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Nice dodge. Of course we don't need theism to EXPLAIN the functioning of the world because you and yours relegate the Source of that ability to explain to limbo and are comfortable with that.Your love for the euphemisms of "emergence" and "self-organizing" are symptomatic of your attachment to our ARTIFICIAL mathematical rubric (created in our minds with OUR flawed rules and quantitative discretizing of reality).Emergence and self-organization are simply OBSERVATIONS . . . NOT explanations. Our math has utility in aiding prediction of our observations . . . but not explaining them. There is a quantum difference between modeling discretized observations using math rules and what reality is ACTUALLY doing. We can model human decision-making and preferences mathematically . . . but it is absurd to think we use math models to establish our preferences.
Theists make the biggest possible leap to the most philosophically cumbersome brute fact imaginable - an infinitely intelligent Creator/Designer who can be conveniently employed to "explain" basically anything you want to explain with no muss or fuss over naturalistic details. You wrap yourself in the cloak of science and logic when convenient, but when the naturalistic going gets tough, you always have deus x machina to safe the day. To anyone with a modern education who is not already sold on the notion of theism, that whole approach can't help but have a hollow, mythological ring to it.
Life includes a great deal of suffering, and most of it seems totally messed up and pointless. And yet, we know via direct, personal evidence, that there is sentience, intelligence, and purpose in the world. Given these basic facts you have two general options:
(1) There is no grand plan designed by an infinite intelligence, but nevertheless intelligence and purpose can emerge from a fundamentally qualitative chaos.
(2) There is a grand plan drawn up by an Intelligent Designer, but this plan includes a great deal of suffering that seems messed-up and pointless to creatures with limited intelligence.
Either option is a logical possibility, but the first option fits with science and logic, while the second option renders science and logic almost pointless because whenever something in God's plan doesn't make sense, or seems to contradict evidence, then you can just blame limited human intelligence and assume that God somehow insures that it all makes sense.
Just don't pretend that theism is somehow more scientific or logical than atheism.
Theists make the biggest possible leap to the most philosophically cumbersome brute fact imaginable - an infinitely intelligent Creator/Designer who can be conveniently employed to "explain" basically anything you want to explain with no muss or fuss over naturalistic details. You wrap yourself in the cloak of science and logic when convenient, but when the naturalistic going gets tough, you always have deus x machina to safe the day. To anyone with a modern education who is not already sold on the notion of theism, that whole approach can't help but have a hollow, mythological ring to it.
Life includes a great deal of suffering, and most of it seems totally messed up and pointless. And yet, we know via direct, personal evidence, that there is sentience, intelligence, and purpose in the world. Given these basic facts you have two general options:
(1) There is no grand plan designed by an infinite intelligence, but nevertheless intelligence and purpose can emerge from a fundamentally qualitative chaos.
(2) There is a grand plan drawn up by an Intelligent Designer, but this plan includes a great deal of suffering that seems messed-up and pointless to creatures with limited intelligence.
Either option is a logical possibility, but the first option fits with science and logic, while the second option renders science and logic almost pointless because whenever something in God's plan doesn't make sense, or seems to contradict evidence, then you can just blame limited human intelligence and assume that God somehow insures that it all makes sense.
Just don't pretend that theism is somehow more scientific or logical than atheism.
Your two straw men options are rife with assumptive preference and bias. The ability to "explain" basically anything . . . is equally applicable to the use of euphemisms for observations such as "natural," "emergent." or "self-organizing." Besides the ability to do so does not automatically mean it is used for that purpose . . . as in my case . . . I only use it to explain what definitely exists but what science refuses to even try to explain (we don't know) or deceptively covers with euphemisms.
I have (and had) a modern education as an atheist for 30+years prior to my "experience" requiring me to rethink everything I thought I knew about reality for the next 40+ years. The problem of suffering and evil (especially the "red in tooth and claw" aspect of reality) is and has always been troubling. But that is the result of assumptions and preferences ("shoulds") that we have no basis for applying to what is. The "Omni's" and similar attributions that are made as "beliefs about" God . . . but which are baseless and unnecessary scientifically . . . create too many problems and reflect a prescriptive mindset . . . not an objective one.
