PeterJ

I didn't see much point is answering since you didn't seem to know what metaphysics is (and post twitter messages!). There are dozens of well known metaphysical problems,. Take your pick. One problem would be the existential status of God. . . Yes, it is weird. You're right. And a big waste of time. Thanks for reminding me. I always have this idea that people want to discover the truth about these things and that I could help, but I get too irritable at the way people choose their opinions over the facts and usually blow it. My apologies to the moderators for being tetchy and deliberately provocative. So, I won't argue anymore. I will answer questions about metaphysics and religion if I get asked any, but not about Dawkins. . .

Logic is the foundation for philosophy, and I certainly did not move in before checking the foundations. It is exactly my complaint that people rarely test the foundations for their opinions. Good point. It is precisely Dawkin's inability to read the texts that disturbs me so much. Not everybody can do this, or even wants to, but if one is going to write a decent book on the topic and not just more opinionated waffle then some attempt has to be made. It is not what is 'morally sound' that is at stake, it is what is true and what is false. I know very well that he does not know what he is talking about. It would be blindingly obvious to any student of comparative religion. This is my objection, not that he is wrong, but that he has not made an effort to be right, and this is not good enough for a scholar. Just the fact that he equates religion with unreason is enough to show that his research is woefully inadequate and his presentation unrigorous and hopelessly partial and temperamental. It is as if I used the theory of philostogen to show that science is nonsense, not noticing that most scientists think the theory is nonsense. . .

Well, metaphysics has shown that all positive metaphysical positions are logically absurd. Physicists are very like metaphysicians in that they usually consider it sensible to reject ideas that are logically absurd. But of course you are free not to do so, and can just ignore the results of reason. Name a few theories that are absurd? Okay. All positive metaphysical positions. Or, in the terminology of Kant, all selective theories about the universe as a whole. They are all known to be absurd. Well, they are if we study metaphysics. Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Bradley, Nagarjuna, Schopenhauer, Heidegger and a thousand other philosophers, they all reach the same inevitable conclusion. I'll debate any of these theories as you wish, but it's easier just to dismiss them all at once. Theism, materialism, idealism, solipsism, substantialism, externalism, eternalism, dualism, monism, take your pick. Or we could select the theory that time or the universe had a beginning. .

Let me get this right. You feel able to state that metaphysics is an attempt by religion to incorporate physics into their nonsense, but do not know what metaphysical problems are. Amazing. Just plain amazing. No doubt another supporter of Dawkins. Oh dear. Do I have to explain everything from scratch? It's easy enough to look these things up online. Another person with strong opinions about metaphyscis who doesn't know what it is. Is everybody here a supporter of Dawkins' approach to scholarship and dogma? Or are there some honest thinkers around? Who have you read on metaphysics? Anybody? Well,I prefer to agree with Hegel. Have you heard of him? I would usually take this for granted but not here. Perhaps you would like to explan why he was wrong to call metaphyscisa science of logic. Or do you mean it is not a science when it is done the way you do it? This is very possible. given this post of yours. I have no idea what relevance to anything most of it has, and it appears to be written in the style of the Dawkin's school of muddled ranting. Weirder and weirder... I am well acquainted with Dawkin's views, and I read enough of his book to form the opinions I hold. One does not have to read much of it to judge the standard of the debate. But if you can pick out a specific criticism I have made which is unfair please do. I concluded that by the time he explained what he was objecting to it was clear that he was objecting to all the things I would object to, and that to call this religion displayed considerable ignorance. In any case, just consider the title. How much of the book does one have to read before it becomes clear that the author has no idea whether God is a delusion? Why does he make no argument? By the way, I also believe that God is a delusion. But I believe in rigour and scholarship, not useless populist rants that bring science into disrepute. His book is an insult to million scholars who have written much better books but are too difficult for Dawkin's audience.

