| Subject: My final word on the matter |
Author:
Ben
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Date Posted: 06/15/05 8:04am
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "I thought you might" on 06/14/05 11:59am
Wade,
This will be my final word on the matter. I think we are going in circles, and in some ways have been for a while now. We keep saying the same things in different ways, perhaps thinking that the other person hasn't truly understood our points. For myself, I believe I have truly understood your points, but I continue to disagree with them.
Rather than go through this post point-by-point, I want to reiterate my main points over the course of these posts. When you first posted, you said:
"First I must commend you for acknowledging ex nihilo nhil fit. However, I must point out that the last half of your sentence is a non sequitur."
I continue to disagree with this point. You sometimes seem to feel that by using logic, you can make people agree with your points, but that isn't the case. Logic isn't a magician's trick, and it will only work if it is built on something with evidence. There is no evidence to support your idea of "existence outside time," and I have seen you present absolutely zero evidence on this matter. Your only evidence seems to be that an infinite universe (according to you) is impossible, so there must be some alternative, so you need to make up something that no one has ever seen any reason to think exists. That isn't evidence. I continue to think that an infinite universe may in some form or fashion be possible, but beyond our current field of scientific knowledge. Even if it isn't, just because you can create "logical" alternatives doesn't mean I have to give them serious consideration unless they have some evidence to support them.
Since I see no evidence for my theory that our universe was caused by a cat in another universe falling off a building, and I see no evidence for your idea of existence outside time, I continue to say that I have not presented a false dilemma. In my view of the universe, my dilemma still stands. Until enough evidence is gathered to warrant a third alternative, there are only two.
This is really all I have to say about this. I've explained myself as best I can, and that's all I can really do. I respect your right to believe that beings can exist outside time, as I have a very good friend who is a doctorate in philosophy who believes the same thing. Nevertheless, I cannot see any reason to rationally assent to something I have zero evidence or proof for. It reminds me of the way some Christians automatically attribute anything they don't understand to the workings of God. Then science will fill in that hole, so they have to move God to some other mystery. I think that eventually, we may gather enough scientific evidence to either (a) understand how an infinite universe really is possible, or (b) see how something really can come from nothing. Although these both violate our current understanding of the universe, it is easier for me to rely on the future discoveries of science than to make up something out of thin air that I have no evidence for and no reason to even think is possible.
Basically, whether one thinks as I do above or the way you do, one is forced to believe that some part of our current scheme of the universe is wrong... you choose to believe that beings can exist outside time. I am unwilling to make that jump, so I choose to think that in the future, as I have seen it do so many times already, science will discover an explanation that will force us to change the way we understand our universe, but will solve the problem at hand.
Until then, I am content to wonder.
Ben
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