Objectively, we need to leave all our "beliefs about" God behind and rely only on the existenceof God as our brute fact. We discover what is . . . NOT decide what it must be. Whatever our preferences and beliefs . . . they do not alter the attributions that must be made (we don't know does not suffice) for what is (reality). Your first option based on euphemistic observation . . . not explanation . . . does NOT fit with science or logic because its "brute fact" results in mereological nihillism, period.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 11-26-2010 at 01:00 PM..
I am afraid I am going to have to tell you that I see no point in responding to your posts although I think you are a very smart guy and no doubt with a lot of certificates, but the basic failure to understand or accept that materialism is the logical default and a cosmic consciousness still has too much supposition to be accepted as anything more than an unproven possible alternative is bedevilling any communication.
Matrix and Plantinga and apparently you are turning the rules of logic on their heads and trying to make it materialism which has to make a case. It logicaly does not, which does not suit the theist - driven arguments of Plantinga, Matrix and yourself.
It's a pity because we culd certainly agree to differ over this but you and Matrix and Plantinga are evidently using this argument as a way of shoehorning 'sortagod' under the Lab. door and then using personal god - feelings to make the leap of faith to Biblegod, though in your case it is a very personal take, as I recall, mixed up with all sorts of nonsense about the carnal man.
It's not because we disagree or even your intellectual snobby tone (pasting me definitions as if I couldn't look them up myself) that makes me terminate the discussion, but because it really is getting no-where.
The bold in your first paragraph is simply and unequivocally NOT true, Arequipa . . but I understand the basis for your miscomprehension and confusion about it. I have enormous respect for the scholarship and effort you have put into scriptural hermeneutics and historical analysis . . . though you know I consider them "spiritual" not historical or worldly recordings. We can agree to disagree . . . but there was nothing "snobby" about the providing of definitions. It seems I am damned if I do and damned if I don't try to facilitate what is not that easy to understand philosophically.
One must always avoid assumptions about others: vis a vis their intelligence, their ability to inspect and conclude upon review of the evidence, the formal and informal educational achievements they then utilize, the skills with which they apply them, and the vastly different experiences, equally valid, that we have all shared or actively sought.
I once lost a chance at an excellent job because the hiring manager did not like PhDs; "They are all so arrogant!" he intoned. He may have been right about some or most; nonetheless, it seemed a good time to keep most of my academic achievements to myself. To avoid, you understand, that stigma.
I still don't see the need to post such "paper achievements" for all to see. It does or does not make my ability to synthesize information any the less or indeed the better; I'd hope people consider my ideas on their own merits. I also suggest that some people are destined to achieve higher academia simply because they have the predilection for such effort well before they initiate such formalized goals. Likewise, I know several of my past research PhD buddies who flaunted their degrees like swords, assuming it granted them some sort of enhanced standing and validity. Not so much, in many cases.
Again, Mystic, your own experiences, no matter how valid, and no matter how supported with formal letterage, do not necessarily grant you any improved standing over the well-thought-out and verbalized opinions of others here. Notably, in the philosophical realm, AREQUIPA & Galenwoof, two I've come to greatly admire for their non-stop irrefutable logic!
Have a good afternoon. I'm off to take a much needed pain-reduction nap!
The ability to "explain" basically anything . . . is equally applicable to the use of euphemisms for observations such as "natural," "emergent." or "self-organizing." ... Your first option based on euphemistic observation . . . not explanation . . . does NOT fit with science or logic because its "brute fact" results in mereological nihillism, period.
A few hours after conception, a human fetus is essentially a blob of cells. This blob of cells is not intelligent, but it clearly contains the potential for intelligence. Is this potential for intelligence rooted in the mind of a designer? No (or, at least, it does not have to be). There is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some divine intelligence directs the activities of each cell in the blob so that ultimately the blob grows into an intelligent human.
Even if it turns out to be true that some Intelligent Designer is ultimately responsible for the initial set-up, it is increasingly clear that this designer designed the system to operate without continual magical intervention. If life is designed, then all evidence suggests that it is designed to metabolize spontaneously in accordance with a few basic natural laws and logical principles.
