I’d have to rely ultimately on pointing to make these points clear, but it will give you certain criteria for the application of the term in the primary sense . . . .An entity means a self-sufficient form of existence—as against a quality, an action, a relationship, etc., which are simply aspects of an entity that we separate out by specialized focus. An entity is a thing.
An entity, in the primary sense, is a solid thing with a definite boundary—as against a fluid, such as air. In the literal sense, air is not an entity. There are contexts, such as when the wind moves as one mass, when you can call it that, by analogy, but in the primary sense, fluids are not entities.
An entity is perceptual in scale, in size. In other words it is a “this” which you can point to and grasp by human perception. In an extended sense you can call molecules—or the universe as a whole—“entities,” because they are self-sufficient things. But in the primary sense when we say that entities are what is given in sense perception, we mean solid things which we can directly perceive.
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That is why I have asked any objector to do the following:
-State the epistemological standards I violate
I've done that. I've demonstrated an equally viable alternative to your presumed conclusions, and you've ignored them. I've shown that your requirement that there must be a prime mover is arbitrary and that entities can act on each other without consciousness thanks to gravity, and you've stopped answering and blanked out the fact that you've just picked the one you LIKE more.
We're done until you actually address those points.
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Avilla,
You are absolutely right that I haven't proven that God doesn't exist.
And I don't have to - any more than I have to prove that there ARE NOT little green men on mars, that there is NOT an invisible sky dragon, that there are not space aliens regularly visiting the planet and abducting cows and burning farmers (or did I get that backwards).
All of the above are arbitrary concepts. They cannot be proven true, and they cannot be proven false.
And that's why they must be dismissed. Everything that is real leaves evidence. You know what a cow or a tree or a quark or a musical note is because of the real evidence it leaves. You even know what a black hole is before they were conclusively proved because you could see what they were from the mathematical evidence derived from what we knew at the time about stellar physics.
And when something leaves evidence which proves its existence, then the absence of evidence for that thing in a specific context conclusively proves the thing is not there in that moment - no moo, no rustling in the wind, no (well I don't know how you prove a quark is present), no Bflat minor chord, no gravity elongating you to infinity. If you don't have those things, you know they aren't present but you KNOW they aren't present because you CAN know when they are.
But introduce the arbitrary - a concept that has no evidence for OR against it. Epistemologically, you cannot know anything about it - it can not be true or false - it has no evidence thus nothing to point to and say, "X is missing, therefore X isn't here". In computer terms we have a concept for a value that doesn't exist - it's called a null - and when you have a null you can do nothing with it. Null + x = null. If you ask, "Is null equal to 0?", the answer is false. If you ask "Is Null equal to true?" the answer is false. If you ask, "Is null equal to false, the answer to false." You can't do anything with null because null DOES NOT EXIST.
In philosophical terms, NULL is what you get when you cannot say "this concept is true" and you cannot say "this concept is false". The concept itself is impossible to know because it cannot be connected to reality in any manner. And the only proper response when presented with a concept of that nature in a *serious* cognitive fashion is to dismiss any such claims about the concept as false, just like a computer.
"The Easter Bunny is REAL! Yeah you never see him and you can't find his lair and no he doesn't leave those eggs, your mum did that, but he's real!!!" "Santa really does have a list he checks!" "God loves you".
All of those concepts and many many many more are equally valuable in human knowledge - they're all equally null values.
Present a solid, reality grounded argument that drops no context and assumes no arbitrary premises, and we'll talk. Otherwise, you're just convincing yourself you've got a REASON to believe, when all you have in reality is a rationalization.
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Stating that theism is irrational is not an assumption, it's a conclusion drawn by refusing to entertain any arbitrary claims as having some kind of epistemological value. Put bluntly, refusing to accept the idea of a divine being without real evidence is like refusing to accept the idea of an invisible pink unicorn that loves pizza.
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No, I'm suggesting that people don't own there kids.
I said that in response to you saying "If I am the first person to bring this new entity into existence...it would not exist without my effort, as surely as if I make an axe like every other axe."
