leftrightleft wrote:However, that is not quite the question I am asking and I apologize for the ambiguity. I said: "If yes, why do you think this is so?" And I think those last two words imply that I am asking why you think the state of the world is the way it is rather than some other way.

As an analogy:

Consider that I ask, "Do you think poverty exists? If yes, why do you think this is so?"
In answer to the first question you could say, "Yes" and list examples of people living in poverty. However, your examples do not really address the heart of the second question. The second question is more philosophical: "Why do you think our world contains poverty instead of some other theoretical world without poverty?" In this case, listing examples of poverty does not give a reason why poverty exists. In order to address such a question, you would need to look at the root causes of poverty and you may point to inherent social structures, the seeming universality of human greed, problems of resource distribution etc.

Well, one part of the problem here, is that it is possible to point to a number of factors that are implicated in poverty, whereas the reasons why the universe is one in which we can do science, are far harder to elucidate. Because stating the obvious, namely that consistent laws of behaviour apply to the universe and its contents, then has a habit of leading inexorably to asking what reasons exist for the presence of those consistent laws of behaviour. This is one of those questions that the human species is still struggling with. Moreover, this is one of those questions that is likely to lead fairly quickly to that choice of end-games I presented previously, once we're in a position to seek and find substantive answers.

(emphasis added)

I'm not sure which one of us is being obtuse, but haven't I made it clear that the bolded bit is precisely the thing I am asking in this thread?

Yeesh...are you being obtuse with your answers or was my question so obtuse and incomprehensible that you have no idea what I'm asking?

I'm asking why the universe has consistent laws of behaviour. Thoughts or ideas?

See above. Namely, consistent laws of behaviour exist. What leads to the emergence of those consistent laws of behaviour, on the other hand, is, as I've just stated above, a far harder question, though I'm tempted to suggest that yet more consistent laws of behaviour are needed to provide that explanation, and ... we're back to those two endgames I presented earlier.

Okay, if I could summarize, you think that the reason consistent laws and behaviour exist could be explained in two ways: 1) turtles all the way down or 2) Some "brute fact" at the base of it all.

Is that an accurate summary?

leftrightleft wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:I believe theism offered an answer for why this is so

No it didn't. That's because theism consists of unsupported assertions. The existence of a magic entity being the big assertion, that has never been supported with anything resembling proper evidence.

No theism did offer an answer.

Ahem. An assertion isn't an answer for anything. An assertion is itself a statement demanding an answer to the question of its truth-value. This is one of those central principles of discourse I repeatedly have to teach to supernaturalists. Every assertion, when presented, begins its life with the status "truth value unknown", and therefore, by definition, a statement with an unknown truth-value cannot constitute an answer to a question. Until relevant analysis converts that assertion into an evidentially supported postulate, the best that said assertion can hope to achieve, is to qualify as a conditional hypothesis, conditional upon the remedying of the epistemological deficit I have just expounded. Genuine answers are accompanied by [1] known truth values, and [2] detailed expositions of the entities and phenomena facilitating their contribution to the answer. "Magic Man did it" fails even the most elementary competence tests at this juncture.

leftrightleft wrote:It doesn't mean the answer is correct.

The problem here isn't that the assertion masquerading as an answer is known to be false, rather, it's that said assertion may not even be testable in principle. As a corollary, that epistemological deficit, with respect to making its truth-value known, might never be resolvable.

leftrightleft wrote:Debating the correctness of theism belongs in another thread.

Actually, the problem here, as I've just told you above, is that the assertion in question might remain forever untestable, which disqualifies that assertion from ever being an answer to anything, and does so regardless of its actual truth-value.

leftrightleft wrote:Analogy:

Jane: "Why do you think poverty exists?"
Bob: "Because of fairies stealing money from the poor people"

Bob offered an answer. Doesn't mean he's right.

Wrong. Bob offered an assertion. Which, initially, began with the status "truth value unknown". Now the problem here is then transformed into determining whether or not that assertion is actually true, which requires the existence assertion with respect to fairies to be testable, and for its truth-value to be determined via the requisite test. If that nested assertion is found to be untestable, then Bob's assertion cannot constitute an answer.

I find this whole discussion unnecessary. I have no idea how you define the word "answer". But it seems very narrow.

To me, an answer is any response to a question.

From the Google:

"answer: a thing said, written, or done to deal with or as a reaction to a question, statement, or situation."

That's pretty damn broad. Making it any more narrow doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

Q: "Why is the universe rationally intelligible?"
A: "God"
A: "Fairies"
A: "Because your mom"
A: "Many World's Interpretation"
A: "Anthropic Principle"

According to Google's definition, these are all considered answers to the question. Some may be better than others. Some may be correct. Some may be wrong. But they are all answers.

leftrightleft wrote:I'm asking you, as an atheist, "Why do you think the universe is the way it is (rationally intelligible), rather than some other way?"