We can see the same principles at work in our own creations. We already know the basic principles upon which to design self-repairing/self-replicating machines. Once we do this, these machines will no longer need us. Even if human were to go extinct, the machines could continue to reproduce, and perhaps even evolved. If we can do this, then certainly God can do this, and every shred of scientifically acceptable evidence suggests that this is, indeed, how life works. If God designed the universe, then She designed it so that life could continue to survive and evolve even if She died. She designed intelligence to emerge naturally from blobs of unintelligent cells. These are the basic facts known to science. Emergence happens; it is an observable fact of life.
Now, given the fact that intelligence does emerge from unintelligent blobs of cells millions of times every day, we can conclude with great confidence that the possibility for emergence is implicit in the fabric of reality. The fact that X exists implies that X was a possibility even before X existed. The fact that intelligent life exists implies that intelligent life was possible even before it actually came into being.
So of course we turn our attention to the nature of this prior possibility. You want us to believe that the existence of intelligent life implies an Intelligent Designer, but we have already seen that the principles according to which intelligent life can emerge are already written into the fabric of reality. Even if there was an ID, this ID didn't have to do anything beyond the initial spark of the Big Bang. The laws of nature and logic implicit in the BB already implied the possibility of intelligent life. These fundamental laws imply the emergence of life from non-living material, and the emergence of intelligence from non-intelligent blobs of goop.
You are welcome to call the initial conditions leading to the BB "God" if you like, but this is your personal speculation; theism is not required by logic or science. The principles of the quantum vacuum suggest possible ways in which assorted variations of "reality" can arise. There is no evidence to suggest that the quantum vaccum is an intelligent entity, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it could be fundamentally chaotic. If this chaos is (as I've been suggesting) fundamentally qualitative, then we have the basic tools at our disposal for explaining the emergence of life and intelligence.
A few hours after conception, a human fetus is essentially a blob of cells. This blob of cells is not intelligent, but it clearly contains the potential for intelligence. Is this potential for intelligence rooted in the mind of a designer? No (or, at least, it does not have to be). There is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some divine intelligence directs the activities of each cell in the blob so that ultimately the blob grows into an intelligent human.
This is nothing more than mid-nineteenth century psychobabble. The notion of the "simple cell" has long since been exploded. The cell is virtually overflowing with design indicators.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
Even if it turns out to be true that some Intelligent Designer is ultimately responsible for the initial set-up, it is increasingly clear that this designer designed the system to operate without continual magical intervention. If life is designed, then all evidence suggests that it is designed to metabolize spontaneously in accordance with a few basic natural laws and logical principles.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinions. Your presuppositional atheistic and dogmatic assertions are no doubt greatly esteemed by the like minded here in this forum.
I suppose that it's always much easier to engage in rhetorical befuddlement than it is to concisely define your terms and stick to an honest approach - one that perhaps recognizes the distinction between pure speculation and conclusions that can reasonably be deduced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
We can see the same principles at work in our own creations. We already know the basic principles upon which to design self-repairing/self-replicating machines. Once we do this, these machines will no longer need us. Even if human were to go extinct, the machines could continue to reproduce, and perhaps even evolved. If we can do this, then certainly God can do this, and every shred of scientifically acceptable evidence suggests that this is, indeed, how life works. If God designed the universe, then She designed it so that life could continue to survive and evolve even if She died. She designed intelligence to emergenaturally from blobs of unintelligent cells. These are the basic facts known to science. Emergence happens; it is an observable fact of life.
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause."
Would you be so kind so as to provide some examples of things that emerge without cause.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
Now, given the fact that intelligence does emerge from unintelligent blobs of cells millions of times every day, we can conclude with great confidence that the possibility for emergence is implicit in the fabric of reality. The fact that X exists implies that X was a possibility even before X existed. The fact that intelligent life exists implies that intelligent life was possible even before it actually came into being.
