Memammal

@ dimreepr: I did and I noticed that you even asked the OP whether he had read the thread, which is kind of weird. Based on your observation as expressed in your last paragraph that was addressed to disarray, I cannot help to wonder if you have actually read it..?

The NT is a collection of gospels and letters written by apostles and members of the early church from around 50 to 150 CE that were first assembled during the 3rd century and canonised in the 4th century. Paul, opposed to Jesus, would be the most influential historical character in setting the NT doctrine.

TAR, you may think of it as practical but unfortunately it is not very scientific.

TAR, I cannot pinpoint percentages, but i.t.o. of the block universe model the proposed permanent existence of the universe obviously outlasts the comparative speck that our species will be around. We acquired the technological capability that enabled us to observe the earlier stages of our universe, that part is true. But that does not change anything re the actual existence of the rest of the unobserved universe. We did not actually observe the huge meteorites that bombarded our earlier solar system, yet we can identify their footprints. We might have missed thousands of supernova's, but that does not mean they never happened. You evidently take a strong anthropocentric stance and that seems to cloud your viewpoint. For example, you refer to our species as the only conscious beings in this solar system. Why do you consider our species to be conscious but not other species? What evolutionary process would justify such a differentiation? Why are we so important that only our eco system matters? It would appear that you (still) believe that we are the centre of the universe..?

TAR, whether it is true (experienced) on Mars or not has no significance on whether it occurred. Let me try to illustrate it by throwing it around using this uncomfortable truth: As you know our sun will (only) last another 5 billion years odd until it finally "burns out". Our solar system will become inhospitable long before that though, in approximately 600 million to a billion years from now. Our species might not even survive that long, but here are the facts that I want to stress: When our solar system dies the rest of the universe will be unaffected, it will still be and it will "carry on without even noticing it"; It is a future event, yet easy predictable and unavoidable. The block universe stands, not only w.r.t. the above scenario but also w.r.t observations of its earlier passages as well as being consistent with prevailing scientific theories and observations (as set out earlier). You don't need to do dimension drops and replacements in the mind, or require additional mental capabilities. In fact, from where I stand your model seems considerably more mind blowing than the basic fundamentals of a block universe. You nailed it in your last sentence "What is true will remain true, with or without our involvement".

TAR: I am familiar with that school of thought, but to be honest I see it as much further removed from "reality" than (most) other prevailing models. I now understand why you kept on (over)emphasising the role of the observer(s) and all the permutations associated with the observer/universe interaction. My reference to Hawking's paper was an attempt to elaborate on space-time and the perception of dimensions, not to discuss time travel.

TAR, are you seriously suggesting that the universe reassembles itself with every light photon that is being observed?

TAR, I am not exactly following you. You seem to imply that the universe or parts thereof, as well as space-time have to be observed or experienced in order to exist, or am I misinterpreting you? Think of the block universe as a big static whole where only parts thereof have been observed. That does not imply that the rest of it does not exist (to the contrary). Referring to space-time and its four dimensions, please do yourself a favour and read this article by Stephen Hawking, Space and Time Warps. It explains how we should make sense of these dimensions and how they are being perceived, including how the time and position at which one thought an event occurred would be depended on how one was moving. This meant that time and space, were inextricably bound up with each other - and that - the times that different observers would assign to events would agree if the observers were not moving relative to each other. He goes on to state this: We can actually observe this warping of space-time, produced by the mass of the Sun, in the slight bending of light or radio waves, passing close to the Sun. This causes the apparent position of the star or radio source, to shift slightly, when the Sun is between the Earth and the source. The shift is very small, about a thousandth of a degree, equivalent to a movement of an inch, at a distance of a mile. Nevertheless, it can be measured with great accuracy, and it agrees with the predictions of General Relativity. We have experimental evidence, that space and time are warped. Furthermore, gravitational waves that are (the theoretically proven- and predicted) waves of the space-time ‘fabric’ itself have now been detected.