See above. I'm also minded to note that it's rather difficult to conceive of a universe bereft of consistent, systematic laws of behaviour, which can also produce beings such as ourselves.

Ah okay, another answer buried within this thread. You seem to agree with Thommo: "it may be impossible for the universe to be any other way." Would that be an accurate summary?

leftrightleft wrote:If you, as an atheist, provide an answer, then I will have an atheistic perspective on this question.

No you won't, because once again, this question isn't actually part of the remit of atheism. Indeed, because atheism, when rigorously constructed, neither presents assertions nor pretends to be in a position to answer questions, but instead leaves the answering thereof to those with the requisite expertise, what you will have from me is an answer informed by consulting said expertise.

leftrightleft wrote:I will not have the atheistic perspective on this question because there is no unifying "doctrine" to atheism as it is not a religion. But I will have a perspective given by an atheist. In other words: an atheistic perspective.

Er, no. See above. If you ask me a question, and I provide you with an answer based upon observables, what you have is an empirically informed perspective. Which I could provide regardless of my status as an atheist, if I paid attention in the requisite classes.

leftrightleft wrote:This will be a perspective which does not include "God" as part of the answer. In other words: an atheistic perspective.

Yawn. Does the fact that most supernaturalists don't actually spend all of their time thinking about their pet magic entities, mean that any thoughts they pursue when not thinking about their pet magic entities, are "atheistic"? Does it mean that their toilet dumps are "atheistic" if they're not thinking about their pet magic entities when shitting?

You see, this is one of the problems with much discourse in this area, namely, that the notion has persisted, frequently as a result of supernaturalist discoursive mischief, that failure to include asserted magic entities in a given discussion somehow equates to "denial" or "rejection" of those entities, and that atheism purportedly consists of precisely this asserted "denial" or "rejection". Neither is the case. First, pet magic entities simply don't enter the picture as relevant with respect to a lot of thoughts, because, for example, it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist or a supernaturalist, 2+2=4 regardless (provided of course we're talking about the usual addition operation in R). Second, as I've already stated, atheism doesn't consist of a "denial" or "rejection" of anything, and there's a nice little surprise waiting for you in this regard if you hunt down some of my earlier posts.

leftrightleft wrote:If I wanted a theistic perspective, I would expect "God" to be part of the answer. In other words: a theistic perspective.

Except that it's entirely possible for me to consider such a possibility, without committing myself to a particular treatment of the relevant assertions. I could consider in all seriousness the possibility that a god-type entity is implicated in the requisite phenomenon, but in order to do so, I would need a suitably precise definition of what a god-type entity actually is (which is another of those areas supernaturalists keep demonstrating incompetence over), and I would also need some indication of the relevant interactions providing the linkage between this entity and the requisite phenomenon. Without which, it's pretty difficult to say much that is meaningful on the subject.

I asked this question in this subforum because I didn't want a bunch of people jumping up and down shouting "God" as an answer. I wanted a response to the question that didn't involve "God".

Answers that do not involve God == atheistic answers. It seems so obvious that this is tautologically true to me based on the definition of atheism. I don't understand why you are pushing up against it so hard...

leftrightleft wrote:

Citation for this?

Richard Dawkins talks about it at length in the God Delusion (pg 169 - 175). The anthropic principle, which has been used by people like Douglas Adams (in "The Salmon of Doubt"), to explain a "finely-tuned universe" essentially amounts to: "it just is"

Wrong. First of all, Dawkins' exposition on the anthropic principle as applied to planets like Earth, actually starts on page 134 of my searchable electronic copy of the book in question.

I'm literally holding the paper copy in my hands right now. On Page 169 there is a heading: "The Anthropic Principle: Cosmological Version". That is what we are talking about. We aren't talking about the "Anthropic Principle: Planetary Version" (that heading first appears in my paper copy on page 162).

Give a poster some slack before declaring the page number they quoted was wrong. E-Copies often have different page numbering than physical copies.

Further on, on page 136, here's what Dawkins actually says:

It is a strange fact, incidentally, that religious apologists love the anthropic principle. For some reason that makes no sense at all, they think it supports their case. Precisely the opposite is true. The anthropic principle, like natural selection, is an alternative to the design hypothesis. It provides a rational, design-free explanation for the fact that we find ourselves in a situation propitious to our existence. I think the confusion arises in the religious mind because the anthropic principle is only ever mentioned in the context of the problem that it solves, namely the fact that we live in a life-friendly place. What the religious mind then fails to grasp is that two candidate solutions are offered to the problem. God is one. The anthropic principle is the other. They are alternatives.