Did I miss something? Where has it ever been reasonably demonstrated that intelligence arises from non-intelligence?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
So of course we turn our attention to the nature of this prior possibility. You want us to believe that the existence of intelligent life implies an Intelligent Designer, but we have already seen that the principles according to which intelligent life can emerge are already written into the fabric of reality. Even if there was an ID, this ID didn't have to do anything beyond the initial spark of the Big Bang. The laws of nature and logic implicit in the BB already implied the possibility of intelligent life. These fundamental laws imply the emergence of life from non-living material, and the emergence of intelligence from non-intelligent blobs of goop.
Is there a reasoned argument here somewhere?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
You are welcome to call the initial conditions leading to the BB "God" if you like, but this is your personal speculation; theism is not required by logic or science. The principles of the quantum vacuum suggest possible ways in which assorted variations of "reality" can arise. There is no evidence to suggest that the quantum vacuum is an intelligent entity, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it could be fundamentally chaotic. If this chaos is (as I've been suggesting) fundamentally qualitative, then we have the basic tools at our disposal for explaining the emergence of life and intelligence.
Are you kidding me? After all the rhetorical bluster contained in this post you now have the audacity to decry "personal speculation" on the part of theists?
I guess it makes perfect sense being that those engaged in presuppositional atheism prefer to ignore the fact that both science and logic point to the necessity of causation in the natural (observable) realm.
My thoughts [highlighted in blue] on a few high points of G-woof's excellent post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
There is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some divine intelligence directs the activities of each cell in the blob so that ultimately the blob grows into an intelligent human.
Exactly as Venter has now shown in a completely synthesized bacterium. The lowy bacterium simply does not carry the same evolved full complement of structure plans we do. Trust me; when Venter or one of his research "progeny" synthesizes a hominid DNA map and let's it self-boot, it'll be teachable, will carry all the hard-wired "fight or flight", or "run from loud noises or tigers!" auto-responses we've acquired over the millenia.
Even if it turns out to be true that some Intelligent Designer is ultimately responsible for the initial set-up, it is increasingly clear that this designer designed the system to operate without continual magical intervention. If life is designed, then all evidence suggests that it is designed to metabolize spontaneously in accordance with a few basic natural laws and logical principles.
I've asked Mystic several times; at what exact point in the assumed designed-in logic does God allow for self-determination? When do the "designed" functional laws cease to exist and divine intervention is required for any further operation? I maintain that's a moving goalpost, it being easily identified as:
The always changing limits to our current understanding.
As in: 150 years ago, a lot of observable events were assumed to be inexplicable except to grant them divinity. Now, we know about DNA, nuclear resonance states and a lot more. Those FACTS clarify a lot of what just plain old happens on a minute by minute basis here on Earth, and there's no God required.
If God designed the universe, then She designed it so that life could continue to survive and evolve even if She died. She designed intelligence to emerge naturally from blobs of unintelligent cells. These are the basic facts known to science. Emergence happens; it is an observable fact of life.
No better way to say this.
Even if there was an ID, this ID didn't have to do anything beyond the initial spark of the Big Bang. The laws of nature and logic implicit in the BB already implied the possibility of intelligent life. These fundamental laws imply the emergence of life from non-living material, and the emergence of intelligence from non-intelligent blobs of goop.
You are welcome to call the initial conditions leading to the BB "God" if you like, but this is your personal speculation; theism is not required by logic or science. The principles of the quantum vacuum suggest possible ways in which assorted variations of "reality" can arise. There is no evidence to suggest that the quantum vaccum is an intelligent entity, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it could be fundamentally chaotic.
[This falls into that other fall-back position oft taken by illiterate Christian apologists: that the observable world's so perfect, why, it simply MUST have been "designed!". They fail to understand that chaos can lead to order if a set of natural laws (Oh oh; here comes Mystic's cold, hard response to THAT word...).
(PS: By that word, Mystic, I simply mean: easily observed, reliable, dependable, and essentially unchanging despite different locales & conditions. You apply some DC voltage to a beaker of water and you'll get hydrogen & oxygen, never lithium or chlorine. Pretty predictable, no matter whose lab you're in.)
