51 comments
“when the realignment caused ten days to be subtracted from the year, mobs across Europe attacked Jesuit houses to protest the time stolen from them.”
Do we see these people among us today?
This resonated too:
“ He said, “Even scientists who don’t believe in God have to believe in ‘Oh, my God.”
> when the realignment caused ten days to be subtracted from the year, mobs across Europe attacked Jesuit houses to protest the time stolen from them
The outrage over the implementation of the Gregorian calendar had more to do with landlords in some areas charging a full month of rent for a month that lacked 11 days.
Almost invariably when large groups of people did something really dumb in the past, we just don't have the full story. Not wanting to pay 11 extra days for nothing is completely reasonable, as opposed to the portrayal of dummies going around with pitchforks because someone stole 11 days from their lives.
Amusing how some tendencies never really change no matter how much the superficial world changes.
Classic landlords!
Were their taxes due later? I would not be surprised if they also lost all 11 days of scheduled annual maintenance.
That has nothing to do with religion, beliefs or any validity of those. Just a phrase burned too deep into cranium over decades to dispose of it easily even if wanted. 'What the fuck' or other fuck variants are in same category.
I took it to mean that religious and non-religious scientists are drawn by the same sense of wonder at the cosmos.
I disagree with that. The phrase "Oh my God" expresses the surprise that there is something way larger, deeper and/or more powerful than the speaker imagined; this is the textbook definition of what God is.
Maybe this is a good place to post it because its about religion.
I didn't think you could have 2 existential crisis, but I did. First one was Religion -> Agnosticism... Second was:
Platonic Realism to Pragmatism.
I used to think there was something special about circles/Pi, I thought there was some force of nature that caused Capitalism, Darwinism, and IR Realism to win... No, these platonic forms/universals don't actually exist. I hear people talk about Love, Happiness, and Justice like there is a perfection available to us humans. They are under the platonic religion.
Today I realize these are constructs of human language, from Pi to Justice, there is no universal. Monism is a religion.
I highly recommend William James's Pragmatism. Its only a 2.5 hour audiobook and it basically created the idea of metaphilosophy.
But within any civilization that develops within the more than hundred billion plus galaxies (or even within the uncountable number of simulated universes), they’d discover circles, spheres, triangles, the Platonic solids, normal distributions, etc.
The notation and ascribed meaning will vary — but civilizations will likely discover natural numbers and specifically binary numbers and even use them (at least for some time in their development) for computation. Basic operations would also likely be discovered - just as they were on different sides of our own planet.
There would also be cybernetic feedback loops, where goals are measured and optimized for—- that’s a sort of platonic form.
These intelligible forms seem more basic to life and intelligence than even carbon or water.
Super happy to hear arguments otherwise!
What makes circles more special than a bunch of crumbs? Humans decided circles are interesting.
I am not denying analytical philosophy doesnt make true statements, but rather that there isnt anything mystical about these true statements. They are constructs of human language. There was no God that typed pi=3.14, but rather humans made 2pir = c true by developing a linguistical logic system where we have radius = 1 and c= 6.28.
Circles are easier to mathematically encode than crumbs, which are super complex.
Ease of encoding will be relevant to any living information processors.
You are speaking like you are afraid that there are real fundamental structures in the cosmos. And, that this has religious implications.
This isn't true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoperimetric_inequality
I'm not sure what point you are making. This is language too.
My argument is that ALL civilizations will discover circles. They aren’t human arbitrary. They are discoverable mathematical forms.
Discover? You mean name circles and claim that 2pir = c?
Do you think there is something special about 2*111 = 222?
Humans had to define every step from length of a line to the significance of roundness. Its all language.
We don't care about circles, because they are called "circles".
The universe is a 4D-system (at least). Objects have boundaries (i.e. not everything is endless). Some dimensions can be degenerated. Combining this results in 2D-shapes. When you have an attracting force tangential to the boundary and another force repelling in an arbitrary direction, voila you have a circle.
When you have an event. And the propagation speed doesn't change. Degrading to 2D, you get a circle.
Say you have mass, which is relatively unaffected by anything else, you also have gravity and a random little force in some arbitrary direction, this will result in an effect, which we call rotation. Given enough time, this will evolve into a circle.
Given you have already rotation, then you're looking for the form with which rotation becomes the identity function, voila you have again a circle.
None of those involves humans existing and caring about roundness. They are all properties of the universe.
What about the area that isnt part of the circle, is that a property of the universe?