I have, for the past few days, been distracted from participating in this thread by an onset of flu. I appreciate the fact that the block universe concept, at face value, seems to contradict our existing paradigm of time. With the block universe the present is an objective property, to be compared with a moving spotlight. By the passage of time more of the world comes into being; therefore, the block universe is said to be growing. The growth of the block is supposed to happen in the present, a very thin slice of spacetime, more of spacetime is continually coming into being [Source]. Perhaps core to the understanding of the block universe is eternalism, a philosophy of time whereby all points in time are equally real (opposed to the conventional idea that only the present is real). Eternalism is the view that each spacetime moment exists in and of itself and find inspiration from the way time is modeled as a dimension in the theory of relativity, giving time a similar ontology to that of space. It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time [Source]. As such it requires a change in our perception of "time passing" to that of a metaphor for the continuous human experience of some expected future events becoming directly experienced qualia, while experienced qualia becoming just objects of memory [Source]. Here is another way of looking at it: Modern physics suggests that we can look at the entire history of the universe as a single four-dimensional thing. That includes our own personal path through it, which defines our world line. This seemingly conflicts with our intuitive idea that we exist at a moment, and move through time. Of course there is no real conflict — just two different ways of looking at the same thing. There is a four-dimensional universe that includes all of our world line, from birth to death, once and for all; and each moment along that world line defines an instantaneous person with the perception that they are growing older, advancing through time [Source]. In short, many now’s opposed to a moving now. As such we observe different glimpses of the universe as our spotlight catches a different now, or spacetime slice, which gives the illusion of a changing universe. This MIT article on a recent book, “Objective Becoming” by Brad Skow, provides a short, yet eloquent oversight of what I have just tried to convey. In “This Idea Must Die; Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress” there are a number of references to how our conventional paradigm may hinder our scientific understanding. In “Essentialist View Of The Mind” Lisa Barrett writes: In physics, before Einstein, scientists thought of space and time as separate physical quantities. Einstein refuted that distinction, unifying space and time and showing that they’re relative to the perceiver. Even so, essentialist thinking is still seen every time an undergraduate asks, “If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?” In “The Big Bang Was The First Moment Of Time” Lee Smolin states: What concerns me is the other meaning of Big Bang, which is the further hypothesis that the ultimate origin of our universe was a first moment in time, at which our universe was launched from a state of infinite density and temperature. According to this idea, nothing that exists is older than 13.8 billion years. It makes no sense to ask what was before that, because before that there wasn’t even time. The main problem with this second meaning of Big Bang is that it’s not very successful as a scientific hypothesis, because it leaves big questions about the universe unanswered… There is, however, a chance for science to answer these questions, and that’s if the Big Bang was not the first moment of time… For there to have been a time before the Big Bang, the Hawking-Penrose theorem must fail. But there is a simple reason to think it must: General relativity is incomplete as a description of nature, because it leaves out quantum phenomena… There is robust evidence from quantum cosmology models that the infinite singularities forcing time to stop in general relativity are eliminated…which allows time to continue to exist before the Big Bang, deep into the past. In “The Universe Began In A State Of Extraordinarily Low Entropy” Alan Guth argues: There’s an important problem, therefore, which is over a century old: to understand how the arrow of time could possibly arise from time-symmetric laws of evolution. The arrow-of-time mystery has driven physicists to seek possible causes within the law of physics we observe, but in vain. The laws make no distinction between the past and the future… The standard picture holds that the initial conditions for the universe must have produced a special low-entropy state because one is needed to explain the arrow of time. We argue, to the contrary, that the arrow of time can be explained without assuming a special initial state, so there is no longer any motivation for the hypothesis that the universe began in a state of extraordinarily low entropy. The most attractive feature of this idea is that there’s no longer a need to introduce any assumptions that violate the time symmetry of the known laws of physics. The basic idea is simple: We don’t really know if the maximum possible entropy for the universe is finite of infinite, so let’s assume it’s infinite. Then, no matter what entropy the universe started with, the entropy would have been low compared to its maximum. That’s all that’s needed to explain why the entropy has been rising ever since! He uses a metaphor of gas in a box (finite) compared to gas with no box where all particles will eventually start moving outwards and the gas will continue indefinitely to expand into the infinite space, with the entropy rising without limit. He continues: An arrow of time has been generated, without introducing any time-asymmetric assumptions. An interesting feature of this picture is that the universe need not have a beginning or an end. Since the brain presumably perceives time through information processing of external stimuli, not by extrasensory perception, and obeys the laws of causality, it is hard to see how the flow of time, whether it exists or not, could make any subjective difference: all conscious beings are built to perceive time as a chain of events, whether or not it occurs as such… Eternalism addresses these various difficulties by considering all points in time to be equally valid frames of reference—or equally "real", if one prefers. It does not do away with the concept of past and future, but instead considers them directions rather than states of being; whether some point in time is in the future or past is entirely dependent on which frame of reference you are using as a basis for observing it. Since an observer at any given point in time can only remember events that are in the past relative to him, and not events that are in the future relative to him, the subjective illusion of the passage of time is maintained. The asymmetry of remembering past events but not future ones, as well as other irreversible events that progress in only one temporal direction (such as the increase in entropy) gives rise to the arrow of time. In the view suggested by eternalism, there is no passage of time; the ticking of a clock measures durations between events much as the marks on a measuring tape measures distances between places. Eternalism has implications for the concept of free will, in that it proposes that future events are as immutably fixed and impossible to change as past events. Eternalism makes two assumptions, which are separable. One is that time is a full-fledged real dimension. The other is immutability. The latter is not a necessary consequence of the first. A universe in which changes are possible may be indistinguishable from the fully deterministic many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which there are multiple "growing block universes". [Source] In Buddhism, a special term Dharmadhatu is translated as 'total field of events and meanings' or 'field of all events and meanings.' Here the 'Block Universe' seems to be encompassing not only every possible event in the physical universe but also having a psychological component. [Source] Eternalism takes its inspiration from physics, especially the Rietdijk-Putnam argument, in which the relativity of simultaneity is used to show that each point in the universe can have a different set of events that are in its present moment. According to presentism this is impossible because there is only one present moment that is instantaneous and encompasses the entire universe. [Source] Hrvoje Nikolić argued that a block time model solves the black hole information paradox. [Nikolic H. (2009). "Resolving the black-hole information paradox by treating time on an equal footing with space". Phys. Lett. B 678 (2): 218] In a scientific paper entitled “Is there An Alternative To The Block Universe View?” Vesselin Petkov shows that the block universe view, regarding the universe as a timelessly existing four-dimensional world, is the only one that is consistent with special relativity. The paper concludes: In this sense special relativity alone appears to provide a definite proof of the block universe view. One may argue that the arguments discussed here are insufficient for rejecting the presentist view since those arguments demonstrated that presentism contradicts only special relativity, not the other established theories (quantum mechanics, for instance). Such a position could hardly be defended because if a view contradicts the experimental evidence it is definitely wrong. There is just one way to prove that the presentist view does not contradict the relativistic effects – to demonstrate that the experiments which confirm the kinematic consequences of special relativity can be explained if it is assumed that the world is three-dimensional. I assume that most of the objections raised against the block universe model have been dealt with in the above. If not, I will try to revert to any outstanding issues that come to the fore.