Your e-copy must have different page numbering than my paper copy. My page 136 does not have this quote. Also, this quote is supporting the notion that an atheist (Richard Dawkins) thinks the anthropic principle is an alternative to the God hypothesis.

leftrightleft wrote:It "smacks of defeatism" --> "The anthropic principle – the idea that our universe has the properties it does because we are here to say so and that if it were any different, we wouldn’t be around commenting on it – infuriates many physicists... It smacks of defeatism, as if we were acknowledging that we could not explain the universe from first principles. It also appears unscientific." - Anil Ananthaswamy

Actually, it's a simple demolition of the entire supernaturalist "design" assertion, which apparently is still too difficult for them to understand as actually constituting a demolition thereof. Furthermore, Dawkins at no point implies any dependence upon our presence for the observed state of physical laws, another elementary misreading of his work. Instead, he points out quite rightly that the dependence is the other way round - we're dependent on the requisite physical laws, and we're here because they permitted our emergence. Indeed, if you bother reading his work, he explains at some length, the various ideas that actual physicists are presenting in this area that are proposed as actual explanations. I'm also familiar with several other ideas, including a good few emanating from peer reviewed papers.

Can you actually present those ideas from peer reviewed papers? That's what this thread is supposed to be about.

leftrightleft wrote:

there are two possibilities, with respect to the matter of alighting upon a single, unifying framework encompassing all observable entities and phenomena. One possibility is that the search will be never ending, because ever more intricate layers of entities and interactions will be uncovered as our knowledge advances. The other possibility is that this process will terminate, and a final, fundamental layer of entities and interactions will be alighted upon. The problem being, of course, that ultimately, the existence thereof will simply be a brute fact. Because if there exists an explanation for that supposedly fundamental layer of entities and interactions, this tells us that there's actually another layer underpinning it by definition.

In short, if the number of layers of interactions and entities to be uncovered is finite, the last layer uncovered will simply constitute a brute fact, and we can go no further. Therefore, finding ourselves in the position of having to say "it just is", is actually wonderfully informative, because it means we've established that the number of layers of interactions and entities to be uncovered is finite, and that we've found the final one. This might be unsatisfying to those who think there must be a "why" for everything, but this doesn't help supernaturalists one little bit, because if you ask them why their magic man exists (if it does), that's the only answer they have at bottom. All they're doing is placing an asserted magic entity at the end of the chain, without any actual evidence that this is justified.

You never addressed my point: I claimed that the assertion "it just is" is an epistemological dead end.

But wait, if that happens to be what the DATA is telling us at some point in the future, namely that we've found the fundamental entities and interactions that constitute the building blocks of the "theory of everything", and there is no actual explanation for why we have that particular set of building blocks, then it's fucking tough. It might be an unsatisfying "epistemological dead end" for you, but if the DATA the universe is handing to us says "that's it, folks", you'll have to suck on it. No amount of fantasising is going to change that, if that's what the universe hands you. Which is, again, what those scientists tell us if you pay attention to them.

Okay...so you agree that it would represent an epistemological dead end?

I'm not sure what you think we are discussing. I said "it just is" represents an epistemological dead end. You said, "Well if you bothered to read what actual scientists are writing"...and then proceeded to give me two examples of how the end game of knowledge could play out: turtles all the way down or some brute fact ending.

But I don't understand what that has to do with what I said. "It just is" is an epistemological dead end.

leftrightleft wrote:By this, I mean that there is nothing more that can be learned from it. And, saying that there is nothing more to be learned from the universe is, to me, unscientific.

But once again, if that's what the DATA dropped in our laps by the universe leads to, it's game over. And as for being "unscientific", I can't think of anything more scientific, than paying attention to empirical data.

leftrightleft wrote:You offered two possibilities for how the universe could behave: 1) turtles all the way down and 2) an "ultimate" brute fact.

Your first option never results in an epistemological dead end. There is always more to be learned.
Your second option results in an epistemological dead end. Humanity may eventually reach such a dead end where all we are left to say is, "It just is". I think that will be both a great day and a sad day for science. If such a day ever materializes...

And once again, if that's what the DATA tells us, the DATA wins every time.

leftrightleft wrote:Regardless, this is a bit of a derail, because it doesn't seem to have much to do with explanations for why the universe is rationally intelligible. Unless you are arguing that "it just is"...but I am not sure that is what you are suggesting.

See above.

[/quote]

I'm not sure if we are going to be able to get back on track here. I think we both agree with each other.

If the data tells us some brute fact that is the "end of the road", then that will be an epistemological dead end at which point we will say, "It just is" and be done with it. Agree???

That data has not yet materialized so we are still left here today with two options: 1) turtles all the way down or 2) some yet-to-be-dicovered dead end.