What about when I drop crumbs on a table and they scatter, is there something special about their location?
Is there something more special about a circle than a triangle? Or a square?
And when you say its a property of the universe... what shape is that property? What color is it? If I give you a microscope, can you point me to the property? If it the same kind of property as gravity? Is it the same kind of property as when I say 'Capitalism is the most efficient economic system'?
Anyway, this is a question of ontology. You have an almost religious view of mathematical existances, but so do most non-philosophers. Plato corrupted us.
For further reading, Ontology is the greater branch, but William James's Pragmatism is only a 2.5 hour audiobook and basically caused the divide between your traditional Ontology, and analytical philosophy.
(As a preface, I like the discussion. I've known about moral relativism, but I've never heard the positions you are defending here.)
> What about the area that isn't part of the circle, is that a property of the universe?
Yeah a circle as an abstract concept about the shape of a boundary. The outer area is as much defining the circle as the inner.
> What about when I drop crumbs on a table and they scatter, is there something special about their location?
Yes, if you compare them to the original location, you maybe get some information about the speed, or about the size of gravitational force or the material of the table or the material of the crumbs.
> what shape is that property? What color is it?
I don't get that part, why should it be?
> If I give you a microscope, can you point me to the property?
If you give me an electron microscope I can show you the "shape" of an atom. A single atom is also a property of the universe, but that is not the kind of property we are talking about. But it is strange that they all look alike, isn't it? And that the shape is somehow similar to what the behaviour of the universe is, if you breath into soap water. That's what a circle is. It is a property about the universe. It exists also in the universe, but it is not a single thing.
> You have an almost religious view
What makes that religious?
It seams like you conclude from the fact that there are a lot of (not sure if infinite) properties of the universe, that none is really important? I don't agree with that. Also some properties are more truthy than others, not because they are somehow better or anything, but because you can infer all the others from them, because others are rehashes and combinations of them.
>It seams like you conclude from the fact that there are a lot of (not sure if infinite) properties of the universe, that none is really important?
Yeah thats basically it.
Analytical Philosophy can generate linguistically true statements. I just don't find "1 = 1" interesting. You are doing the same thing with 2 x pi x r = c. That really boils down to 1 = 1. I think this is useful, but I don't think there is ontologically anything more special about circles vs 1 = 1.
>If you give me an electron microscope I can show you the "shape" of an atom. A single atom is also a property of the universe, but that is not the kind of property we are talking about. But it is strange that they all look alike, isn't it?
You mean, using our detection mechanisms that convert data into something we can understand with human vision and brains? How do we know they are that shape, rather than a 5D string? How do we even know they have a shape, and its not just a failure of our detection mechanisms and its merely useful to imagine it with such a shape? Not to mention, what if all atoms are technically different and we are merely assigning it to be the same shape because we don't understand the differences yet?
Anyway, I reiterate, you are speaking like a Platonic Realist/Scientific Realist. The more modern understanding is withholding ontological beliefs and Instrumentationalism.
I may suggest talking to chatGPT about this. But otherwise maybe send an email or add it temporarily to your profile. I put my philosophy substack in my profile, I'll respond in detail to your thoughts via substack.
> Yeah thats basically it.
Good to know. I'm the opposite, knowing how large the universe is, makes me more curious.
> linguistically true
You seam to perceive any kind of statement as purely linguistical and not really about the thing itself. To me this seams like taking the map for the territory. This makes it hard to argue, because I want to express something about the nature of a thing, but you take it to mean the perception of a thing and seam to reject that the nature of a thing even exists?
> I just don't find "1 = 1" interesting. You are doing the same thing with 2 x pi x r = c. That really boils down to 1 = 1.
Yes that's a tautology. 2 x pi x r = c is a also tautological if that is what you defined c to be. That's obviously not useful. But that's not what the meaning of pi is. It is that r -> c is computable and how.
Yes you can claim that tools and perception aren't correct and giving you the truth. I think this leads to the idea that everything is just made-up by your mind and we are all just things your mind images that don't exist at all. This just means that everything is meaningless and nothing can be true at all.
But this idea has a fallacy. Everything you believe or make ideas is based on that you can perceive things a being real and truthfully. If you reject that you can just reject any insight INCLUDING the idea you just had. The idea can't be true, because you just rejected that truth exists. Everything humans do and think assumes that Laplace's daemon exists and that humans somehow participate in it. Without it there is no truth, no understanding, no thoughts; nothing is anymore.