Look guys, this all quite simple. Can Dawkins answer any profound questions about the universe? No. Does ho know that God does not exist? No. Does he know what he means by 'exist'? No. Does he know how to solve metaphysical problems? No, Does he know that God is a delusion? No. He studies the outward forms of religion, their social histories and interactions, and focuses on the dogmatic religions, the targets that are so easy that they fall to a puff of wind. If he studies religion for what it is, for what it teaches, then he would know a lot more than he does about the world, and he would see that the ideas he argues against are exactly the same ideas that many, perhaps even most, religious people argue against. It is precisely people like himself, that do not think through the issues properly, that he criticises in his book, and whose views on God he takes to represent religion. It the blind criticising the blind. Any one of us can do better than this. If he'd written his book on God in the 19th century then fair enough. But we now have the internet, and there is no longer any excuse for so misunderstanding religion. The very fact that he thinks it is all about swapping reason for dogma shows he knows little about it, or knows only a small part of the story. But more to the point. Where exactly does he prove that God is a delusion? How scientific is is it to take it for granted rather than make an argument? It's on a par with Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained'. Pure hubris and cheap headline grabbing, and a total disapointment for those who assume the title will be justified by the author. Dawkin's approach is so unsophistocated and unscholarly that only mad fools on internet forums would bother to take the time to criticise it. Nagarjuna proved the falsity of theism in the second century using Aristotle's 'laws of thought', the rules that Dawkin's depends on for his reason. Does he mention this? It is common knowledge, and it would have massively bolstered his case. .But he seems not to know. Bradley did the same in the 19th century. I'm told that Shankara did so somewhere. There's no need to need depend on Dawkin's long and empty rant against people who are as dogmatic and as empty of rational;argument as he is himself. I'm happy to argue about the issues but I've said my piece about Dawkins. If we don't agree about him, well, this would explain his book sales. Mind you, I did buy it, so at least he has my money if not my praise.

I'm sorry, born, but I can't make head or tail of this. Hi Alan. I should hope it does bother you. It is a view that makes no sense at all. If it didn't bother you then you would not be thinking rationally. I can only continue to inists that it would be a mistake to think that physics is ever going to have anything sensible to say about this. It is beyond the remit of physics. This has been the case since the day we decided to draw a distinction between physics and metaphysics. We do not have to make this distinction but we do. This is why this disussion is filed under 'philosophy'. The problem can be solved. All metaphysical problems can be solved. But not in physics. Physics deals with the contingent world, not with absolutes, fundamentals, ultimates, beginnings or endings. You assume that the problem here is that a substantial world comes into existence from nothing. This is the 'Something-Nothing' problem. Given your assumption, the problem is clearly intractable. Nobody has ever solved it. Physicist Paul Davies does not solve it in his book all about it, in which he argues that physics will never solve it. Clearly, for a solution you would have to drop your assumption. What do you mean by ';substantial'? Or by 'existence'?. What is the difference between 'Something' and 'Nothing'? What is mass? What could 'infinte mass' mean? These are the kinds of questions you would have to ask if you want to find a solution. To refuse to ask these questions because thay are beyond physics is a good strategy for not having to think about them, but irrational if we want to know the answers. The problem is very simple and so is the solution. The solution is given in a thousand books, and even in an essay by me. It astonishes me that scientists have not yet cottoned on to it, now that it's also all over the internet. Davies very nearly does in his book, but not quite. I think it's because of the sort of attitude seen so often here, whereby metaphysics is dismissed as nonsense. So all sorts of logically absurd theories are allowed to survive, and there's no way to sort the wheat from the chaff. Not what I'd call a scientific or even a rational approach. . .

Ah. Another person who doesn't want to do metaphysics. Of course we can use metaphysics to 'assault' religion'. We do it all the time. It's simply a matter of using ones common sense. If I tell you that God is a turtle balanced on the back of a whole pile of turtles you will use logic to calculate that I'm taking nonsense. That is metaphysics. But you have to do a bit of it to understand it. The problem with Dawkins is simply that he has not done his reasearch. He then assumes that religion is what he thinks it is, and goes on to prove that his idea is nonsense. Well so what? Not once in all his meanderings has he ever made a single criticism of my religion, and it is not clear he even knows it exists. . A book about religion that does not have the word 'Mysticism' in its index is clearly daft. I reckon I know more about biology than he does about religion. You could know more about religion than he does given a week or two of guided research, assuming you have a brain and can read. I fully support his attempt to get people to use their reason more carefully. But I wish he would practice what he preaches.

Of course, if we say that metaphysics is a science, as I would, then there is a scientific answer to the question. But most physicists seem to think that metaphysics has nothing to do with science, so my remark was correct in its context.

