Lessons on Causality

It’s a circle.

And yes there are straight lines which comprise the circumference of circles.

Points do not equal sides and sides do not equal circles.

You seem repulsed by the idea that what you thought had been grandiose and awe-inspiring insights into the nature of existence, are not so, and can be, completely wrong.

My argument is simple. You say the universe has a beginning. You cannot prove this of course, neither can “Science”. But you do have the advantage of majority vote, mob rule, democracy on your side. You side with the common, who like you, believe the universe does have a beginning, or “The Big Bang”. Because you have such a position though, you are logically compelled to prove your position, provide evidence, reasoning, etc. Which you can’t do. The universe is not “expanding” everywhere, rather, it is a mistake and flaw of human consciousness and perception. Humans use themselves, as you admitted, as the ‘relative’ marker for existence. I claimed this was false. I further counter-argued that the universe is infinite.

Now my position is, no beginning, no end. You wanted me to provide some “evidence and reasoning”, which I did. Why should there be a beginning and end? What is a beginning or an end? I explained some of this, leading to the topic of Teleology, which is the compulsion by which people believe concepts or assert existential qualities, such as “beginning or end” into existence.

Rather what one person believes is a beginning, is not necessarily so. Rather minds are compelled to pick and choose beginnings and ends, to make sense of phenomenon. To draw a line, for example, you must begin at some point. Is it arbitrary? We cannot investigate the arbitrariness or “randomness” of when and where such beginnings take place. Because you seem too cowardly to move forward with the topic. Maybe you have too much investments on your presumptions, fear the prospect of being wrong, after you’ve put so much work and time into your ideas? Just to have them undermined and shattered?

So what is the “beginning of life”? If you claim there is a beginning to the universe, then isn’t there also a beginning to all life? How about a single life? When does a human begin and end? Does life begin at conception, birth, your seventh birthday? When are you “truly living”? When are you dead? After your heart stops? After you are forgotten? If nobody remembers your name then what did your life really matter? Are some lives worth remembering and others not? Do some lives have meaning and others not?

Concerning teleology, I was headed in that direction of conversation anyway.

Just as people believe there are “beginnings and endings” to… the universe, existence, circles, lines, so too do they believe there are beginnings and endings to causes and their affects. And that there is some grand cause, “First Cause”, which sets all existence into motion.

I’ll prove that false, and wrong, as well.

A large amount of sides do equal circles.

You have yet to provide reasonable evidence to counter your opponents.

Urwrong: "It looks like a circle to me, so it must be one."
Opponents: "If it has straight sides, it doesn’t matter what it looks like to you, by definition it isn’t a circle."

The burden of proof is big-time on you.

I already provided evidence. I showed you circles. And they have lines in their circumference.

Most humans cannot tell the difference after a 1000-sided shape, is a circle. Most people just say “that’s a circle”. They’re correct. You’re incorrect.

You’re incorrect because you believe “only perfect circles” can be circles, but that’s obviously false.

So now your “evidence” is “most people believe” and “people can’t tell the difference”?

Since when have you accepted anything merely because “most people believe” or because “people can’t tell what the truth is, therefore…” even though you know the difference is there? I thought they called that “magic”. You believe in magic, do you?

“Most people believe in the Big Bang. They can’t tell the difference. So it must be true.”

The point is pramatism and practicality. If a child sees a circle, and calls it so, and it is a Chiliagon, who disputes this except you? You’re the one claiming that a circle has to be ‘perfect’ or it’s not a circle. And the reason you’re claiming such is because you’re backed into a corner and don’t want to appear more foolish than you already do, in denying obvious shapes as circles. They are circles. Therefore, you are wrong.

Oh. So now you believe it because a child says so.

…great “evidence” you have there.

No, I’m saying that a child has more common sense and wisdom than you.

Admit you’re wrong, James. Admit that this is a circle:

A large amount of sides equal imperfect circles that only exist in reality and
no sides or infinite sides equal perfect circles that only exist in mathematics

Imperfect circles are circles.