> talking to ChatGPT
Yeah I refrain from that especially for things I don't know about, because I know how subtly incorrect it is about things I know about quite a bit. I also like to my correspondent having a grounding in reality.
You could have an existential crisis if you keep reading about ontology and epistemology. I'm 50/50. Def sad there is no universals, but its also liberating.
You would be classified as a Platonic Realist or Scientific Realist. I am a Fallibilist and Instrumentationalist. Its not that we are denying the usefulness of these claims, we are denying the certainty of our knowledge being divine.
If you want an extremely short book, easy to read, natively English, and the Magnum Opus of a field: Pragmatism by William James.
Separately:
>2 x pi x r = c is a also tautological if that is what you defined c to be. That's obviously not useful.
Idk, I find it useful.
I've read Wikipedia about William James, which includes a quote from "Pragmatism". It indeed seams to state the same you are claiming. That's how I perceive the argument:
We assume there is no absolute truth. (This is ex-ante, an assumption you can't argue about that.)
Therefore we take the word "truth" to mean "social consensus about facts". (Ok, but that's not truth, that is social consensus about facts.)
Given that we proclaim: "The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true [...]" (Yeah, that's consistent, but only because you redefined truth to mean exactly that.)
As you see, all the truths are simply random linguistic agreements; there can't be real absolute truth.
Ok, I can see that. But that will lead you to a reductio ad absurdum, because that's just a random thought you have, there is no reason, why I should accept it's the truth. I mean you just told me yourself that it is not the truth.
Also that is really a circular argument.
It doesnt really matter if Pragmatism is 'Truth'. Its useful. If its useful, use it. If its not useful, don't use it. There is no knowledge claim here.
It does matter if Platonic Realists are claiming circles are special properties that exist outside our universe. There is a knowledge claim here.
>I don't think knowledge is divine.
You are going to have the existential crisis. Your ontological and epistemological beliefs are about to converge on anti-realism.
I recommend again that book Pragmatism. You will personally benefit from learning about the flaws of Platonic Realism, Monism, and Universals. You will be able to answer questions more accurately.
I know I get book recommendations and I generally ignore them, but I will challenge you to read for ~5-10 minutes. I think you will be hooked:
What do you thing about what I claimed is a fallacy? Like, I think if you don't agree that your perception tells you about the truth, than you can also claim that you are a test tube brain and you won't be wrong. When there is no causality between what you are thinking and reality, your thoughts are just random ideas and don't mean anything. Heck, you don't even know causality exists, because you just don't know anything.
I think this ideas are quite well expressed in: C.S.Lewis "On living in an Atomic Age". For example: https://www.andybannister.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/csl...
(I find it a bit easier to understand in my translation, but that may only be the fact, that english isn't my mother tongue.)
> we are denying the certainty of our knowledge being divine
I don't think knowledge is divine. Knowledge is quite often wrong and incomplete. But that doesn't affect truth. Truth is independent of knowledge.
As for your last sentence, compare semantics and semiotics. They are not the same thing.
As for the others, consider "mathematics invention vs. discovery".
There certainly is something special about doubling and halving quantities. See "meiosis".
You are referring to 'Kinds'.
Humans classified all of these, and you are merely repeating the classification.
No? Lol? Accurate username?
But Pi seams to be a property of the universe, because it's occurring in a lot of statements about behaviours of the universe?
There is a longing in people for love, happiness and justice which seams to be universal through the earth population? And people think they would like it if the world was more like that, so they try to influence others so that it is more like that, what's wrong with that? Some people conclude that there must be an origin for that desire outside of humans and that gets the name god.
So I don't know what you mean? Where do you conclude from that this is not real?
>Pi seams to be a property of the universe
If you also agree 1 = 1 is a property of the universe, sure... But these are really just linguistic notations stacked upon each other until statements like 2pir = c are true.
I can write plenty of other true statements, I can make some strange irregular shape and prove the area of it.
>There is a longing in people for love, happiness and justice which seams to be universal through the earth population?
At a minimum moral relativism, between cultures, people, eras, organizations vs individuals seems absolutely true. At one point, being a pirate was honorable because it helped your community.
Sure mathematical expressions are expressions of a language, but the name of constants and how we describe them, isn't what matters.
It's the fact that a shape that has perfect symmetry in infinite directions, the effects of same weather phenomena we called lightning and the limit on information propagation (and million other things I just forgot about) all have a thing in common.
And all this is totally unrelated from our perception or even the existence of humans.
