where did it happen?

[feral chile]

but where..??

if space and time and everything else didn't exist

starting to have my doubts about the big bang theory... is it like god, where everyone just assumes it's true until there's reasonable reason to think otherwise..?

Edited January 12, 2011 by feral chile

[feral chile]

You can't prove it's free will though, nor can you prove free will exists. If a being has enough power to create matter, I'm sure it has enough power to give you the illusion of making your own decisions. 'God' might have decided you'll pick that flower.

[feral chile]

who knows?

But one thing you can be sure about - as can everyone else - is that it's not here to give *you* (or any other individual on that individual basis) a place to exist.

The existence of each individual within it is just one of those things that has come about with no particular purpose behind it, no different to whether a particular flower happens to bloom in your garden or not, etc, etc, etc.

It 'just is', it's something that has come about for no particular reason: there is no grand micromanaged plan, as proven by the fact that you can chose to destroy that flower in your garden via your free will.

Edited January 12, 2011 by feral chile

[feral chile]

so why is the universe and everything in it here?

I know I'm irrelevant, but is everything? and if it is, why does it exist?... because it's irrelevant..? that's a pretty empty answer

it's not just me I'm curious about, I genuinely don't care why I'm here, I want to know why everything is here, or there, or anywhere

Edited January 12, 2011 by feral chile

[dakyras]

Also, if God is omniscient, He knows every choice you'll make before you make it. But if there's foreknowledge of choice, then there's no possibility of choosing differently. So if an omniscient being exists, there is no free will.

[feral chile]

Yes, but the supposed omniscience of God is a paradox in itself.

If God is omniscient, then he knows what is definitely going to happen. But if he's also omnipotent, he has the power to change what is going to happen. He can only logically be one or the other.

[rabid]

Will it get my f**kin gas and electric on???

den

[eFestivals]

You can't prove it's free will though, nor can you prove free will exists. If a being has enough power to create matter, I'm sure it has enough power to give you the illusion of making your own decisions. 'God' might have decided you'll pick that flower.

I know I can't prove free will.

But what I can logically prove is that if there is free will, there can be no working "grand plan" for god or evolution, because free will undermines any plan there might be.

And of course, if there's not free will (which means there must be a god of some sort who is manipulating things), then god is a liar because he's said we have free will.

So either way, the standard ideas we hold for a god don't get to stand up to logical examination.

[eFestivals]

Perhaps the two could co-exist. Left to our own devices much of the time until we are needed for something.

A logical impossibility, as such a thing would mean there is no free will.

[eFestivals]

when was logic the answer to everything?

it's all we have to reason with.

[jump]

doesn't chaos have something to do with it?

[rabid]

A logical impossibility, as such a thing would mean there is no free will.

[eFestivals]

doesn't chaos have something to do with it?

that's not any part of reasoning - because if you choose a possible option for no reason (which is a chaotic choice), it can't be reasoned, can it?

[eFestivals]

So it has to be one or the other? There's no possibility of both?

You cannot have both. You can only have free will, or not free will.

You can't have free will (say) half the time, because for the half you don't have it you don't have free will, which means that you cannot have overall free will. That's all a very obvious deduction from the definitions of the words used.

I don't dismiss the possibility of there being something along the lines of what (I think) you're suggesting, but it's not something which the phrase 'free will' can be used for, on the basis that the definition of that phrase rules it out.

[eFestivals]

But you can use logic to figure out chaos hence the chaos theory.

you can use logic to figure out that there is chaos, but you can't use logic to deduce what the actual specific chaotic things are. Much as with free will, that's all specified by the meanings of the words.

Of course - as I've just said for 'free will' - there might be something yet to be defined (or already defined which I don't know of) which fits the idea (I think) you're putting forwards, but the words you've used cannot work for describing it, because of their definitions.

Language is limiting the ability to communicate these ideas. New words need to be invented to describe new ideas (note: the idea comes before the new language that can then be applied to the idea).

[eFestivals]

ideas without words...?

you can't get to having any word any other way.

A word is a just a meaningless noise without it first having a meaning - which means that the meaning (the idea) has to exist before the word.

[eFestivals]

but chaos is as much of an explanation as logic is

chaos is not a part of reasoning. The definition of chaos says it can't be.

[eFestivals]

I agree...

I know someone who doesn't

Yeah, so do I. But he's wrong and he knows he is, because he's unable to offer any workable way for his take on things.

The point he jumps in here (as he surely will) is the point I jump out. There's no reasoning with those who resort to the mystical.

[eFestivals]

but if chaos is how we got here....?

... then no reasoning can be offered as an explanation.

C'mon, it's not difficult ... unless you're having similar dictionary afflictions as some others.

[dakyras]

C'mon, it's not difficult ... unless you're having similar dictionary afflictions as some others.

[jump]

I've got to a point where I think everything is a contradiction... all the opposites are true, right down to we are everything and nothing at the same time

it's just when I see, or read about how everything came from an unimaginably tiny speck (which I can just about get my head round), I can't help wondering 'where' it happened

[jump]

here..?

but we're inside it

what was outside?

[rabid]

here..?

but we're inside it

what was outside?

[Katster]

IMO it wasn't a bang it was an expansion which starts from inside and carries on and I don't know what's on the outside maybe nothing or there's the Men In Black explanation we are actually in a marble in another universe.

[jump]

You forgot to add "attached to a cats collar"