Sorry, I thought the point was obvious and needed no expansion. But I won't bang on.

Yes, perhaps I should not have done so. And no, I tried to read his book but it is so insane that I didn't make it past the first two pages. He does not seem to be able to differentiate between religion as it is and his crazy ideas about what it is. I agree with a lot of what he says about God and certain religious dogmas and approaches. but it hardly needs saying again, and it entirely misses the point. So blind faith is bad, Okay. So what? Religious people have been saying the same for millenia. His book is not useful to man nor beast. The only people who might learn anything from it are people who have never studied the topics. The index makes this pretty clear, and the intro makes it crystal clear. . We should be honest is out approach if we are arguing for science. The dichotomy is not between the scientific method and 'seeking blindly'. More straw men and windmills. Have you never heard of metaphysics? .What does Dawkins have to say about this? Nothing.at all. No surprises there. So if we take his approach we can never answer a metaphysical question such as 'Does God exist? His argument fails before it even starts. It is ridiculous that he does not see this. It is the same daft approach as people like Ayn Rand, who likewise seems to have never heard of logic. If you want to prove that God does not exist then use metaphysics. It's the best method unless we wish to take up an empirical investigation. Physics is utterly useless in this regard. It is carefully and deliberately defined to be so. It is not concerned with absolutes. In metaphyscis we study absolutes, and we study reason, and the basis for reasonable decision-making is the dialectic. Waffling on like Dawkins does is just wasting paper. The crazy thing is that Dawkins alienates people like me who basically agree with his view on theism and dogma. He ought to state his views on God and blind faith in two sentences and then concentrate on making some actual progress rather than flogging a dead horse at book length. If you want a good argument against God I can do far better than Dawkins without breaking into a sweat.

There isn't a scientific answer. This is metaphysics. We can't expect physics to answer a question that is metaphysical, the two disciplines are designed to be mutually exclusive. If we do not see this then we are going to go round and round in circles until the forum runs out of storage space. This is not rocket science. If the idea is that physics can answer this question then the thread should be moved to physics and out of philosophy.

Oh boy. Western liberal democracy as the end point of social evolution. What hubris. And how incredibly pessimistic. Ghandi was once asked what he thought about western civilisation. 'Ah yes' he replied, 'that would be a good idea'.

Hmm. If the industrial revolution had happened earlier we probably wouldn't still be here. One Roman engineer, can't remember his name, famously comments that Roman technology is so advanced that there's nothing left to invent. The very first city in the Indus valley had better plumbing than London the 19th century. Other pointless facts to follow.

Well, what the truth actually is would not be quite the point. The point would be that logic tells us that the idea that the universe had a beginning is absurd. And it tells us that the idea that it did not have a beginning is also absurd. This is where most people stop thinking and give up on the quest for the truth. . To really search beyond this conundrum for the truth would require thinking even harder. But most people cannot get beyond metaphysics because they assume that religion is nonsense before they've bothered to check. So threads like this come and go and nobody gets anywhere. But Kant and Hegel answered the OP's question a long time ago, and the Buddha and Lao Tsu a long time before that. There is one answer to metaphysical questions that works and it is nondualism. This is quite easy to calculate. But how many people bother to do the calculations? Kant is supposedly a key figure in our tradition of philosophy yet he is almost universally ignored on this issue. It's easy to calculate because the results of metaphysics are well documented, extensively tested.and have never required revision. It has been known for millenia that the 'beginning' question is formally undecidable. Yet here we are again trying to decide it, or proposing ideas that assume it is decidable. This is pointless. We should accept the results of logic and move on. It is a profoundly unscientific approach, I would say, to assume that logic is not a safe guide to truth without any evidence to the contrary. Yet on these kinds of topics it is a commonplace assumption. Sorry, a bit of a waffly answer. It's a start. . . ,

That's a very loaded question. I do understand reason, being a student of the topic, but I don't want to talk more about Dawkins. Not worth the bother. I mean, if a person cannot see from his book on God that the guy is not an honest thinker then nothing I say can make any difference. What can he explain about the big issues, the metaphysical problems that underly his precious science? Nothing at all. This is because it requires the honest application of reason. But please let us not waste time on him.

