Ultimate questions of existence can never be answered?

[ChristineM]

Not entirely correct. We are made up of food (veg. and non-veg), minerals (salt, etc.), air that we breathe and water we drink.
How would you take energy? Material or immaterial?

And food etc could contain the atoms and molecules from dead people.

Sure there are bits of stuff that were not people, stuff like molecules of dead plants, animals, sand, feces, air that has been in and out of peoples (and other animals) lungs for thousands or millions of years... its just recycling on a a universal scale.

Energy is a property of material objects, it can be converted to matter (material). Some believe energy to be particles. And of course it can be measured.

 

[WalterTrull]

It seems the questions fade. We know the Nimrod approach fails, yet we keep building. My approach is to keep walking, try not to sit too long, observe, and try to be patient.

 

[Nakosis]

The beginning of existence, if such a thing is or is not so.

Why we are here.

Is life intelligently caused.

The existence of personal individual beings of heart, mind, will.

The finality of death.

The evidence on free will vs. Determinism.

Moral authority.

The existence of time or not.

Anything immaterial is totally unproveable or disproveable.

Anything that i have missed.

I think they can be answered. Lots of people have offered answers to these question. However just because an answer has been offered , doesn't mean it's accurate.

You can make up your own answers if you want. Many simply accept others having the authority to give those answers.

For these three:
The evidence on free will vs. Determinism.
Moral authority.
The existence of time or not.

I have my own answers for. The rest I suppose I don't see as important enough to have answers for.

 

[sealchan]

No, not really.

Since everyone is an expert here on rf, i thought they might show me the error of my ways in thinking that ultimate questions are ultimately unanswerable.

Perhaps a faith based answer or an objective evidence answer will suffice.

I think that many of the things you have listed present themselves as unsolvable mysteries to a rational mind. That is, given the basics of what we know, is there even a possible rational answer? This is analogous to the effort of trying to determine if a solution to a problem in mathematics is theoretically computable.

Now there are rational systems called...well, systems. Complex, adaptive systems with non-linear interactions (chaotic) and phase space changes that might represent a sort of non-computable but rational bridge between answers to these questions and the human mind.

 

[Nous]

The evidence on free will vs. Determinism.

The thesis of determinism has been experimentally refute. The realism postulate has been shown to fail in various experiments on quanta, just as the locality (localness) postulate has. See the OP for the definition of determinism and the findings cited in posts # 11 and #19 here:

Solve the Riddle of Compatibilism, Win Big Prize

The failure of the realism postulate means that quanta do not exist with definite properties in the absence of or prior to a measurement. The thesis of determinism requires that the world have a definite state at t0 in order to determine what happens at t1.

Anything immaterial is totally unproveable or disproveable.

Define "immaterial". If by that term you mean "not matter," your statement is certainly false.

 

[osgart]

Some of these questions have answers in my conviction.

Moral authority. The cause and effect of beings interacting with other beings and what produces healthy actions vs. detrimental , or destructive actions.

Free will. The freedom to do or think as one pleases. Or the ability to choose one's own character and nature of intent of being. Or the ability to choose otherwise then what is chosen. Or that nothing is restricting the will so that it is free to make its own choices of its own desire and volition.

 

[osgart]

The thesis of determinism has been experimentally refute. The realism postulate has been shown to fail in various experiments on quanta, just as the locality (localness) postulate has. See the OP for the definition of determinism and the findings cited in posts # 11 and #19 here:

Solve the Riddle of Compatibilism, Win Big Prize

The failure of the realism postulate means that quanta do not exist with definite properties in the absence of or prior to a measurement. The thesis of determinism requires that the world have a definite state at t0 in order to determine what happens at t1.


Define "immaterial". If by that term you mean "not matter," your statement is certainly false.

Non physical attributes of reality. Such as the existence of soul and spirit.

 

[Deeje]

I sincerely hope I'm not in Heaven!!

I think God already knows that. I have no desire to be in heaven either. That was not where God put the human race initially. He prepared this earth to be our permanent home, so God's will is to be done "on earth as it is in heaven"....I am quite happy to live here forever.

 

[Deeje]

Re non believer: how about a determination to not be conned by scoundrels?

Identifying the "scoundrels" is the challenge....made more difficult because the master of deception masquerades as a friend....a really intelligent one. Who wants to look unintelligent....right?

 

[Deeje]

Non physical attributes of reality. Such as the existence of soul and spirit.

What do you believe these to be osgart? How are they defined in your belief?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

The beginning of existence, if such a thing is or is not so.
Why we are here.
Is life intelligently caused.
The existence of personal individual beings of heart, mind, will.
The finality of death.
The evidence on free will vs. Determinism.
Moral authority.
The existence of time or not.
Anything immaterial is totally unproveable or disproveable.
Anything that i have missed.

