Whats the reason for this belief?

[Scrotum]

We all know that the majority of the worlds population is ´stupid´, to simplify. But how come so many educated people, with capacity to think, still believe in gods?

Instead of talking about gods specifically , i would like to use the Tooth Fairy as a substitute, as there is no difference, and shows the ridicule of the whole thing.

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Both John/Harvey & Otsent believe in the Tooth Fairy. Otsent believes in a specific Tooth Fairy, together with John, whom is more of a fundamentalist, Whiles Harvey is more close to a Different Tooth Fairy.

None of these people have any proof or logical based evidence for the existence of their Tooth Fairy. None at all. They simply state he or she exist, and thats the end of story.
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Why?
Personally, i always presumed the contemporary belief of a Tooth Fairy to be because of fear. Death is a scary thought for most people (remember, the general population is ignorant, and ignorance brings fear), and also the fact that you would be forced to take responsobility for your life,which the existence of the Tooth Fairy removes.


Whats your view?
Why do you think people believe in such things? Is there other reasons then fear and plain ignorance?

[OccamsRazor]

If someone wants to say that the Universe possesses a simple set of metaphysical laws that bring about this kind of complexity, then I think that they are pantheists and have moved over into a religious perspective.

I suggested a 15-D Universe which, by virtue of its topology, spontaneously spawns local 11-D string-based universes with topologies which create emregent physical laws and one of the multitude of those happens to be ours. When I postulated this as a possible theorem, you told me that this represented atheism not pantheism.
By this logic, how is pantheism distinguishable from atheism?

[QED]

Are you saying that the coincidences of the constants serve as uniquivocal evidence for the universe as an act of deliberate and purposeful construction?.

Yes.

Uniquivocal?

Now, let me clarify that by saying that one can always concoct a fantastic story to avoid adopting a religious view (which I guess is akin to pouring water on the Wicked Witch of the West), but if we follow up on those stories we see that they either reduce to accepting the religious view or are just absurdities.

So you say. But how can we take your word for it being absurd when we can't step outside this universe and see it in any greater context -- if there is indeed one. If there is isn't then you may have my blessing to invoke any diety of your choice and I'll start singing kumbaya along with you.

[Grumpy]

harvey1

That doesn't make any sense to me. How can the basic set of properties that "just were" able to undergo real change?

That's my point, they do not change and are self consistent whatever their origin(Contingency or selection rules). And since you(or I) have no way of determining whether the properties of the universe are the result of CA, Contingency or of some other selection process you are certainly not justified in discarding Contingency(or Atheism) as a possibility.

Grumpy

[harvey1]

If someone wants to say that the Universe possesses a simple set of metaphysical laws that bring about this kind of complexity, then I think that they are pantheists and have moved over into a religious perspective.

I suggested a 15-D Universe which, by virtue of its topology, spontaneously spawns local 11-D string-based universes with topologies which create emregent physical laws and one of the multitude of those happens to be ours. When I postulated this as a possible theorem, you told me that this represented atheism not pantheism. By this logic, how is pantheism distinguishable from atheism?

When you presented the 15D Universe, you presented it as a brute fact. Pantheism requires there to be a guiding reason (e.g., unity) for the evolution of the universes contained in the 15D Universe that doesn't itself translate into a "formal unity." Formal unity is the notion that the material properties of the Universe restrict the degrees of freedom of the evolving universes (e.g., QED's lego example). Pantheism is distinguishable from atheism if the pantheist abides by something other than formal unity or the material properties (i.e., topological space/fields/particles/strings...) which establish the degrees of freedom along with the explanation as to why the Universe evolves as it does.

However, I don't think the suggestion that the Universe is a 15D space (as a brute fact) is rational (i.e., subject to logical inquiry). It suggests that there's no further inquiry that is possible and that we should just accept that a 15D Universe can produce universes when topologists could never show that to be the case. Clearly further assumptions of this brute fact are needed (e.g., the laws of quantum mechanics). All of this is based on the notion that these properties are not given to further rational inquiry despite the complex nature of what the atheist asks that we seriously consider to be the case.

I reject that on the grounds that I want to know why everything exists, and I find it distasteful that I'm being requested to believe that some complex features of the world do not have a scientific, or at least mathematical, explanation. I find that to be irrational.

[harvey1]

Uniquivocal?

Yes. The reason is because in order to concoct a story that explains those constants I eventually have to settle upon a fact that the world is irrational (as I mentioned to O.Razor). I find that distasteful to say the least.

So you say. But how can we take your word for it being absurd when we can't step outside this universe and see it in any greater context -- if there is indeed one. If there is isn't then you may have my blessing to invoke any diety of your choice and I'll start singing kumbaya along with you.

It's all epistemological turtles all the way down, QED. I realize that the world may be entirely irrational and that we are the poor saps because we have been slower than some to come to this fact. However, I reject that because I base my views on what is rational and not what might irrationally be the case. Everything must have an explanation, and if it doesn't, oh well, I was wrong. But, I think this is the epistemological stance of science and I think I'm in good company in demanding an explanation for everything. Epistemology all the way down!

[harvey1]

That's my point, they do not change and are self consistent whatever their origin(Contingency or selection rules). And since you(or I) have no way of determining whether the properties of the universe are the result of CA, Contingency or of some other selection process you are certainly not justified in discarding Contingency(or Atheism) as a possibility.

