No, I’m not talking about a certain boy who enjoys laughing gas, I’m talking about the nature of reality! A few months ago I tried to see how close to not existing the universe, and yourself, could possibly be. I’ve heard a few people do something similar, but I’ve never heard someone go as far as I have. I start with one assumption about the universe that makes it much simpler than it probably is: the cosmos consists only of particles and the like; there is no supernatural. I don’t agree with this, but it made the experiment much easier. I hope you can follow my absurdity, and I hope even more that you enjoy it. Continue reading “Is This Real Life?”
Author: Tim Schwab
a novice
Different Worlds
Watch out non-Christians, you may not like this one, even though you should. You would if you are being objective. So try. Anyways, I am just going to make an observation that has most likely been made by billions before me, but oh well. I hear it is good to be reminded of things, and maybe it hasn’t been made billions of times. My observation is that there are many cultures of talents and hobbies (i.e. worlds), and usually people think theirs is far superior to anyone else’s. At least this is true of young people like me. Continue reading “Different Worlds”
Omnipotence paradox
Wow. It has been a long time. Almost a month. I have been really busy and 1. haven’t had time to write thoughts down and 2. haven’t had any good thoughts. So I decided to talk about an old thought, the supposed paradox of God’s omnipotence, and really anything’s omnipotence. But since anything that is omnipotent is God, saying “anything’s omnipotence” and “God’s omnipotence” are the same thing. Anyways. On to the paradox. Continue reading “Omnipotence paradox”
Musicks: NPR Tiny Desk Concerts
This time I am not sharing an album, a song, or an artist. NPR Music frequently puts on these cute “Tiny Desk Concerts” and presents them on their website and on Youtube, where I prefer to view them. They ask some of their favorite bands and artists to come over and perform two or three songs on whatever instruments they can bring. It is a very stripped down performance usually; rock bands bring acoustic guitars and basses and drummers would only bring one or two parts of their set. It’s great, you can really get an insight into the music and members’ personalities. Continue reading “Musicks: NPR Tiny Desk Concerts”
Prove It.
“Until I see some proof of God’s existence, I think it’s stupid to believe in him.” Sigh. This statement. Nowadays it seems like almost no one understands what proof means. Or they at least don’t use it correctly when talking about philosophical and logical things. I think it may have two separate meanings, the everyday and the logical. One is for inductive reasoning, the other is for deductive. Continue reading “Prove It.”
Pascal’s Wager
Ah, Pascal’s Wager. It attempts not to provide a proof of God’s existence, but rather it tries to show that no matter if he does or does not exist, it is stupid not to believe that he does. An interesting approach, but I think it completely fails. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone actually use this argument, but I’m sure it is done. I know I’ve heard of atheists making fun of it, so I thought I may as well talk about it. Continue reading “Pascal’s Wager”
Argument from Free Will
This argument is not very convincing in my opinion because you could just accept the consequences, but I think most people don’t realize the results of naturalism. And in this post I am going to lay out just one of those results. Wait a second. That was too short an intro. I must write more without actually saying more because the actual content is pretty straight forward and won’t take much explaining at all. So I guess I’ll just ramble for a bit longer. I just saw the movie Contagion finally. I really liked it. It’s amazing how powerful the tools we have against disease are. Okay, this is long enough. Now for the real stuff. Continue reading “Argument from Free Will”
Musicks: () by Sigur Rós
I’m not quite sure how to structure these posts yet. I am definitely no music critic, I just know that I like some tunes and that I want to share those tunes with others. But whenever I do share music with others, I just throw it at them and tell them to listen. Sometimes I say things like, “This is good.” or “This song rends my heart.” But I have never taken a serious look at songs, albums, or artists and expressed that. And I don’t think I will. But if I don’t, I could easily post stuff every day, and that would completely overshadow my other posts. Gah! See my predicament? I guess you will just have to bear with me. Anyway, on to the tunes. Continue reading “Musicks: () by Sigur Rós”
The Epistemic Trilemma
This is something I struggled with for a long time, and epistemologists I believe are still very divided on the subject.
Let’s say you have a statement that you believe is true. How about “God is real. ” Now, in order to say that it is true you must show why you believe it is true. So, you list out all these arguments. But then you must prove that those statements are true. And then you must justify your proof of your arguments. And so on, ad infinitum. So, there are now three options left to you to find certain knowledge.
The Tenth Dimension
So late last night I came across this delightful little video and decided to make it my first post. Well, second if you want to get technical. First real post that will conform to the theme of this blog. It may take a bit to understand, but I think the video explains the concept very well.
Thoughts of a Novice 