1) I find that God always existed -> Psalms 90:2. So, only God was before the beginning of creation as we know it.
2) Just as a house is constructed by intelligence, so is creation. It did Not just happen without an intelligent mind.
3) Death is Not final according to Scripture because of the resurrection hope.- Acts of the Apostles 24:15.
4) Since we can voluntarily change our minds then we have free-will choices.
5) Moral authority is found in Scriptural principles/standards as the way of best guidance for man to be successful.
6) Time exists as we know it. For each second we can count we can always count both forwards and backwards forever and ever.
7) Invisible wind is proven.
8) The purpose for earth is that earth exists for righteous mankind to enjoy.- Psalms 115:16; Ephesians 1:12.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

And food etc could contain the atoms and molecules from dead people.
Sure there are bits of stuff that were not people, stuff like molecules of dead plants, animals, sand, feces, air that has been in and out of peoples (and other animals) lungs for thousands or millions of years... its just recycling on a a universal scale.
Energy is a property of material objects, it can be converted to matter (material). Some believe energy to be particles. And of course it can be measured.

Except for those outer-space rockets that man sent far away from earth, everything else on earth is always here.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I sincerely hope I'm not in Heaven!!

I find Not being in Heaven does Not mean one can't live forever on Earth.
Jesus taught that humble meek people will inherit the 'Earth'.
ALL the resurrections Jesus performed brought people back to live life on 'Earth'.
So, Jesus was giving us a small preview, or coming attraction, of what he will be doing on a grand-global scale during his coming 1,000-year governmental rule over Earth. So, hoping Not to be in Heaven, does Not have to mean hoping Not to live again on Earth with everlasting life in view on a coming beautiful paradisical Earth as described in Isaiah 35th chapter.

 

[osgart]

What do you believe these to be osgart? How are they defined in your belief?

I think it is a popular religious claim that souls exist in an undetectable part of reality. My belief is that the brain can not account for the existence of this realm where life resides. It is only a belief i thought of while watching an explanation of non locality in quantum entanglement. Other things are non detectable, such as dark matter and energy.

To me there must be a vital force that produces being. We can only experience the spirit of our capacities to love, hate, care or be ambivalent, or neutral about experiences. I do not think physics would have the capacity to explain the vital force that produces these capacities.

I do not see how things have to be physical to be causal. The vital force might have substance to it, but it is not of the stuff we can detect by observation, or instrumental detection.

Also neutrinos pass through the body without notice. And i cannot just logically say that natural laws produced such an improbable thing as living life. What can be ruled out, whatever remains, however unlikely , must be possible.

 

[Altfish]

I find Not being in Heaven does Not mean one can't live forever on Earth.
Jesus taught that humble meek people will inherit the 'Earth'.
ALL the resurrections Jesus performed brought people back to live life on 'Earth'.
So, Jesus was giving us a small preview, or coming attraction, of what he will be doing on a grand-global scale during his coming 1,000-year governmental rule over Earth. So, hoping Not to be in Heaven, does Not have to mean hoping Not to live again on Earth with everlasting life in view on a coming beautiful paradisical Earth as described in Isaiah 35th chapter.

I do not find anything of the sort!
The sort of pious people who would qualify mean nothing but fear to me but boredom. The constant giving of praise revolts me.
No, Heaven sounds awful.

 

[Deeje]

I think it is a popular religious claim that souls exist in an undetectable part of reality.

This is true. But it is certainly not what the Bible teaches. "Souls" in the Hebrew scriptures are always embodied. The soul cannot exist without the body because we are a "soul".....either animal or human....if it breathes, it is a soul. Many equate the words 'soul' and 'spirit' to be the same thing but they are not. The soul is the whole person while they have breath in them. The spirit is the breath that keeps them alive. Adam "became" a "soul" when God started him breathing. God put the breath into man, and only he can return it in the resurrection. This is what Jesus did to Lazarus. He had expired 4 days earlier and Jesus put breath back in his body and he was returned to his family....so it will be in the resurrection when Jesus brings back the dead, some of whom have been in their graves for thousands of years. (John 5:28-29)

My belief is that the brain can not account for the existence of this realm where life resides. It is only a belief i thought of while watching an explanation of non locality in quantum entanglement. Other things are non detectable, such as dark matter and energy.

Consciousness in humans and animals is connected to the brain. We only have to see what happens to a person with a damaged brain when someone is in a coma...those who have "woken up" regardless of how long they "slept" have no consciousness about the passage of time.
When the brain dies so does the soul. (Ezekiel 18:4) The spirit departs, in that it is gone with the expiration of the last breath. (Psalm 146:4) God has absolute authority over life and death...only he can make the dead live again....but not in the way most that people have been taught. There is no immortal part of man that leaves the body at death. (Ecclesiastes 9:5; 10) That belief has completely derailed belief in the bodily resurrection that the ancient Jews held for centuries before the Greeks introduced a perpetuation of the devil's first lie. Such is man's need to go on living...(we are not programmed for death) they too then adopted the belief that souls live on....somewhere....invisibly.