I think I am justified because a contingent scenario is based on the world being irrational, and therefore I say I am justified in rejecting any scenario that suggests that the world is altogether irrational. That's not to say that there might be some features that are rationally hard to comprehend (e.g., particle-wave duality, superposition, etc.), but those are rational concepts because they are given to further rational analysis (as hundreds of papers in quantum physics can attest). In the case of brute fact contingency, we are told that this complex state is not given to further rational inquiry in principle because contingency is irreducible by definition.

[Grumpy]

harvey1

I think I am justified because a contingent scenario is based on the world being irrational, and therefore I say I am justified in rejecting any scenario that suggests that the world is altogether irrational.

You may BELIEVE that contingency makes the world irrational, but that does not necessarily make contingency irrational. The point is WE DON"T KNOW whether a contingent universe is rational or irrational. Believe what you like, you've proven nothing, nor have you logically ruled out contingency or Atheism. Knowing nothing about what you are talking about(initial conditions, First Cause) YOU are irrational coming to any conclusions at all!!!

All these pages of posts on this subject come down to one "brute fact", if you will. What came "before" or was the First Cause for our universe is one of a few areas in the universe which we may never know, we certainly know NOTHING about it now. The very concept of "before" really has no meaning in this context! Anyone(be they Theoretical Physicist or Philosopher) who says they know enough about the First Cause(as a shorthand) to be justified in ruling out even unlikely scenarios is only fooling themselves. Philosophers can operate on such loose(nonexistent) standards of evidence(make it up, write it down), scientists have to know when to say "I don't know". In this case we don't yet know enough to rule out any scenario!!!

Grumpy

[QED]

It's all epistemological turtles all the way down, QED. I realize that the world may be entirely irrational and that we are the poor saps because we have been slower than some to come to this fact. However, I reject that because I base my views on what is rational and not what might irrationally be the case. Everything must have an explanation, and if it doesn't, oh well, I was wrong. But, I think this is the epistemological stance of science and I think I'm in good company in demanding an explanation for everything. Epistemology all the way down!

OK, I understand your point but here's the problem I continue to have with it: certainly we appear to be part of a rational world with a place for everything and everything in its place but the AP leads us to a definite ambiguity. The order in this universe can be explained equally by the direct action of a deity or as a contingency arising from some greater state space (greater in the sense of possibilities). Of course you know all this and counter it by taking the game a step further back, applying your instinctive need for rationality to the metauniverse state. But this is, I think, is a step too far to be using the same sort of logic.

I don't think it at all unreasonable to posit a metauniverse, but to go any further in describing how rational it would have to be seems problematic. For example, just as you point out that our universe might go "poof" in fifteen seconds time if it was irrational, so could the metauniverse -- but so what? This is why I originally raised the matter of independence. I think this takes us off the map as far as current physics is concerned so I can't share your enthusiasm for this universe being the product of any specific process. If it smacks of a cop-out then, like it or not, that's unfortunately how it has to be. It's in the nature of ambiguous things.

[OccamsRazor]

harvey,

Although I was hypothesising the 15D Universe without explanation I was not simply asking you to accept it popped into existence as a brute fact, I was making no mention as to how this 15D manifold came into being. My point is that you suggest that you are epistemically justified in saying how the Universe came to be, whereas I do not feel justified in saying how the Universe came into existence.

I reject that on the grounds that I want to know why everything exists

I've never really understood this question. Asking why the Universe exists pre-assumes that there is a reason for it, as if it were a machine to serve a purpose.
I may look up and see the constellation of Orion, I could then posit an exaplnation as to how the stars came to be and the likelihood of them forming in those places, asking why Orion is there seems utterly nonsensical.

I find it distasteful that I'm being requested to believe that some complex features of the world do not have a scientific, or at least mathematical, explanation.

I am not you to accept brute facts nor suggesting that the the Universe is explained by a non mathematical nor scientific process. I am merely saying that I do not feel it is justifiable to provide an explanation as to how the Universe came into being and how the physical constants came to be the values they are until we have a greater understanding or a better proveable hypothesis as to the natural laws.

[harvey1]

I don't think it at all unreasonable to posit a metauniverse, but to go any further in describing how rational it would have to be seems problematic. For example, just as you point out that our universe might go "poof" in fifteen seconds time if it was irrational, so could the metauniverse -- but so what? This is why I originally raised the matter of independence. I think this takes us off the map as far as current physics is concerned so I can't share your enthusiasm for this universe being the product of any specific process. If it smacks of a cop-out then, like it or not, that's unfortunately how it has to be. It's in the nature of ambiguous things.

Okay, I realize we hold different philosophical positions on this, and in order to make progress on this, let's get back to the issue on how this independence can come to exist. In this case, the baby universe has behavior that is fully dependent on the metauniverse, and if there are no necessitated laws that dictate the behavior of the metauniverse (just brute fact behavior), then how can there be independence from this general brute fact behavior of the metauniverse? It is like saying, in my opinion, that if the behavior of our universe suddenly changed, our galaxy would not experience these changes because our galaxy is independent from the larger universe. That seems absurd to me because our galaxy is part of the universe, just like our universe must be part of a metauniverse. If the whole system changes, then this affects the individual parts too.