> just linguistic notations stacked upon each other until statements like 2*pi*r = c are true.
You can totally make sound linguistic notations, that just have no grounding in reality. It seams like you think it's only about the linguistic statement, but the language is invented to describe something that exists outside of it.
You find a circle interesting.
Do you also find ovals interesting? You find lightning interesting, but do you find a few atoms blowing in the wind interesting?
Why are some things more interesting than others?
> You find a circle interesting.
Yes, but finding something interesting is a thing that humans do, that's only relevant here if humans are the study object.
> Do you also find ovals interesting?
Yeah they are quite like a circle, but not exactly. Also why do planets "know" how to move? Why isn't it random?
> do you find a few atoms blowing in the wind interesting?
If have the time and the means to study them and I can learn something through that, then sure?
> Why are some things more interesting than others?
To us humans? Because some things are more accessible than others, some things are more generalisable than others, some things are more useful than others. Humans are curious, they like to know properties about things. Why? I have no explanation grounded in natural-science, (only in economics, behavioral science and religion). But that doesn't matter, because these properties stay true no matter what we do. Humans can't know them all, because we are finite and only have access to limited resources.
It's just that these things exist. And they behave. And they are describable by descriptions that are way simpler then they are large. These are complex systems and they are describable by a single number. That's what makes pi special.
> “Why do planets ‘know’ how to move?”
Interesting indeed.
> pirate was honorable
The pirate's victim begs to differ and any pirate thinking about them agrees that they do. People choosing to act against what they know is moral and still wanting to be called moral (especially in their self-view), is very different from them thinking the behaviour itself is moral from first principles.
Buying T-shirts/other clothing not made in the first world (which is nearly every one) is, I think, totally socially accepted, I wouldn't judge anybody on that (because there is no real choice) and I'm also doing it myself without thinking I'm doing something wrong, yet I think it is immoral to support, what I would call, slave-labor and having an economy building on that. Most people creating that system probably acted rationally and sound, but failed to be moral in a fundamental way, because they think money is everything. Yet I wouldn't judge them for that, because that is just so human (and also because I think that's for me to do, but that's religion).
My country is supporting the Ukraine. I think moral politicians need to care for their country and need to act for the protection of their people. It is also good to help people in need, even if you need to defend them. It can be also the better decision to kill the dictator, then to not do that. I absolutely support politicians sending weapons to Ukraine and think I would also see myself forced into deciding that way if I were in that position. But I would hate myself for it and would see myself as committing large unforgivable (for me) sins. Because killing people is ALWAYS immoral. The correct choice would always be to surrender, but I don't think I would do that.
The nazis (the real ones from Germany in world war 2) absolutely thought that killing humans is horrible and completely immoral. They didn't try to change this perception at all. What they instead did, was declaring that Jews aren't humans. And that it is good to kill them, because they are a larger threat to the real better humans. The soldiers and special forces didn't disagreed that what they do was horrible. They think they were heros FOR doing the immoral thing, because it was necessary. They coerced each other into doing it, because not doing it was cowardly as it meant claiming to be able to stay moral while letting all the others own doing bad stuff.
As you may have already imaged I think moral relativism is wrong. What is good or bad is independent of what people do or think it is. I also think law positivism is not what morale is about.
Where are the moral particles located?
Why do there need to be particles? I don't think there are.
lol?
Perfection is available to us. Jesus Christ is the way; the Incarnation is the bridge. God became man (taking on like nature) so that we could become like Him and participate in His divine nature.
Surprisingly, not a single mention of Georges Lemaître - the Catholic priest who made significant contributions to cosmology and is credited with originating what became the Big Bang theory.[0]
> Surprisingly, not a single mention of Georges Lemaître
The article:
>> Pius XII stopped suggesting that the big bang required the orchestration of God after he had a conference with Georges Lemaître, the Belgian scientist and Catholic priest who had laid the groundwork for the theory with his hypothesis that the universe had expanded from a “primeval atom.”
There's a single mention of him in the article.
This is what I call self-sacrifice.
It’s literally mentioned in the article
Alas, I missed that part: 'Pius XII stopped suggesting that the big bang required the orchestration of God after he had a conference with Georges Lemaître, the Belgian scientist and Catholic priest who had laid the groundwork for the theory with his hypothesis that the universe had expanded from a “primeval atom.”'
So you didn’t read the article you are commenting on? I’m having a hard time understanding how this was missed.
> I missed that part
So he did read the article. How did you miss that? :p