Obviously if you know God, if such a thing is possible, then to you he is proven to exist. But a truth is NEVER a theory. The minimum requirement for a truth is that you know it is true. Otherwise it is a belief, hypothesis.or conjectural theory.

Yes. Very good point. A truth requires that we know it is a truth, and not that we have simply a theory or belief. This is why Aristotle concludes that true knowledge is identical with its object. A theory cannot be a truth, and a truth, it is not simply a tautology, can never be proved, only known.

To be honest, I find him extremely unprofessional, It seems to me does science a disservice. I disagree strongly with both him and his mate Dan Dennett, but I find myself respect for the latter but having none at all for the former.

This seems sensible up to the final sentence, where something goes amiss. I agree about the significance of first-person reports, but some care is needed in appealing to them. For Buddhists God would be the result of misinterpreted medatative experiences. That this would have nothing to do with heresay or education, which are irrelevant to anything for Buddhists, but would simply be a (very natural) misinterpretation of empirical data. The data would not be false, but the creation of God out ot it would be a mistake. Still, it would be a first approximation to the truth. I'm glad to say that generally there seems to be move towards a more sophisticated idea of God than people like Dawkins rants against, but it makes the discussion a lot more complicated. Keith Ward points out that for early Christians it would have been incorrect to state that God exists. Then this religion moved towards a more naive view. But now it seems to be slowly reverting to its origins, praise the lord.

Oh boy. Just the man for the job. I think they chould have chosen someone who uses his reason better.

Hmm. I would say it does support a liberalised economy over socialism of the Stalinist kind. But not a liberalised economy as we know it, Scotty, for it is hardly liberalised at all. About Lamarckism, I would recommend Erwiin Schrodinger's essay 'What is Life?', where he disusses what he calls 'pseudo-Lamarckism' and makes a case for it that seems very sensible to me. He has some interesting things to say about the physics of genetic mutations also.

If you think that mysticism is about guesswork then you need to investigate it further. I can't think how anyone could reach this conclusion. The sages spend half their time telling us that there no point in guesswork, and you yourself quoted the Buddha saying so. Do you think I;m discussing this on the basis of guesswork? . In the mainstream science and philosophy of our western universities there is no answer to the OP's question after thousands of years of trying to find one. In mysticism there is an answer but almost nobody wants to know anything about it. I'm not even sure why anybody bothers to ask the question anymore. We've known since the dawn of philosophy that it makes no sense that the universe has a beginning, and that it makes no sense that it doesn't. Yet few people see the significance of this. But these metaphysical question are not complicated. Kant sums up metaphysics when he states that all selective conclusions about the world.as a whole are undecidable. This is as much as one needs to know in order to work out the answers to all these questions, but I'm not convinced that many people want to work them out for fear that their cage will be rattled by their calculations. I'm deeply cynical about the idea that people want to know the truth. I think it's the last thing people are looking for, even in this thread. .

Sorry Monday - my last reply was a poor one. By the way, my criticism of that article was that the author equates advaita Vedanta with monism, The term advaita means 'not two', which is used precisely because it does not imply monism. But superficially it's something like monism, so there is much confusion. The Wikki article adds to it. .

Well, Neo is a poor example really, since although the Matrix is based on Buddhist ideas the metaphor breaks down in the storyline. There is no metaphor that works, and this is a problem in life and not just for filmmakers. . Suppose that world is as Kant and Hegel supposed and can be reduced to a single phenomenon. Suppose that this is the only phenomenon that is truly real and non-contingent. Then suppose that you are this phenomenon but you have forgotten, and your mind is always so active you cannot ever see that this phenomenon is right there, all the time, just out of your sight, and that when you realise this you will know that there is no 'you', and that 'you' are just a fiction overlaid on this phenomenon. So the phenomenon is real, and you are it, but this 'you' who you think you are would be a fiction. This is something like (but not very like) Descartes' evil demon idea, but good and evil and demons would be as unreal as you.

In which philosophy? Fun? This Wikki article is not great. Erm. Nothing follows. But we probably agree here. I'm not a Buddhist. Nor am I. What's this got to do with anything? But I've said my piece. You won't find another explanation of origin that survives in metaphysics. But I've discovered that it's no good telling people this, or even proving it. .