No. I listened to it now, and might have heard it differently. It’s at around 30 minutes. There’s a funny part where the interviewer tries to set up a question, a choice of three doors; believe in God, don’t believe in God, or be agnostic. Gervais doesn’t let him finish, saying the agnostic choice doesn’t belong in the category. So, I get the part about you should know yourself, and know if you believe. But agnosticism is more about understanding that we can’t prove non-existence of something, it’s not that you are on the fence about believing.
Dawkins adds that you can be uncertain about belief, but that doesn’t mean he’s 50/50 on it, he says he thinks there is more like a 1% chance that God exists. That’s a belief statement.
[quote=“lausten, post:621, topic:7931”]
But agnosticism is more about understanding that we can’t prove non-existence of something, it’s not that you are on the fence about believing.
Right, it is not a belief.
Dawkins adds that you can be uncertain about belief, but that doesn’t mean he’s 50/50 on it, he says he thinks there is more like a 1% chance that God exists. That’s a belief statement.
I still disagree with that. Believing in a chance is not a belief. It is still "I don’t know, but…maybe?
Gervais is still correct. The reality is that regardless of belief, no one really knows for a fact that god exists and is therefore a-gnostic.
Lets try this…I’ll assume that you concur with the understanding that time and space are ACTUALLY a continuum.
What I’ve I’ve been suggesting throughout this entire conversation is that this understanding applies to Things and No-Things…to Where and No-Where…to How and Why…Animate and In-Animate…
For me that is the meaning of Entirety/Reality-as-it-actually-is/Wuji/the Tao/God/…
The nature of Nature is the undivided Whole of it.
No, you cannot think of things and nothings. Outside of spacetime is NOTHING, a timeless, dimensionless condition. NOTHING cannot exist as part of a wholeness.
Wholeness as a thing exists only as spacetime .
[quote=“lausten, post:626, topic:7931”]
IDK. If I wanted to know, I’d go somewhere like this.
Outside spce-time | Physics Forums
Matter can only exist in space-time, so outside space there is nothing, but since space-time is in “nothing” would our existence be a paradox?
I didn’t say “as a part of wholeness”. Is time a part of spacetime? Other than for us looking at it from the our localized perspectives. Those localized perspectives themselves being relative aspects of the universal continuum.
Question: When you say “No, you cannot think of things and nothings.”, what do you base the assertion on? Since I obviously do. Though I’m not saying that my abstracted conception IS the continuum.
As Anil Seth explained, thinking is the ability of your brain to interpret sensory data and make a best guess of what it is that data represents.
“A controlled hallucination”
If the senses have no external stimulation there is no data that the brain can interpret, as when under anesthesia and the brain enters a state of oblivion.
That is where you find “nothingness”, the total absence of all thoughts.
Can you voluntarily enter a state of oblivion?
Note that in sensory deprivation chambers, extended absence of sensory stimulation causes involuntary uncontrolled hallucinations and eventual madness.
How does any of that apply to the universal continuum of which the spacetime continuum along with our body/mind complex are co-emergent characteristics?
I of course want to get you to acknowledge that there is no something without nothing. The relationship being in seamless continuum.ॐ
[quote=“brmckay, post:631, topic:7931”]
How does any of that apply to the universal continuum of which the spacetime continuum along with our body/mind complex are co-emergent characteristics?
Because nothingness cannot be experienced , unless there is total oblivion.
I of course want to get you to acknowledge that there is no something without nothing. The relationship being in seamless continuum.
It can be reasoned and described, but IMO, nothingness cannot be consciously experienced. Your brain is not equipped to function without input. Your brain is a brain in a vat. No input, no output.
Take a computer and turn it on . Then do not feed any information, what do you get? “Nothing in , Nothing out”.
Our minds may also be “there,” or any place other than the present situation—they may travel to an upcoming vacation, a favorite memory, or even a to-do list as the morning commute turns into a traffic jam or the staff meeting becomes a tedious exercise in endurance. At other times, our minds may go to a third place—neither here nor there, but nowhere. There may be times when our minds are blank .
more…Mind-blanking: when the mind goes away - PMC
Seriously?! Enough with the humanist dogma…Relativity indicates that existence is self referencing.
