Announcement

Collapse

Apologetics 301 Guidelines

If you think this is the area where you tell everyone you are sorry for eating their lunch out of the fridge, it probably isn't the place for you


This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.


Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

Nobody Dies for a Lie

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    No, if something changes it it isn't unchanged, any more.




    Well no, it isn't unchanging(or perhaps unchanged is a better word for it?) any more. But it was unchanged prior to the change.

    We might be operating under different understanding of the word. I'm simply taking unchanging to mean that no prior state of events exists where that something is different to what it currently is. I'm beginning to think the word "unchanged" captures the meaning I'm intending more accurately.

    I don't think I can provide any non-controversial examples of something that is unchanging, but changes, at least not if you're looking for real world examples. I can only provide thought experiments and hypotheticals. I can for example, envision a state of existence that contain the sufficient conditions within itself to change, but are timeless in the sense that no state of existence exists prior to it. In other words, it has not undergone any change what so ever to get to the point to which it is, so it is by definition unchanged. But it will not continue being unchanged, since if the sufficient conditions for change exists, then that change will necessarily occur.

    Let's say for example, that we imagine a state of existence which contained a ball, a slope and and everything else necessary for these objects to interact with each other like they do in the real world. If the ball sat on top of the slope then all the sufficient conditions for it to start rolling down the slope would exist. And if no prior state of events existed where the ball did not sit on top of the slope existed, it would by definition be an unchanged state of existence, as per the understanding I gave above.

    Again, we might be talking past each other with the way we're using the word "unchanging". I'm simply using it in the sense of "unchanged" i.e if something is unchanged it hasn't undergone any change to get to the state it's currently in, but you're apparently using the word "unchanging" in a different sense.
    I think so too - I'm using "unchanging" as an attribute of a system, not as a temporary description. You may also be neglecting the timelessness aspect, since you've referred to priorness.

    On another note, my mind is getting so saturated with the words "change", "unchanging" and "unchanged" that they're starting to lose their meaning to me.
    Maybe this exchange has changed your mind
    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Roy View Post
      I think so too - I'm using "unchanging" as an attribute of a system, not as a temporary description. You may also be neglecting the timelessness aspect, since you've referred to priorness.
      I don't I'm neglecting the timelessness aspect. At least I don't think so. I've only talked about "priorness" in reference to the word "unchanged", not in reference to the word "timeless", or "eternity" (except to deny that any prior moments exists before a timeless eternity).

      What I did was to claim that something is unchanged if there are no prior states of existence where that something was different from how it currently is (which should be non-controversial) and then I stated that since there are no states of existence prior to a timeless eternity, everything that exists in a timeless eternity is by definition unchanged.

      And I think it makes much more sense to talk about unchanging/unchanged as a temporary description rather than as an attribute of a system when it comes to a timeless eternity. I don't think "unchanging" as an attribute is required for something to exist in a state of timeless eternity, but rather it needs to be "unchanged" (in the temporary sense). If you want that something to persist in a state of timeless eternity, that's where unchanging as an attribute would be required.

      Originally posted by Roy View Post
      Maybe this exchange has changed your mind
      My mind remains changeless so far.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
        Well it is if what you’re discussing is an eternal natural universe vis-à-vis an eternal supernatural deity. But I'll leave you to it.
        We're discussing whether it's more appropriate to talk about something being unchanged rather than unchanging in the context of that something existing in a timeless eternity, and whether or not it's possible for that same something to undergo change if it exists in timelessness.

        Or at least that's what I think we're discussing.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
          We're discussing whether it's more appropriate to talk about something being unchanged rather than unchanging in the context of that something existing in a timeless eternity, and whether or not it's possible for that same something to undergo change if it exists in timelessness.
          OK. Well I'll leave you with the immortal words of Richard Dawkins: "It is nonsense to argue that something exists outside of space and time? When say something "exists", we mean that it can be observed, or its effects can be experienced in space and time. If one asserts that god exists "outside time," this leads to a conclusion that he couldn't do anything, including creating the universe, because time is the measure of change. If there is no time, there is no change. If there is no change, there is no action. If there is no action, there is no creation. If God were to exist outside of time, he would be impotent to do anything at all!"

          Or at least that's what I think we're discussing.
          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
            Oh, I'm aware that the belief that Special Relativity has proven that the passage of time is just an illusion. I happen to disagree. SR has proven no such thing. There is a certain interpretations of SR which would imply that the passage of time is just an illusion, but there is also a fully valid interpretation of SR (the neo-Lorentzian interpretation) where the passage of time is preserved as a reality. If we pick Einstein's interpretation and Lorentz's interpretation of SR, we see that they make exactly the same predictions for every experiment, so there is no experimental justification to pick Einstein's interpretation over Lorentz's.

            So whatever reason scientists have for picking Einstein's interpretation over Lorentz' it's not because of any empirical evidence, because the empirical evidence fits both interpretations just fine. And in my (admittedly non-knowledgeable) opinion it makes much more sense to choose the interpretation where absolute time and the passage of time (and not just the illusion of the passage of time) is preserved over the interpretation where it's not.

            As for quantum mechanics, I don't know what evidence of quantum mechanics is supposed to show that time is just an illusion, so you'll have to be more specific.
            Entangled particles across space and time.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by JimL View Post
              Entangled particles across space and time.
              And how exactly do they suggest time is just an illusion?

              Comment

              Related Threads

              Collapse

              Topics Statistics Last Post
              Started by whag, Yesterday, 03:01 PM
              14 responses
              42 views
              0 likes
              Last Post tabibito  
              Started by whag, 03-17-2024, 04:55 PM
              21 responses
              129 views
              0 likes
              Last Post Hypatia_Alexandria  
              Started by whag, 03-14-2024, 06:04 PM
              78 responses
              411 views
              0 likes
              Last Post tabibito  
              Started by whag, 03-13-2024, 12:06 PM
              45 responses
              303 views
              1 like
              Last Post Hypatia_Alexandria  
              Working...
              X