So far, no one is making that argument. Gib’s argument is similar to yours but in reverse. Gib is saying that “before time” is “beyond your imagination” and that is why he is right and we are wrong. Of course that is a non-sequitur argument. But he is not saying that the truth is dependent upon our consciousness, rather that our consciousness is insufficient to realize the truth (a claim of objectivity not subjectivity).
For the past 40 years or so the masses have been infected with the idea that logic is merely a man-made, sometimes erroneous concept, a man-made god. But that is not true. Such deception has been merely a part of the promotion of chaos and irrationality so as to subdue the masses with bewilderment, insecurity, and weakness of mind.
You claim the position that the universe has a beginning. I claim that it does not. Your affirmation is in the positive, therefore the onus is upon you, not me, to convince others that the universe has a beginning. However you are arguing from a position and perspective of the majority (of humanity). So those that disagree with you, doubt you, like myself, require an argument. You have to explain how and why, you believe what you believe. What is your faith? Why do you believe “the universe” has a beginning? What is “the universe” anyway? You have not addressed anything, and you propose to be taken seriously? You’ve started off on all the wrong steps thus far. Remember you are on a philosophy forum. You need to present your case for a positive assertion (that the universe has a beginning).
It actually is. Conscious organisms have no reason to think, at first, that consciousness is common among other thinking organisms. With animals it’s even easier and more obvious. They operate on instinct and don’t do much ‘thinking’ at all. Thought, meditation, contemplation, all these acts occur after a specie establishes comfort, free time, and luxury. Laziness allows for musing.
Now, demonstrate to me your counter-points.
The center moves with the ego. Simple animals don’t even know about “the universe” or any “beginnings” of time. You’re overlooking this part.
Conjectures about “the beginning of everything” appear in humans and history. Do you know why? Do you know how? What part does faith and pop religion play? Is it not an artifice that humans believe “God did it”, and furthermore, use this premise as the basis of all total causality, that all causes begin with their conjectured religion?
You certainly do not present your views as such.
I used to believe that humans had “gone beyond” or “matured past” geocentricism. But, this is a false presumption. Just because people repeat what they are told in school, that everything does not revolve around the earth (humanity), doesn’t mean they actually believe it or understand it. They don’t understand it, because, as I mentioned, average people lack sophistication and the reasoning ability to understand why and how geocentricism, or even heliocentricism, are both false. Again, this is because humanity is taken as the predicate, the basis of ‘relativity’.
Imagine deep space in a ship. What then of speed of light, distance, “years”? Isn’t it obvious that what humans know of light, speed, distance, time, are all relative to earth?! You keep skipping over this point. So I know you haven’t really taken it in yet. You don’t really understand.
Does light travel at different speeds through different mediums? Yes, it does! It travels through air, water, a crystal, some materials, faster or slower than others. So even “speed of light” and “light year” especially, are selectively relative. Relative only to specific conditions and prerequisites. Thus they are flawed, and can be (and are) mistaken.
No, because an understanding of objective existence requires reason, not necessarily other people or even the admission of other subjective, conscious perspectives. In other words, objectivity is based on logic and rationality. This is necessarily true to propose the condition that “there exists things and events outside your awareness”. Without suppositions, how can any individual know of what exists “outside” sense-perception? How can an individual be aware of what is beyond his or her experiences?
There is a better method to approaching this point. Physical phenomenon, forces, “natural law”, all have patterns and motions. A tree falls in the woods. It doesn’t require a person there to hear and see it, in order for it to fall down. This is the very solipsistic premise that I’m battling. If you agree with me, a tree doesn’t require permission from humans, to fall down, while unseen and unheard, then perhaps this discussion can move forward.
Qualification requires an honest discussion. Nothing can be qualified when one person or party has premises that they’re unwilling to expose or give up. All cards need to be on the table.
I would very much like to offer that alternative.
But first you need to doubt your Big Bang Theory. And to do this, you need to explain exactly why and how you believe what you do. You need to prove your faith.