.ie. existence IS experience.
This is not something that somehow waits to happen 13.7 billion years AFTER the big bang.
All phenomena co-arising seamlessly in interdependent synchronicity means that our ACTUAL nature is the nature of Nature. Knower and Known not ACTUALLY being something different.
Meanwhile you insist that measuring everything against ego’s maze of expectations, and presumptions of being a separate autonomous Self sums up Reality.
[quote=“brmckay, post:633, topic:7931”]
Meanwhile you insist that measuring everything against ego’s maze of expectations, and presumptions of being a separate autonomous Self sums up Reality.
Yes, your consciousness is not part of the universe, it emerges from your very specific mathematical complex brain pattern. Your consciousness is an emergent property of physical brain processes, not exposure to nothingness.
[quote=“brmckay, post:633, topic:7931”]
.ie. existence IS experience.
Your existence is your experience. But you cannot experience nothingness because then you would have ceased to exist and your experience along with it.
And that is also the refutation of “heaven”.
You do not occupy a spacetime coordinate in nothingness.
You keep claiming that you are addressing true unadulterated reality as it is, but you are proposing abstractions that are completely unattainable.
It is utterly impossible for you as a physical entity to experience true nothingness. It’s interesting but it’s make believe.
Sorry, that was a hasty AND wrong answer on my part.
I meant to agree with you that your existence is your experience. The rest I explained above.
I respect your personal relationship with Nature and the Universe. We are just talking in theoretical terms, no?
Interaction does not necessarily involve “knowing” at all.
Input → Function → Output is not a conscious operation. It is a deterministic operation.
Because deterministic operations use generic natural mathematical functions there is an appearance of intelligence, but that is only a quasi-intelligent mathematical operation.
IMO, the universe operates in accordance with and guided by generic mathematical relational values. This does not require consciousness.
In a deterministic system, decisions are not made, they are imposed by the prevailing mathematical forces present . ( see David Bohm)
And I never said that consciousness begins after 13.7 billion years with humans.
On earth it began with the first living organisms that were dependent on and had to gather their energy from the environment. That’s when consciousness started to evolve.
Okay, that works for you, but not me.
Regarding the personal god, I know such a being does not exist.
Personal Gods are the product of the human mind. It’s that simple.
No “I don’t know” about it, for me.
Earth, Biology over time has simply filled my mind and there’s no need for anything beyond, that’s probably also why I’m so cynical about Math as the answer to everything, or the search for deeper dimensions of reality, it’s just different versions of the human desperation for a sense of certainty - I don’t believe in certainty, I don’t believe in “Truth”, I do believe in Honesty, and doing the best we can with what we have.
That’s what immersion into (and appreciation for) the full scope of Evolution will do to a person’s mind and outlook.
Why are you complimenting us?
brmckay, left the building of his own volition.
He got frustrated, but made no attempt to up his game.
Learning and growing is tough.
Brmckay kept reminding me of the time I attended college part-time and had access to a Writing Lab with volunteers who believed in tough love. I’d walk in there with a first draft I was sure was genius, I tell you genius, then hand it over to a tutor, who would proceed to tear the poop out of it. Always nicely worded, remembering the positive, but never overlooking the weaknesses. Usually including some very incisive questions that were worthing hanging onto and resolving.
I’d walk out of that place utterly depressed and disheartened, but not offended, because offense was never intended. I asked them for their best shot and they delivered. Then it was think, and rewrite, rewrite, then try again, and again.
By and by, my pieces would improve many fold. Perhaps I got a bit of the masochist in me, but I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like getting one of those hardened tutors to shed a few tears reading a final draft, made all the misery worth it.
Brmckay’s failure was that he took his own glowing self-assessment too seriously and then got all offended when others pointed out weaknesses. Rather than absorbing the critique and learning from it. I’m disappointed he took his ball and ran off, but it’s a reflection on him, not us.