They are separate but not entirely separate. The purpose of what is abstract, such as for example words, is to represent what is concrete. You’re arguing that it is fine if words have no reference to something that is real. Somehow, you can imagine perfect circles even though they cannot possibly be observed in reality. That’s the problem. Perfect circles aren’t merely imaginary. Zombies are imaginary. Perfect circles are simply meaningless words.

There you go. That’s the end of the discussion.

Words are words. They are not what they represent. I agree with that. The problem is when words represent nothing at all.

Yes, you can represent or approximate what is imaginary. But you cannot represent or approximate what is meaningless.

Zombies are imaginary. You can approximate zombies using adequate makeup, costumes and behavior.
But perfect circles are NOT imaginary. They are meaningless words.

If you can imagine something it means that you can experience it. For example, if you can imagine zombies this means you can experience them in real life. It does not matter that we never do. The fact is that we can. But this is impossible to do with perfect circles. How can we experience perfect circles? Give me an example. I can easily imagine shapes that are extremely circular even though I never observed one. But I cannot imagine shapes that are perfectly circular.

Sure, whatever you say.
If your conviction is extremely strong then it must be true.

If you SAY you can imagine then I am pretty sure that you CAN imagine them.

I cannot argue with this.

Dreams are a form of experience. Whenever your words refer to some kind of experience they are meaningful. That’s my point. It is unnecessary to say that dreams are physically real. Even if there was nothing behind dreams – no physical mechanism that brought them into existence – words that refer to them would still be meaningful.

The problem with him is that he is focusing on superficial and secondary things (such as dictionary definitions) instead of focusing on what is fundamental and primary (such as how we determine whether any given shape is a circle or not.)
Another way to say it is that he’s focusing on what other people SAY instead of focusing on REALITY ITSELF.
In Schopenhauer’s terms, he’s a man of learning rather than a man of thinking.
Such people spend more time deciphering what other people say than thinking on their own.
And they do so with a conviction that behind every written word there is some kind of meaning.
Just look how convinced they are that what is meaningless (if taken literally, at least) is in fact meaningful.

We aren’t talking about imperfect. We are talking about circles having nothing but straight sides. Ask even a child if a circle has straight sides. Assuming that he doesn’t merely call you an idiot, see what he says.

If a polygon has sufficiently small sides then it is a circle.

Too bad the forum does not allow blank posts.
Who cares what a child says?
I am only interested in how things are.
What children say matters only if they know how things are.
And, unlike you, they won’t tell you that a chiliagon is not a circle.
But will they agree that circles can have sides?
Well, if they say a chiliagon is a circle then they have to agree that circles can have sides.
But what if they don’t? Because maybe they won’t.
Who cares anyways?

Earlier in this discussion, I would have agreed that the “infinite sides” definition of a circle was a valid one, but now I’m changing my mind. Even if we said a circle had infinite sides, those sides couldn’t be longer than a single point each (otherwise you wouldn’t have “curve”), and I don’t think a point counts as a “side”.

Given that, if we’re saying that a thing is a circle so long as the sides it is made of are too small to see, then we’re talking about an actual object in the world, not the abstract (ideal) notion of a circle. So then it is a question of: can actual objects count as circles so long as they are circular shaped?

I think this counts as a different context for the definition of circles. When we’re talking about ordinary objects in the shape of a circle, I think we have to go with how things look to the eye (and approximations become a matter of judgement). You ask someone to make a bunch of piles of objects, one of circle objects, another of square objects, another of triangle objects… I think it’s fair to say that the objects in the circle pile count as circles.

But then we can define circles in the other context–the geometric context–in which circles adhere to a very specific definition: all points equidistant from the center → no sides. Here you can’t talk about sides that are too small to see because in this context, the definition has nothing to do with visibility or how the object looks from one angle or another, or to one person or another, etc. Here, in this context, it really is black and white–all points on the circumference either are or they are not equidistant to the center. Even if a point is out by an infinitesimal amount, it is out as a fact, and therefore does not adhere to the definition.

With that establish, we can now move back to the question of cause and responsibility and resolve that puppy!