I am not sure if you have ever read the link that was given much earlier in the thread (page 4), but it will explain all there is to explain about the issues that you raised above including the (false) impression that some sort of creation is required, free will (note that although the universe would be a given, i.e. static or deterministic, it does not necessarily imply that observers cannot move or act "freely" within it), etc. The important aspect to bend your mind around is the tenseless theory of time in such a block universe. Once you grasp that, the rest of the bigger picture will start falling into place. No need to speculate whether there are other universes or not (although I realise that this thread topic so dictates). In a block universe it could be one big universe or multiple universe scattered around in the same "block" (or in other "blocks"?). Ditto for life on other planets. As I already alluded to, there may well be other observers with the ability to observe parts of this block universe that we cannot; we just don't know as we cannot detect them (see my analogy below). As for a conscious universe, like I already mentioned it would make more sense to refer to it as a universe filled with existing data waited to be observed. Here is the link: http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2012/09/24/time-free-will-and-the-block-universe/ No, we don't have a reader that would see the whole picture at once, but that is no different to our existing paradigm. Why the need for a greater kind of consciousness? As I posted before, there may be a multitude of different observers scattered around in this greater block universe, each having their peak of a part of the whole. Some kind of God..? Well, something like Spinoza's "Nature" God will make sense. Like I told disarray, once you get to grips with the tenseless theory of time, you will understand that different "now's" in time may be mere illusions of our minds. You have to imagine a bird's eye view of a really big (possibly round) black screen (representing our block universe(s)) where you would, every now and then, see pixels lighting up in different locations on (or around) it. See those as multiple and scattered observations that establish reality (the glowing pixel which is representative of information). These may all be clustered in our eco system (our planet) at what we (as observers) perceive to be different times (only they are not), or they may include observations in other parts of the universe. Imagine looking from above or outside, very much like an astronaut inside the ISS who may see the lights from mega cities on both the west and east coast of America simultaneously, only back on earth they can't see each other. I get the feeling that you still think like an observer stuck at one of those locations and as such your interpretation is clouded by our existing paradigm.

tar & disarray, That definition of knowledge (“Knowledge is going to be more narrowly defined as that information for which we have either direct experience and/or data to confirm that it represents a, more or less, accurate interpretation of the world around us.” ) as well as some of your recent exchanges and a much earlier reference to the Block Universe Theory refer. Is there perhaps not merit in exploring the idea of such a block universe, i.e. something that has always existed in its complete form without beginning or end, that is being observed by a variety of observers as they momentarily interact with it, process said data/observations into information and for said information to form the observers' reality of their observable universe, i.e. their knowledge of "that place, at that moment of time"...which in reality is only a sneak peak into part of the bigger picture that has always existed? Replace the idea of universal consciousness with universal information (akin to "cloud storage"), i.e. a multitude of observations that form our perception of reality (a representation of information). Also consider a great variety of observers with different perceptual abilities not only in our own eco system, but also elsewhere (perceived as different times) in the block universe. Although this block universe appears to change according to a perceived arrow of time as we observe and determine said information when we briefly interact with it, it is actually the observers moving through it that "light up the pixels" of each previously undisclosed reality. As such more and more of this static block universe (think about a huge black screen) lit up as the observers gather information. But that’s just my two cents...