Regardless, this unfortunately doesn't have much to do with the original question as we got a bit de-railed here.

leftrightleft wrote:Regardless, this unfortunately doesn't have much to do with the original question as we got a bit de-railed here.

Know what, leftrightleft, you went ahead anyway and responded to it point by point. My guess is that you love this shit for its own sake, and that you don't seriously expect an answer to your original question. You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything.

Je me lance, vers la gloire... OK

leftrightleft wrote:Answers that do not involve God == atheistic answers.

You've made a logical error mixed up with a semantic error here. You have no way of knowing that an answer that does not mention God comes from a theistic or atheistic discourse, unless you can say why you think so, and even then, your justification could be bullshit. Your subtext is coming into view. What your statement betrays is that you identify not mentioning God with atheism, which is total crap. You really should go home, think this over, and come back when you're better-prepared.

leftrightleft wrote:It "smacks of defeatism" --> "The anthropic principle – the idea that our universe has the properties it does because we are here to say so and that if it were any different, we wouldn’t be around commenting on it – infuriates many physicists... It smacks of defeatism, as if we were acknowledging that we could not explain the universe from first principles. It also appears unscientific." - Anil Ananthaswamy

Here's the problem: there's no such thing as "first principles". Whatever your starting point, someone can come along and starts nagging "and where did those principles come from?" You need to start somewhere, and the only rational starting point is our observable universe. We don't know where the universe comes from, we don't know if there are other universes, we don't know why the laws of physics are the way they are. We don't even know if those questions make sense. And any "answers" to those questions can probably never be verified, which makes them pseudo-answers.

If you like quotes, here's one of my favourites:

"Anyone, in answer to the difficult questions in life, the big questions, who gives you an easy bullshit answer, and you go 'Well, do you have any evidence for that?' and they go 'Ah, there is more to life than evidence', get in the fucking sack." - Dara Ó Briain

leftrightleft wrote:To summarize the responses so far as to why the universe is rationally intelligible which do not involve a deity:

1) It is impossible for the universe to be any other way (suggested by Post #3)
2) The universe is not necessarily rationally intelligible and therefore asking "why" is premature (suggested by Post #32)
3) I don't know (suggested by a variety of posts)

My response is

4) I don't care, and neither should you.

The observable universe is so vast and so fascinating, a lifetime is not enough to learn everything we already know about it, and who knows what's still out there waiting to be discovered. Life is short, don't waste your time navel gazing and focus on questions that are answerable.

Cito di Pense wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:I'm doing my master's in geophysics using the method of magnetotellurics. In magnetotellurics, there is what we call a "plane wave assumption". This means that we assume that the incident source electromagnetic wave is planar and refracts with a direction perpendicular to the surface of the earth. This assumption was heavily debated in the 1960s. The assumption was first proposed by Cagniard (1953). Wait (1954) and Price (1962) contested this plane wave assumption and stated that we must instead use spherical wave sources in magnetotelluric exploration. However, the debate was seemingly settled by Madden & Nelson (1963) when they showed that the assumption was justified.

Your mistake, dude. In your above example, a hypothesis about something observable was confirmed by observations. Surprise!

No, an assumption was justified under certain circumstances. If the station spacing between magnetotelluric soundings is very large or the frequencies of observation are very low, then the assumption is no longer justified and spherical waves are required.

It was mathematical equations that justified the assumptions. Not observation.

What kind of observations do you think apply to the question in your OP?

I just read an article the other day that suggested physicists may have a way for testing for parallel universes. If it was shown that we lived in one universe among many, then that may be an explanation for why our universal laws are the way they are. It would also raise the possibility of other parallel universes existing which do not conform at all to our expectations of rational intelligibility. If this was the case then, like my magnetotellurics example, we would be able to justify our assumption only under certain circumstances. For example, we would only be able to justify our physical laws if we were studying our universe specifically, but those laws would be invalid in other universes.

There could also theoretically be tests made for the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (although it seems unfalsifiable maybe...). Physicists are constantly pushing the boundaries to find out what (or if) anything happened prior to the Big Bang. They are constantly trying to figure out why the universe's "laws" are the way they are. I think its one of the great questions of science of the 21st century.

Link: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/565315/Scientists-at-Large-Hadron-Collider-hope-to-make-contact-with-PARALLEL-UNIVERSE-in-days

leftrightleft wrote:2) The universe is not necessarily rationally intelligible and therefore asking "why" is premature (suggested by Post #32)

The universe is observed to be rationally intelligble. Do you think that implies there must be an answer for every plaintive question that comes out of a human brain? Yep, that's the God you're looking for, lurking in the background.

I didn't make the suggestion, it was another poster that made it (Post #32). You would have to take it up with them.