To me there must be a vital force that produces being. We can only experience the spirit of our capacities to love, hate, care or be ambivalent, or neutral about experiences. I do not think physics would have the capacity to explain the vital force that produces these capacities.

Science knows that in their own experience, life is always transferred by pre-existing life....and yet they are still frantically trying to prove that life can just 'poof' itself into existence "naturally", if the chemistry is right. They forget that someone had to create the chemistry.
The list of fortunate coincidences that would be needed to support their belief that life is a series of undirected 'accidents', I am sure would stretch around the world several times. Probability for that to happen?....too many zeros.

I do not see how things have to be physical to be causal. The vital force might have substance to it, but it is not of the stuff we can detect by observation, or instrumental detection.

Indeed....there is no instrument in science that can detect spiritual things....and yet man by his very nature is a spiritual entity. It is innate in humans to worship something they see as higher than themselves, to which human history will attest. Just because humans can't test for it, doesn't mean it can't exist. That is a fool's equation.

Also neutrinos pass through the body without notice. And i cannot just logically say that natural laws produced such an improbable thing as living life. What can be ruled out, whatever remains, however unlikely , must be possible.

I believe that this is the crux of the whole argument....the unlikely parts of the scenario involving the existence of life on this planet are seen as some kind of enemy that must be eliminated! To suggest that we are the creation of a higher being, powerful enough to produce this universe and life itself, might make us accountable to him....perish the thought!

 

[shmogie]

I sincerely hope I'm not in Heaven!!

Doesn´t sound like you will be, so your hope will be realized.

 

[shmogie]

We don't know which unanswered questions if any will never be answered. There may or might not be eternally unanswerable questions



It's probably more helpful to think not so much in terms of the ultimate truth of ideas, but rather their utility. Ideas that can be reliably used to predict and at times control outcomes are useful ideas, and can be called facts, the collection of which can be called knowledge. Newton's work was used to take man to the moon and back even though as Einstein showed us, it was not "absolutely correct 100%." That needn't concern us or distract us.



No, honesty and clear-headedness.

An unbeliever is generally a skeptic, meaning that he needs a sound reason to believe anything before believing it.

Skepticism is one of the greatest ideas man has ever conceived - up there with things like empiricism and justice. It's been an incredibly useful idea, forcing us to reconsider received wisdom and toss out the ideas that just don't work or can be shown to be wrong. With that in mind, alchemy became chemistry and astrology became astronomy. Faith based systems of thought became evidence based ones, and went from being useless to useful. That's a pretty strong endorsement of skepticism.

Aren't you happy that a few centuries ago, skeptics rejected the received biblical wisdom that kings were divinely appointed, and that failing to submit to their authority was rebellion against God and therefore a damnable offense? I hope you wouldn't call America's founders dishonest or blind-hearted for not believing the following:

• "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."- Romans 13:1-2

There is no reason to believe that. If you do, you are at risk of supporting despots. If you believed such a thing and you lived during the Revolutionary War, you would be obligated to fight for the king, right? The king is God's agent on earth.

Skepticism was the only path to tunneling out and creating an enlightened form of government - yet another great achievement born of skepticism, and another strong endorsement of the principle and its practice.

We can see the benefit of questioning and empirically testing all received wisdom, keeping only that which proves useful. We've discussed what happens when one applies skepticism to matters of physical reality and daily life / government. We get science and the modern liberal democratic state with limited government and guaranteed individual rights. Life becomes better.

If one applies skepticism to god claims, one is an unbeliever. That's not an assertion that gods don't exist - just that we have insufficient evidence that they do, and that therefore one should not believe any god claims unless that changes. I'd call that a more honest position, not a dishonest one.

What you have here is a classic example of a proof text. One chosen in isolation to promote a specific desired conclusion. To get a clear view of Paul´s view on government, you must explore all that he wrote on the issue. He was speaking here of only one facet of the issue, a peaceful society. There are other facets he explores elsewhere, and the scholarly consensus is that he proposes in total support for a good government, good being defined as just, fair, merciful and reasonable. Governments that do not meet these criteria can be resisted. This is how a Godly Christian, Dietrich Bonhoffer, could lead a resistance to the nazi government of Germany, and participate in the plot to assassinate hitler. This how an overwhelmingly Christian population of America could fight to overthrow Britain.

 

[Nous]

Non physical attributes of reality.

Define "physical".

 

[osgart]

Define "physical".

Physical to me is energy, and matter.