I think it is important to note that the majority of Biblical scholars agree that most of the Torah was only written between 600 BCE & 400 BCE. This was many generations after the alleged events surrounding Moses (approx. 1000 years) and Abraham (approx. 1500 years). The original stories were thus folklore and there is good reason to consider the likelihood that the ancient tales might have been influenced by myths of other more advanced civilisations given the fact that the writing thereof coincided with the time that Israel was subjected to first Babylonian captivity and later Persian captivity.

@ Raider5678: No, I never said that they should go free.

@ B. John Jones: Again, many bold claims with zero substance. I agree with disarray's response to your post that this is not the appropriate forum for preaching your subjective and unfounded beliefs. That being said, I would still like to delve into some of your assertions: Note the word gymnastics. You first stated that no human being ever had any attribute ever enabling them to be saved, yet in the last sentence you specifically mentioned faith and trust as prerequisites. You are also implying that the fate of human beings is somewhere unsafe (I presume hell, from which they need to be saved from), that it is their punishment. Why- and for what are humans being punished? Are you referring to the act of original sin? So Christianity insists that all humans should live with this life-long fear, this judgement over their heads? Do you see how extremely toxic this religion is? Do you realise the potential psychological damage of just this one doctrine? Of course there is zero basis for this, absolutely zero. We know Biblical Adam & Eve were not the first humans. By the time they allegedly (according to scriptures) roamed this earth humans were long spread across the globe so there could not have been any physical way that they could have passed on this "sin" (genetically) to the entire human race. In what other way could this "sinful nature" (what a dubious and unscientific term) have been passed on? There is also no scientific foundation to reason that humans have unique attributes that set them apart from the rest of the fauna. There is no evidence in evolution that humanity acquired extraordinary abilities such as the ability to "sin", or having (immortal) souls that set them apart from other animals. Lastly, there was no mention of this in the fictional/mythical Eden punishment narrative, nor by Jesus himself. It was the apostle Paul (who never even met Jesus) who conjured up and preached this sick idea, not so? Now that you mentioned it, I have never ever seen faith. Is it an unseen kind of physical matter? And a mustard seed of this stuff can move a mountain..? Something akin to pixie dust or the "force" perhaps? With respect, it just seems so absurd. So because this invisible faith is a physical matter, it sets Christianity apart from other religions and their respective faiths? My head is spinning... Do the others know that you are making this claim on their behalf? Anyway, I simply don't believe you, full stop. Lol, this one is kind of funny. So God took 6 days to create the entire cosmos but has spent the past approx. 2000 years (and counting) building this church with his hands..? I now realise why you conveniently ignored my reference to: A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary.

I already presented my argument and yes, I repeated myself as you seemingly did not understand it first time around. Just go back to where we started off. The point that I have been trying to convey is that criminal acts are (according to the findings of behavioural scientists) likely the results of interactions between the criminal's genetic make-up and specific or unique environmental "triggers" and as such there is an argument to be made that the criminal did not act "intentionally" or "consciously", but that it was an "automatic" reaction. Let us assume that the findings of such studies have merit and then revisit the question as to whether the death penalty is ethically justified.

It is true that there is presently no known treatment- or cure for psychopaths. The only option is to lock them away. I am not sure if that is what you meant by punishment. However, to generalise and to apply that to "nearly any crime" would seem inappropriate.

Personally I don't think that one (extreme) example should be enough to warrant the death penalty. Raider5678 is implying that we cannot trust high-security prisons or similar facilities to keep dangerous criminals away from society and rather than securing these facilities or consider treating the criminals, he reckons it will be equally (or more) ethical to remove them from the equation more effectively...by killing them.