Parents bring their kids into existence. You see my point?
Children are human beings, and are endowed with free will and rights of their own. Now please tell me how that in any way is relevant to intellectual property?
You're comparing apples and ducks. I mean you're not even in fruit to fruit land here.
That's true. How is it relevant to this debate?You have repeatedly argued that "someone else could have done it too". My point is that while *someone* could have, THIS person *did*, and as soon as you've been exposed to their productive creative effort, you cannot make a reliable claim that you had the same exact idea, but they can. Since they are now the only person able to make that claim and can back it up with proof, they *can* claim ownership of the idea.
Again, people don't have the right to give up their rights. You were like "Interesting - so you're saying a person isn't free to choose to stop being free... that'd be a good side thread." in post #133So, again, the issue is what people have a right to and what they don't have a right to.
You've done it again - you simply ignored what I said in the second paragraph which exactly demonstrated that people CAN give up their rights.
"You've claimed such a contract deprives you of your right - equivocating it to slavery - which you have subsequently refuted in the miner argument - so why shouldn't YOUR PROMISE not to duplicate it be upheld? I can sell you land with a promise on your part not to divide it. I can sell you a car with a promise for you to pay me over time. Why can't I sell you a book with a promise not to copy it?"
If I sell you something, I give up my right to call that thing mine. If I buy land from you in a contract stipulating that the land won't be broken up, I give up the right as owner to break up that land. If I borrow money from you, I give up my right to not give you the money. If I enlist in the military, I give up my right to refuse legal orders and the right to just up and quit if I don't like it. (Voice of experience there, USN-R GMG2)
You give up rights to specific property voluntarily with every trade you engage in, and simultaneously gain new ones. Otherwise you've just rendered trade itself impossible because nobody would REALLY give up the right of ownership of whatever they just sold.
In post #141 I said "I meant without their consent."Yes, exactly, you said:
I'm saying people should be able to use their [physical] property in any way they want that doesn't harm another person's body or their [physical] property or expose either to unreasonable risk (determined by courts, i.e. zoning).and I said,
Well there goes coal miningand you said
I meant without their consentSo you've agreed that with someone's consent they can be exposed to risks, potential harm, etc that they otherwise would not have. And right there is your own admission that a person CAN give up their rights, without being slaves.
Likewise, with someone's consent, the right to have total control over some piece of property you purchase can be limited.
So lets try again - if I sell you a book or a song or software contingent upon your promise that you will not reproduce that thing without my consent, and you agree, why should that commitment on your part not be enforceable?
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No the justification for stopping Syndrome was that he was using force against others to achieve his ends.
If he wanted to sell his products to make everyone "super" and did so without KILLING PEOPLE, more power to him.
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Aquinas is arriving at his conclusions by use of logic, resting on arbitrary premises. Logic can reach any number of conclusions, given the right premises - but while the conclusion reached may be valid, if the premises are unsound, logical argument itself is unsound.
REASON demands that the premises themselves not be arbitrary or unsound but be grounded in reality.
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Greebo, I think I understand what you're saying: You're saying that we can't copyright all ideas because there are ideas so old that we don't know who to attribute them to. That's a great point.
What I meant when I said "all ideas" was "all new ideas". In other words, yes, there's no way to figure out who invented the wheel, and, yes, holding patents/copyrights in perpetuity would be terrible, but, among new ideas, where do we draw the line between what's worthy of copyright and what isn't?
We can come back to that, but we need to get past the contract question first.
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It can't matter if we have patents/copyrights, yes. My point is that his/her argument "But if all ideas were property, it'd be impossible to tell who came up with what idea." is itself a pragmatic argument. Also, we could totally copyright every idea--it would work on a first come first serve basis.
You're dropping the important concept of justice here.
Justice demands that one gets what one deserves and only what one deserves.
A person attempting to patent the wheel does not deserve exclusive ownership of the wheel because they absolutely cannot claim to have been the first person ever to have invented the wheel.