But is it not a mere faith in (Abrahamic) god? You believe there is a beginning of the universe, because that is what you were instructed as a child and throughout your life? You had never doubted it, before now? You have never done philosophy, before now? Why do you dabble in philosophy if you cannot doubt anything of real importance or relevance? Have you never questioned all the (human) institutions which led you to believe that there is a “beginning” to the universe, to existence, to time.
Have you ever considered that they’re wrong? Very wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but very very wrong?
No…average people repeat their indoctrination in schools. They say the earth revolves around the sun, or sun around the earth, but this doesn’t necessarily demonstrate their understanding. As mentioned, average people still conceive of existence as solipsistic, such that existence revolves around human consciousness. Specifically…that existence revolves around human “collective” consciousness (they then equate that to “god”).
It’s easy to tear it down. It’s not believable and it’s not realistic. There’s no reason for me to believe that everything in the universe is “expanding away from everything else”. Relativity wouldn’t make sense, if that’s what you believe. Instead some galaxies are moving some directions, and others are moving other directions. There is no “expansion away from everything” because, again, this presumes that humans are using humanity as the ultimate source of everything, which is false.
Can you demonstrate any rational points in the theory that demonstrate how, from relative positions across the universe, your premises remain true?
Obviously not everything in the universe is “expanding” as that would mean there is no source, at all, by which to measure as a standard for expansion. Because then those standards would be expanding too. Therefore it’s illogical.
All of that really seems nothing more than “something out of nothing”, Ex Nihilo (ir)rationale.
From nothing, came something. Very Christian, theologically. That’s really where your thoughts are based. It’s obvious the connection between Big Bang Theory and Creationism, except that one is watered down and re-labeled with the seal of “Science!”
But relabeling doesn’t mean that is what it is.
One of the main reasons, if not the main reason, I dispute your claim of a beginning of the universe, is because I know how people think. I know their logic, their rationales, the whys and hows. I know this because I’ve spent decades searching, seeking, challenging. When it comes to the bottom-line, when tested, people mostly boil their values and beliefs down to faith. They believe what they believe, mostly because they are indoctrinated to, passed down knowledge from sources that can be traced, and then they believe what they do based mostly on what they believe will be achieved from their beliefs.
So I ask you, and everybody else, why do you believe the universe has a beginning? Because that is what you were told as a child? Because “all things have a beginning?” (they don’t…) And what are these “beginnings” you claim? That reminds me, of how I came to learn about Teleology. People believe in beginnings and endings because rationality very much requires concise and simplified methods of reducing generalities, and especially to reduce “the universe” to something comprehensive and understandable.
Thus a mere human stands in awe at existence, and because the mind is limited, must therein immediately apply its own limitation, as a projection, upon everything else.
A human limitation upon existence. “Because I begin, so too must existence.” But this is not so. Because consciousness is not a beginning, nor is it an ending. Going to sleep is not a final end. Waking up is not a final beginning. Rather these are processes, and existence does not require consciousness, does not require your or my or anybody else’s permission to exist. Existence is greater than human desire, control, and power.
So here is another point then. The weakling human, standing before the awe of the universe, wants to render, reduce, and wrap his arms around, all of existence. Humans want to build a wall around everything, so that, the mind can begin to understand it.
It is this compulsion, cognition, thought, pathology, that causes you and everybody else, to say “this is a beginning” and “that is an ending”. Because without that notion of beginning and ending, you must be lost, correct? Better to find direction, to grab hold of floating driftwood, when out in the middle of the ocean? Because without that direction, what would humanity be doing then, except drifting aimlessly and without control?
Minds have a compulsion to gain direction in life. Without this (false sense of security) then yes, they can lose all their values, beliefs, faith, that they hold so dear.
You’re on a philosophy forum. Start doubting, what you believe in. Start from the strongest foundation. So what then is your premise, your “beginning” to everything, except what I’ve already laid out?
Did I not say “as a shape approaches infinite sides it becomes a circle?”
Yes I did, logically sound and flawless. Your error was in not seeing subtlety, and admitting that a Chiliagon, for all intents and purposes, is a circle, despite having sides (unseen by human eyes).
It’s a good sign that you at least have enough sense to back off from what you actually said:
But in your last post, you still missed the point.
Only a geometrically perfect circle is required to be a closed shape. The definition of a “circle” allows for open circles, but not for any straight sides at all, much less an infinity of them.