Based on the retread question you've asked in this thread, I'd seriously think about seeking another line of work if I were thou.

I think many physicists, scientists, cosmologists and philosophers are asking the question as well. It has been asked before so I recognize it is a retread but I'm new to the forum and wanted to hear some opinions. It is an awesome question and whoever is able to answer it will be considered the new Einstein.

Btw, I'm not a theist. I'm an agnostic.

Cito di Pense wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:Regardless, this unfortunately doesn't have much to do with the original question as we got a bit de-railed here.

Know what, leftrightleft, you went ahead anyway and responded to it point by point. My guess is that you love this shit for its own sake, and that you don't seriously expect an answer to your original question. You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything.

I tried to keep my answers short.

I have received some good answers to the question posed in this thread and I thanked those that gave good answers. The bulk of this thread has been devoted to me trying to explain my question to posters that misinterpreted or misunderstood it.

leftrightleft wrote:Answers that do not involve God == atheistic answers.

You've made a logical error mixed up with a semantic error here. You have no way of knowing that an answer that does not mention God comes from a theistic or atheistic discourse, unless you can say why you think so, and even then, your justification could be bullshit. Your subtext is coming into view. What your statement betrays is that you identify not mentioning God with atheism, which is total crap. You really should go home, think this over, and come back when you're better-prepared.

What better way to identify an atheistic statement than a statement that doesn't involve deity???

leftrightleft wrote:
What better way to identify an atheistic statement than a statement that doesn't involve deity???

Because it might be a statement about automobiles. I'm sorry if you find such simple relationships confusing.

If you find that the state of this universe has to do with the dynamics of multiple universes, then you'll soon be asking why the dynamics of multiple universes is the way it is. This is either an unending quest or terminated by a brute fact, as already pointed out to you. Let us know when there's a theory that makes predictions upon which you can comment, and just comment on them, instead of asking aimless 'why' questions.

Like statements about automobiles, statements about universes are not about deities, unless you assume the brute fact is a deity. If you're an agnostic, what's the basis of your agnosticism? Worry that you might be wrong about something?

Just because questions are asked does not mean answers can be given so am more than happy to accept no answer if that is the best at any particular time. I particularly dislike this tendency to dismiss evidence and proof or even logic and reason in favour of something significantly less rigorous when it come to explaining how the universe functions. Science does not have all the answers but as a discipline it is way superior to any other in trying to objectively determine so called physical reality The scientific method is brutal and uncompromising because it has to be. Since if it were easy then it would not be doing its job. Reality is as reality is not as we want it to be. Now if every single adult on the planet learned this one simple fact right now how much consciousness raising could be achieved. Never going to happen of course but as long as there are some of us who strive to understand physical reality from as objective a position as is possible then there is hope. Now this matters not in the grand scheme of things but it does matter in the here and now

Pulsar wrote:
Here's the problem: there's no such thing as "first principles". Whatever your starting point, someone can come along and starts nagging "and where did those principles come from?" You need to start somewhere, and the only rational starting point is our observable universe.

Another poster has suggested that there could be two scenarios into how "first principles" operate: 1) turtles all the way down or 2) some base "brute fact" which is self-evidently true.

When you are performing any functional task, you need to start somewhere. The engineer that builds the bridge needs a bridge built and he can't sit there thinking about why the laws of physics work. I agree.

However, I don't see any reason to not question if some "deeper layer" of first principles exists. In our current physics/cosmology, one of the big questions is trying to figure out if there is some "deeper layer" which governs why the universal constants are at the values they are at.

We don't know where the universe comes from, we don't know if there are other universes, we don't know why the laws of physics are the way they are. We don't even know if those questions make sense. And any "answers" to those questions can probably never be verified, which makes them pseudo-answers.

Many scientists today are trying to probe those exact questions. If you ignore them, then you will be left behind as knowledge progresses. We don't know the "true" answers to these questions, but there are possibilities, hypotheses, ideas, opinions which could be offered.

I'm asking for opinions, ideas, hypotheses. I'm not looking for answers because, as you said, we don't know the answers yet.

leftrightleft wrote:To summarize the responses so far as to why the universe is rationally intelligible which do not involve a deity:

1) It is impossible for the universe to be any other way (suggested by Post #3)
2) The universe is not necessarily rationally intelligible and therefore asking "why" is premature (suggested by Post #32)
3) I don't know (suggested by a variety of posts)

My response is

4) I don't care, and neither should you.

The observable universe is so vast and so fascinating, a lifetime is not enough to learn everything we already know about it, and who knows what's still out there waiting to be discovered. Life is short, don't waste your time navel gazing and focus on questions that are answerable.

(emphasis mine)

I think these questions are answerable and are currently being investigated by scientists all over the world.