A person attempting to copyright "Pride and Prejudice", likewise, cannot prove that they wrote it - especially since the book itself tells you who did.
But the person who wrote "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" absolutely can prove that they wrote it first - they have original manuscripts on record, histories with publishers, and so forth, and anyone claiming to have written it first would be very hard pressed to prove such a dubious claim. Morally, the author of P&P&Z DESERVES the title of "creator of this book". Maybe someone else COULD have written it - but HE DID.
So come back again to the question for which I keep trying to get a straight answer from you - if he has the only copy in the world of P&P&Z, and he says, "I'll sell it to you if you promise never to copy it without my permission", and you say "OK" - why shouldn't that agreement be enforced? Why should you be able to make a promise you're not required to keep with regard to something you would not have had if it had not been sold to you? (And by the way, if you could have written it to, why buy it at all?)
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Again, the argument "I made it, therefore it's mine" is incomplete.
Are you suggesting that because I made it, it's yours? No, if I make it, and do so for myself not for someone else (ie on the job), then it is mine. That isn't the issue.
This is...
You're assuming that if someone invents something, no one else would've ever invented it if you hadn't told anyone about it.No I'm flat out stating that if you possess my invention, and then you declare that you thought of the exact same thing already, that your assertion cannot be believed, and that only if you come up with the idea and can demonstrate that you did so with no access to my invention can we believe your claim that you came up with it first/on your own.
Which is when it really comes back to, "What counts as property? What doesn't? Why?"No, it doesn't - it comes down to the voluntary agreement you keep dodging - the one where if I say, "I'll sell you my invention if you promise not to reproduce it without my permission" and you say "Ok I'll buy it under those terms", why the Government shouldn't enforce such a contract?
You've claimed such a contract deprives you of your right - equivocating it to slavery - which you have subsequently refuted in the miner argument - so why shouldn't YOUR PROMISE not to duplicate it be upheld? I can sell you land with a promise on your part not to divide it. I can sell you a car with a promise for you to pay me over time. Why can't I sell you a book with a promise not to copy it?
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Did you bother to read the rest of what I wrote, in which I explained why it is a MORAL argument, not a pragmatic one?Isn't that a pragmatic argument?
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It's pragmatism to expect one's ideas to actually work out well in reality?
"Whatever works, regardless of principles" has an implicit parallel: "Not that which doesn't work, regardless of principles".
It's pragmatism to base the decision of what one *should* do on what the outcome will be without regard to the moral basis, and it is my interpretation that mnrchst is doing just that with his statement.
If the moral action leads to an immoral result, no moral choice is possible, and you are in a genuine emergency situation.
When it comes to patents and copyrights, that is not the case, and the moral basis for not granting IP rights to *every* idea is easily shown:
One should not attempt to copyright ALL ideas because one cannot morally attribute every idea to a single originator. One cannot patent the wheel because there is no possible way to claim that it is by one's own effort and no one else's that anyone else is able to use the wheel. To attribute the wheel to one person today would be unjust because that person would receive benefits they did not earn. -
I'm no philosopher (I'm an artist), but it seems to me that you are using the term "existence" in a way that makes it a thing, an entity.
I am, indeed.
As I asked in an earlier post here, is it reasonable to say that "reality" and "the material universe" are somewhat synonomous? If so, then the material universe has not always existed, and therefore is contingent.No, reality and the material universe are not synonymous. There are theories suggesting that we are only in one universe of many - and the physical rules of those other universes may be different from ours - but they are all part of existence (if they exist), and if there were some kind of God being, it would be part of existence as well.
Existence is all that exists, and only that which exists.
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Hardly arbitrary... are you sure about that?
Consider his contingency proof - he's arbitrarily declaring that an eternal nature of existence is impossible - and declaring that it must have come from somewhere, and thus it must have come from a god being:
"Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity."
We could equally postulate that existence itself exists of its own necessity - so he's arbitrarily dropped that possibility.
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Also, you're ignoring the fact that copyrighting all ideas would be terrible.