@ B. John Jones: As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Allow me to give you a quick tutorial on belief, knowledge and truth by quoting from these sources: It is interesting how often and freely we use these three elements of thought processing and presume that what we are expressing is being legitimately represented. Beliefs are readily interpreted as knowledge, and knowledge is often characterized as being true to lend it weight. However, for the purposes of this discussion let's consider some definitions for these terms so that we can distinguish how these elements are actually used. (www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/belief_knowledge_and_truth) Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief) Knowledge is going to be more narrowly defined as that information for which we have either direct experience and/or data to confirm that it represents a, more or less, accurate interpretation of the world around us. (www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/belief_knowledge_and_truth) Truth simply represents the opposite of deception. Although it is often used as a more emphatic way of expressing what we consider to be a "fact", it is irrelevant in that context beyond establishing that the information being presented or interpreted is not the product of deceit. (www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/belief_knowledge_and_truth) So w.r.t. your references to: and The above statements evidently fail to meet the criteria in order to qualify as either knowledge or truth. So it is a belief, or alternatively the opposite of the truth which is a deception? Or perhaps we can settle on a delusion: A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion)

Yes, if they cannot be treated (which remains an option), locking them up would be a higher order of ethics than killing, don't you think? You wanna kill mentally insane people..? Why would the level of others' suffering rely on whether you can blame-, or put somebody to death? You wrote: Killing them would effectively remove them from the equation. No explanation as far as I can see.

What is ethical or not relates to our present moral philosophy of what is right and what is wrong. Medieval ethics, for example, are far removed from the prevailing ethics of today's western society. Why do you think imprisonment would be less effective in order to "remove them from the equation"? You previously argued that the death penalty is wrong, but you now seem to condone it as being a more effective tool. Given my argument that a perpetrator (let's say a murderer) might not be consciously or mentally blameworthy for his/her actions, do you think it will be ethical to kill him/her?

The contemporary viewpoint among behavioural scientists suggests that behaviour in general, including criminal behaviour, results from a specific interaction between genes and the environment. This is equally applicable to psychopaths. There is substantive evidence to support this. Here is one such scientific research paper entitled: Genetic and Environmental Influences on Criminal Behavior. The implications thereof raise the question of free will, conscious behaviour and how it influences the legal premises of among others actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty" and non compos mentis or "not master of one's own mind". Can the mind be guilty or culpable if it "automatically" reacted (in a criminal manner) as a result of a specific gene/environment interaction? Is anyone master of his/her own "mind"? Obviously the legal system will not easily adapt to this line of reasoning (apart from the prevailing criteria surrounding non compos mentis) and rightly so as people who commit serious criminal crimes will remain susceptible (due to the presence of a certain genetic make-up) and will thus continue to present a high risk to society given a "wrong" set of environmental triggers. It would therefore be preferable to remove high-risk individuals from society. Removing them from society (and possibly for them to undergo therapeutic treatment) would thus be ethical, but killing them..?

@ Raider5678: I am neither judge or jury, but i.m.o. the main contributors have so far stuck to what has become mostly a metaphysical debate. Yes, admittedly some of them have gone a bit array in order to elaborate on- or substantiate their points of view and some have even wandered awkwardly close to pseudoscience, but mostly with caution, acknowledgement and by admitting that it was their personal point of view. Religion and spirituality form part of metaphysics so in that sense there is nothing wrong to incorporate it in a philosophical manner if it would add value to the thread. What concerns me though is the way that B. John Jones has made two speculative statements in a unambiguous and factual manner. He wrote "there are several heavens" and "But the life of a human being is indeed another matter altogether" that are both unfounded and unscientific.

I noticed that you have been trying to get into (hijacking?) this conversation in an attempt to discuss heavens and the likes. Don't you think that you are perhaps steering this thread off topic? Like the above statement and particularly the last part thereof which you put forward as fact. What would be the relevance and why would the life of a human be another matter? Opposed to what?

You were (and still are) preaching Alan. It is right there in the post that preceded mine and in most of your posts above. Full of unsubstantiated statements of faith with zero facts. Seems that you cannot spot the difference between fact, faith, or fallacy..? I sense that being a believer clouds your sanity. I.m.o. this thread serves to illustrate a great deal of ignorance on your part, nothing more. This was just irrational blabbering that seemingly refute some of the writer's own points (spot them). To argue that we need the Bible to make better citizens is far-fetched. The "God of Spinoza" is nature, which is referred to as pantheism. Well, firstly Yahweh and the God of the OT are - according to scriptures - one and the same. You do believe in that God, no? The concept of a Holy Trinity was something that was devised later by the early church fathers during the Ante-Nicene Period leading up to the Council of Nicaea. So your many references to Jesus have little significance then as you here acknowledged that you do not believe God has a name..?

@ Alan, you are making unsubstantiated claims again and even highlighting some of them. Please stop doing that, preach your beliefs somewhere else.