The bolded bit is precisely why I asked this thread question. Who knows what's out there waiting to be discovered? A question which you claim is unanswerable might be answered tomorrow.

leftrightleft wrote:
Many scientists today are trying to probe those exact questions. If you ignore them, then you will be left behind as knowledge progresses. We don't know the "true" answers to these questions, but there are possibilities, hypotheses, ideas, opinions which could be offered.

Please don't assume you're not talking to people who might know a heck of a lot more cosmology than you do. You seem aware of research on these fronts, but your inattention to detail doesn't convince me that you should be worrying if members of your audience are being left behind by anything but your aimless wibble.

leftrightleft wrote:
I'm asking for opinions, ideas, hypotheses. I'm not looking for answers because, as you said, we don't know the answers yet.

If you weren't more interested in bullshitting, you'd be over at a physics forum asking your questions.

leftrightleft wrote:A question which you claim is unanswerable might be answered tomorrow.

And what if it is? Physicists will be on to asking some other question. You know the drill.

Cito di Pense wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:
What better way to identify an atheistic statement than a statement that doesn't involve deity???

Because it might be a statement about automobiles. I'm sorry if you find such simple relationships confusing.

Okay fair enough. But we aren't talking about automobiles. We're talking about a question that has often been framed in a theistic sense. So, in my OP, I wanted to make clear that I was looking for atheistic answers.

The topic of automobiles is not some philosophical question often framed in a certain theistic context. So, when talking about automobiles, the atheism/theism of the topic is irrelevant.

However, for this topic, I found that the atheism/theism of the topic is relevant and I tried to make that clear in the OP.

If you find that the state of this universe has to do with the dynamics of multiple universes, then you'll soon be asking why the dynamics of multiple universes is the way it is. This is either an unending quest or terminated by a brute fact, as already pointed out to you. Let us know when there's a theory that makes predictions upon which you can comment, and just comment on them, instead of asking aimless 'why' questions.

Asking why questions is vital for science and vital to increasing our knowledge! If it were shown tomorrow that the state of our universe has to do with the dynamics of multiple universes, I would not be the first one to be asking why that is so! As you say, it may just be a "turtles all the way down" where you can always keep asking more questions. Or it could terminate at some as-yet-undiscovered fact.

I'm not sure if such an "aimless why question" exists. We can (and should) always ask why something is the way it is. Questions of why have driven the advancement of science:

"Why do ships disappear hull first over the horizon?" --> earth is round
"Why do lunar eclipses happen?" --> moon revolves around earth, earth revolves around sun
"Why do certain stars follow different patterns than the other stars" --> planets orbit the sun
"Why do things fall towards the Earth?" --> mass posseses an attractive force
"Why did Michelson and Morley experiment fail?" --> speed of light is constant in all reference frames
"Why does light have qualities of particles and waves?" --> wave particle duality / quantum mechanics
"Why is the universe expanding?" ---> ??? dark matter? cosmological constant?
"Why are physical constants the numbers they are?" ---> ??? MWI? Multiverse theories? Anthropic principle?
etc.

Like statements about automobiles, statements about universes are not about deities, unless you assume the brute fact is a deity.

(emphasis mine)

This is exactly why I framed the question the way I did. Because I didn't want people responding with the "God" as a "brute fact" answer.

Cito di Pense wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:
I'm asking for opinions, ideas, hypotheses. I'm not looking for answers because, as you said, we don't know the answers yet.

If you weren't more interested in bullshitting, you'd be over at a physics forum asking your questions.

Maybe I just asked in the wrong forum. As I said, I'm new here. Haven't posted much.

I actually did post another thread in the physics forum which said, "Is the Many Worlds Interpretation falsifiable?" but I didn't get many responses so I started a new, more broad thread here to see if more people would respond.

leftrightleft wrote:A question which you claim is unanswerable might be answered tomorrow.

And what if it is? Physicists will be on to asking some other question. You know the drill.

Yup. They will be on to asking some new "why" question which will then be ridiculed as "aimless" or "unanswersable".

leftrightleft wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:What better way to identify an atheistic statement than a statement that doesn't involve deity???

Because it might be a statement about automobiles. I'm sorry if you find such simple relationships confusing.

Okay fair enough. But we aren't talking about automobiles. We're talking about a question that has often been framed in a theistic sense. So, in my OP, I wanted to make clear that I was looking for atheistic answers.

Why didn't you post your 'question' in a science forum and make clear you were looking for scientific answers, or post in a philosophy forum and make clear you were looking for non-theistic philosophical answers? You posted in a "NonTheism" forum. Pondering how the universe is intelligible has nothing to do with atheistic (or theistic) answers, and here's why:

This whole mess need have nothing to do with theism or atheism if you first ponder where the notion of deities comes from in the first place, as long as you don't squint your eyes and go all mystical on us. Either 1) deities are fictional characters invented by non-scientific primitives who lacked even a germ theory of disease or 2) the notion of deities is a marvelous apprehension that funnels through the marvelous substance metaphysicians (who lack any coherent theory about anything) call 'consciousness'.