That's pragmatism, and we are not pragmatists here.
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But this whole "IP as the right to contract" is only a side-issue. The question is whether or not someone has a right to sell something conditionally, i.e. sell all the rights to something except the right to reproduce it, or whether someone doesn't have the right to do that because they don't own the idea in the first place and thus cannot contract it. Unless you address the root issue of why ideas should be property in the first place, then you both will just be accusing the other of dodging the question.
The idea isn't really the issue, because the idea alone is worthless without action. Ideas are abstracts, to be sure. Action and production are real.
If I write a book, I apply creative, productive effort in the process to make something which has never existed before.
If I am the first person to bring this new entity into existence, be it "Moby Dick" or "Windows 7" or "Stairway to Heaven" - it would not exist without my effort, as surely as if I make an axe like every other axe, the axe I made is mine.
But unlike the axe, without seeing or loading or hearing MY product, you can assert "Oh I was planning on making that very same thing I had the exact same Idea and everything!" but you cannot prove it and the much more likely case is that no, you actually weren't ever going to come up with that exact same thing, and if you are only able to produce that thing after having had access to the one I made, then it's quite reasonable to conclude that you are only copying it, not creating it on your own.
Thus the property you make would never have been able to be yours without my item in the first place. I can't stop you from understanding how it works or how to reproduce it if I sell it to you - but *if* you would never have been able to do that w/o my efforts, then your very ability TO reproduce it came *from me*. If you would never have had it w/o me, you cannot have the "right" to reproduce it because you can't reproduce it to begin with.
Which is why it really comes back to, "can I sell something to you and as a term of that sale, require you to never reproduce it without my permission"?
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No one should be able to sign a contract which signs away their rights and have the government enforce it.
Interesting - so you're saying a person isn't free to choose to stop being free... that'd be a good side thread.
I'm saying people should be able to use their [physical] property in any way they want that doesn't harm another person's body or their [physical] property or expose either to unreasonable risk (determined by courts, i.e. zoning).Well there goes coal mining, construction, steel manufacture, etc. Because what you've forgotten in the above is a key word: force. The involuntary exposing of others to risks they would otherwise not experience, like driving drunk, is wrong. But people who work in a foundry, or on high tension lines, etc. as part of their jobs are exposed to great physical risk every day. The key is, the risks are - or *should* be - known and the workers are agreeing to those risks. And they're doing it *under contract* - the contractual agreement of employment - the employer has said, "I will pay you $x an hour to go in to that hole in the ground and risk your life" and the miner has said, "I will risk my life for $x an hour".
No one should be able to sign a contract that says "I'm so and so's slave" and have the government enforce it. Therefore, no one should be able to sign a contract that says "I won't make a copy of the song on this CD" and have the government enforce it.Again, the essential issue is what people do and do not have a right to.
Now you are equivocating. You are equating an agreement to do something with slavery.
Would you similarly argue that if I sold you a piece of property but with the express requirement that the property never be subdivided, that I couldn't enforce such a requirement?
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If I may, let's take a step back. We aren't going to get anywhere arguing about whether or not I have a right to do this or that particular thing, or whether the government should recognize this contract or not.
The rights are at the center of this issue, and whether Government should uphold those rights or not is also crucial, so no, please answer those questions DIRECTLY for a change.
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So your argument is that ideas are property because that are property.
No, my argument is that a contract should be upheld.
Stop dodging the questions.
Why should the Government refuse to recognize a contract between two parties if those parties did so willingly and with full understanding of the nature of the agreement?
Refutation of existence of an all powerful being.
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted
Yes, bring the citation please.
That would be an interesting one to cite too - because in A.S., she presented a sound illustration of a woman who's sole focus in life was raising her children. Now of course, that woman's children WERE her creative work.
However, you seem to be revealing your ignorance of O'ist ethics here - because there is, in point of fact, a rational, established case for why one should not sacrifice one's creative effort for the sake of others - so you saying such a statement cannot be proven or disproved seems rather to suggest you haven't done your homework.