When we say that a shape is a circle this is not because we tested every point on its boundary.
In fact, there is no such a thing.
You have some shape. Tell me, how many points are there on the boundary of that shape?
What we’re doing instead is we are testing a number of points on its boundary.
And these are points of our own choice.
And if these points – I call them key points – pass the test, we simply declare that the shape is a circle.
That’s what we do in PRACTICE.
No matter how many points you choose, you are always testing a finite number of points.
I don’t care about what people SAY.
I only care about what people DO.
You and James and Arc and Gib and many others have it BACKWARDS.
You start with WORDS.
You have no direct contact with nature.
Instead, you all work with what is artificial i.e. man-made.
Such as for example words.
I have no respect for bookworms.
A chiliagon seen as a whole is not merely an illusion of a circle.
It IS a circle.
If a chiliagon seen as a whole is not a circle then what is?
What is a circle?
Don’t just use words.
Show it to me.
But that’s the problem, right?
You are one of those people who think that there are things that are beyond experience.
Things that you don’t have to see.
Things that you only have to “understand”.
Give me an example of a circle and tell me why you consider it a circle.
No, it is because we either assume it to be a circle, assume that the other person understands the shortcut issues of the language and doesn’t care that it isn’t a perfect circle, or that we intend that the shape is to represent a perfect circle even if it doesn’t look exactly like one.
But at no time throughout history, has anyone of any education ever spoken of a shape with straight sides as being a “circle”. Even in Newton’s calculus, it was never said that the circle actually had infinite sides, but rather, only as URwrong recently stated;
Perfect circles only exist as abstractions where the only requirement is logical consistency. Any circles that exist in reality are therefore imperfect even if they do
not appear to be so. Or are treated as if they were perfect like the perfect geometrical mathematical versions. And it is therefore very important to acknowledge
the two different types rather than assume only one type actually exists depending on ones subjective philosophical interpretation of what a circle is or should be
which is what every one is doing. Can no one see that the imperfect circles that exist in reality are approximations of the perfect circles that exist as abstractions
The only issue was whether they include straight sides. No physical object can ever have an infinity of straight sides (or actually any perfectly straight sides). There is no straightness in the physical universe. And in the conceptual universe, circles are precisely as they are defined, with no straight sides.
My issue with you (and more or less everyone else in this thread) is that you think that the realm of the abstract and the realm of the concrete are two entirely different, separate, realms.
You think that it is perfectly fine when words have no reference to something real.
I don’t. I think that when words have no reference to something real that they are quite simply without any meaning – that they are meaningless.
You cannot represent or approximate something that quite simply does not exist.
You cannot represent or approximate perfect circles for the simple reason that perfect circles do not exist.
When we say that this or that shape is a circle we are NOT comparing that shape to some imaginary perfect circle.
Perfect circles cannot be imagined.
Why? Because it’s a meaningless linguistic construct.
If taken literally. If not, then “perfect circle” simply refers to the most perfect circle among the circles we are aware of.
What exists are circles that are more or less perfect in relation to each other.
That’s what exists.
Noone cares how consistent your thinking is if it does not correspond to something that is real.
Well, okay, prove that they have no meaning. But don’t expect to succeed, because you are going to be wrong.
Perhaps You aren’t but “we” certainly are. That seems to be one of your language problems.
Physically real circles cannot be imagined either. You can only image an approximation to anything, perfect or not.
If it is so meaningless, why is it that everyone seems to understand it … even you.
“… in relation to each other”???
I don’t think so. A circle is considered MORE CIRCULAR IF it is closer to being the ideal, perfect circle. Physical circles are compared to ideal, perfect circles as a measure of the perfection. In architecture, when calculating the circumference of a column, the diameter is used to calculate the circumference of a perfect circle.
I’m sure that most people would agree that perfect physical circles do not exist. But you are saying that not even the idea of a perfect circle exists. And that is just silly.
I agree with all this but it still seems very counter intuitive to not think of straightness existing in the Universe given how many everyday objects seem
to be absolutely flat with perfect sides and edges. But of course it is an illusion because at the quantum level those objects would not be perfect at all