Possibility 1 is based on stuff we can observe, and possibility 2 is based on pure speculation that won't be anywhere near meaningful until some idiot savant finally bends a fucking spoon with it. When that happens (and only when), the questions about sensus divinatus will have some foundation for further pursuit. Which one do you think is more appealing to a scientist?

leftrightleft wrote:However, for this topic, I found that the atheism/theism of the topic is relevant and I tried to make that clear in the OP.

Well, I just explained to you why I think that atheism/theism is not relevant. Didja follow that, or do you need the Cliff's Notes?

leftrightleft wrote:

If you find that the state of this universe has to do with the dynamics of multiple universes, then you'll soon be asking why the dynamics of multiple universes is the way it is. This is either an unending quest or terminated by a brute fact, as already pointed out to you. Let us know when there's a theory that makes predictions upon which you can comment, and just comment on them, instead of asking aimless 'why' questions.

Asking why questions is vital for science and vital to increasing our knowledge! If it were shown tomorrow that the state of our universe has to do with the dynamics of multiple universes, I would not be the first one to be asking why that is so! As you say, it may just be a "turtles all the way down" where you can always keep asking more questions. Or it could terminate at some as-yet-undiscovered fact.

Nope, you're actually wrong, here, and Pulsar advised you as to why that is. Science progresses by asking answerable questions based on the current state of existing theory, and not by asking pointless wibble questions such as "why is the universe intelligible?"

leftrightleft wrote:I'm not sure if such an "aimless why question" exists. We can (and should) always ask why something is the way it is. Questions of why have driven the advancement of science:

"Why do ships disappear hull first over the horizon?" --> earth is round
"Why do lunar eclipses happen?" --> moon revolves around earth, earth revolves around sun
"Why do certain stars follow different patterns than the other stars" --> planets orbit the sun
"Why do things fall towards the Earth?" --> mass posseses an attractive force
"Why did Michelson and Morley experiment fail?" --> speed of light is constant in all reference frames
"Why does light have qualities of particles and waves?" --> wave particle duality / quantum mechanics
"Why is the universe expanding?" ---> ??? dark matter? cosmological constant?
"Why are physical constants the numbers they are?" ---> ??? MWI? Multiverse theories? Anthropic principle?
etc.

Well, you may be an incurable romantic, and may have spent too much time poking around in popularized treatments of cosmology. That's a fine hobby, but it hasn't (apparently) led you to ask questions with any focus whatsoever. Stick with magnetotellurics, and read popular treatments of cosmology for entertainment. All those questions you pose as "why" questions are easily recast as "how" questions. Does the speed of light in a vacuum vary with direction, and if so, how? Does the metric of spacetime vary, and if so, how? Under what circumstances does EM radiation interact with matter like a wave, and under what circumstances like a particle? The duality in those terms is a brute fact, and we know exactly how the scale of the experiment determines that. Next? You could take it all and go back to asking why all those relations are the way they are, but it's not productive. It's infantile.

Cito di Pense wrote:... Either 1) deities are fictional characters invented by non-scientific primitives who lacked even a germ theory of disease or 2) the notion of deities is a marvelous apprehension that funnels through the marvelous substance metaphysicians (who lack any coherent theory about anything) call 'consciousness'.

Aside: your use of the word, "consciousness" in the above sentence explains the long and nasty misundestanding we had a few years ago. Worryingly, you still seem to think that the "C" word has no other connotations than that.

Gosh, it goes directly from muddled to fuddled without even pausing at fuckwitted on the way. Allow me to correct your post so that you can see your error:

leftrightleft wrote:"By what mechanism do ships disappear hull first over the horizon?" --> earth is round
"By what mechanism do lunar eclipses happen?" --> moon revolves around earth, earth revolves around sun
"By what mechanism do certain stars follow different patterns than the other stars" --> planets orbit the sun
"By what mechanism do things fall towards the Earth?" --> mass posseses an attractive force
"By what mechanism did Michelson and Morley experiment fail?" --> speed of light is constant in all reference frames
"By what mechanism does light have qualities of particles and waves?" --> wave particle duality / quantum mechanics
"By what mechanism is the universe expanding?" ---> ??? dark matter? cosmological constant?
"By what mechanism are physical constants the numbers they are?" ---> ??? MWI? Multiverse theories? Anthropic principle?
etc.

As you can see, if you have more than two functioning neurons (I make no assumptions here, justified or otherwise*), the semantic content remains unchanged by this substitution, yet this substitution shows quite clearly that these are all 'how' questions, and we're back to this idiotic bollocks already having been addressed.

*I'm with Cito on this one; if it's justified, it isn't an assumption.

I should note about the bold that neither of these is a candidate for the mechanism behind the expansion of the cosmos. The former is a placeholder for the observed fact that the stars on the outer edges of many small galaxies are orbiting much faster than they should if the only source of gravity is the matter we can observe via electromagnetic interaction/emission. The latter is a fudge for general relativity that happens to serve nicely in the equations thereof as a variable denoting the rate of expansion/contraction of the cosmos. The big bang is perfectly sufficient an explanation for the expansion of the cosmos. What it doesn't serve well as is an explanation for why the rate of expansion seems to have varied, and indeed is varying as we speak. No 'constant' can ever serve as a variable, for reasons that should be fairly clear to anybody engaged in a masters in a STEM field, but the name for that term as a matter of historical contingency has stuck. Einstein was right to call it a blunder, despite what the romanticists might say about it. He had no justification for its insertion other than that he didn't like the implications of his own conclusions.

A bit of an aside, but a more interesting one than the question in the OP, which is fallacious guff.

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:... Either 1) deities are fictional characters invented by non-scientific primitives who lacked even a germ theory of disease or 2) the notion of deities is a marvelous apprehension that funnels through the marvelous substance metaphysicians (who lack any coherent theory about anything) call 'consciousness'.

Aside: your use of the word, "consciousness" in the above sentence explains the long and nasty misundestanding we had a few years ago. Worryingly, you still seem to think that the "C" word has no other connotations than that.

What's worrying about it, David? Have you lingering concerns that there yet remain heathens unconverted by David's Gospel of Neurowibble? I haven't got enough fingers and toes to count the times your ship of pseudoscience has run aground, and you keep rowing like mad because you can feel the sand moving.

leftrightleft wrote:
I am not sure if an aimless why question exists. We can ( and should ) always ask why
something is the way it is. Questions of why have driven the advancement of science

Although why and how questions are interchangeable with regard to science it becomes complicated if you
employ both so just stick to how instead. So science is not interested in why questions as it leaves them to
philosophy. Although it might not necessarily be able to answer them. But this is not actually relevant here

Cito di Pense wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:... Either 1) deities are fictional characters invented by non-scientific primitives who lacked even a germ theory of disease or 2) the notion of deities is a marvelous apprehension that funnels through the marvelous substance metaphysicians (who lack any coherent theory about anything) call 'consciousness'.

Aside: your use of the word, "consciousness" in the above sentence explains the long and nasty misundestanding we had a few years ago. Worryingly, you still seem to think that the "C" word has no other connotations than that.

What's worrying about it, David? Have you lingering concerns that there yet remain heathens unconverted by David's Gospel of Neurowibble? I haven't got enough fingers and toes to count the times your ship of pseudoscience has run aground, and you keep rowing like mad because you can feel the sand moving.

You haven't changed much, I see. Nor have you learned the meanings of "consciousness". Look it up.

surreptitious57 wrote:

leftrightleft wrote:
I am not sure if an aimless why question exists. We can ( and should ) always ask why
something is the way it is. Questions of why have driven the advancement of science

Although why and how questions are interchangeable with regard to science it becomes complicated if you
employ both so just stick to how instead. So science is not interested in why questions as it leaves them to
philosophy. Although it might not necessarily be able to answer them. But this is not actually relevant here

The problem is slightly more subtle than that, and often lost on even scientists. 'Why' can be cast in two ways, namely 'for what reason' and 'by what mechanism'. LRL's objection, cast as it is, essentially commits a fallacy of equivocation, because science is only interested in one of those ways, not least because the other commits another fallacy, namely the fallacy of begging the question. Having a reason is teleological, while having a mechanism is functional. Science is interested in function in this respect, not teleology, because teleology cannot be determined or assumed and has no epistemological value. Only mechanism is useful to science, and all mechanism questions are really 'how' questions. Casting them as 'why' questions simply makes them ambiguous, which is why, in rigorous circles, the tendency is to talk about 'how' questions and exclude 'why' questions. It saves this idiotic line of discourse having to occur every time somebody gets on the operational side of a lab door, to return the favour in paraphrasing an esteemed colleague.

Absolutely so since why pertains to ontology and how pertains to epistemology. But in every day usage non
scientists and non philosophers use them interchangeably. And probably without actually being aware of it
And this is a classic example of why semantics is very important especially with regard to written language

Rumraket wrote:I don't think it is. There are facts about the universe I alteady don't understand. That's it case closed.

Classic tit-for-tat strategy - YOU WIN!!