We all know such natural interactions exist, else, as I've said before, God would be a very busy girl, given the vast, in fact, limitless, scope of the greater universe and the infinite number of sub-atomic particles she has to corral and manage. OF COURSE there's a set of operating principles that do so on their own: to wit: naturally.
In fact, she'd have to be intellectually limitless herself, a logical conundrum unless one's been into the mead for a bit too long... How can any entity be infinitely wise and all-powerful, but even if there were such a hugely unlikely beast, why would she then bother with the therefore infinitely puny, insignificant likes of us? Perhaps we're just a first-grade science experiment for her that she's long since flushed down the swirling Greater Universal Theory toilet bowl perhaps? Spun up to swirl-speed by the Large Hadron Collider one imagines....
This leads to another unanswered Q I've posed for Mystic: why? since we're on auto-pilot, why do we, or better yet, you, need a God? I certainly don't.]
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigetmax24
This is nothing more than mid-nineteenth century psychobabble. The notion of the "simple cell" has long since been exploded. The cell is virtually overflowing with design indicators.
[You make a hugely erroneous assumption about the complexity you think you see with scientifically uneducated eyes (as in: how could this all come together by simple chance? That's just impossible! Praise God") and yet you could not begin to explain even the simplest basics of genetic variation, mutation modes, and progression of attributes to anyone here.
You have willingly left all that to the higher minds at the church, who encourage mass chanting and discourage education and the accumulation of knowledge. Well, please: go for it. But let's continue to explore the depths of your lack of knowledge, shall we? (see: I can be arrogant too!]
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinions. Your presuppositional atheistic and dogmatic assertions are no doubt greatly esteemed by the like minded here in this forum.
[Answ. our non-dogmatic (i.e.: always open to improved understandings and new information, unlike your mindset) assertions are based, far as I can tell in the posts of others, and certainly in my own, on literally decades of independent objective, unbiased evaluations, honest questioning of one's own spirituality and simple questions for which Christianity reliably provided really pi$$-poor answers. Talk about answers loaded with assumptions, denials and the improbable, leading to the impossible, and easily disproven by the arising evidence of the day! Wow! Repeatedly no less, over and over, de-javu and all over again. And again. But that's OK: deny it all if you must. And apparently you must.]
I suppose that it's always much easier to engage in rhetorical befuddlement than it is to concisely define your terms and stick to an honest approach - one that perhaps recognizes the distinction between pure speculation and conclusions that can reasonably be deduced.
[Pure speculation, huh? Have you read C34's posts about The Ark? Or YSM's stuff about the geocentric model of the Greater Universe? Or the Creation Story? Or The Creation Institute's mind-numbingly dumb denials of geology or Evolution, all so easily proven now? Talk about pure speculation.
Ever considered hard evidence versus a simple, chronologically befuddled biblical story that was obviously plaguerized from the Greeks and others? Or a total denial of other chronologies and written histories, like those of the Chinese? But we all see which one you just follow, tail wagging, like a happy puppy. That's your perogative, but don't call our versions speculative.]
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause."
[Yes. It's called "evolution out of chaos" given a few very simple "natural" director systems, like chaotic/chance mutation, DNA recording and replication, etc. Sure, we don't know what started the process, but we also didn't know about DNA a mere 100 years ago. That mean it didn't exist? Be patient; we're looking into things, and our research can be readily duplicated by any moke with the interest to dig into the truth.]
Did I miss something? Where has it ever been reasonably demonstrated that intelligence arises from non-intelligence?
[Answ.: "intelligence:" simply means a conditioned response to a stimulus, be it a new one that we look at and compare it to our past experiences, or to a common situation in our lives. We're also capable of being taught by our elders. We deal with events in some way, other than what a block of wood could achieve. We provide some thought, action or direction and are so proud of ourselves that we found a way to get to the higher fruit by hitting it with a stick.
Oh Boy! Ain't I so special! Praise God's Design! (Alternate version: Ain't humans arrogant about themselves and their achievements!)
Really: there's nothing very elaborate going on, but over time the neuronal connections built up & learned, and were, reliably, recorded in our DNA, upon which new info is built and of course also recorded. So the machine gets "smarter" (NOTE: even that word's a human definition, BTW...) Like comparing my original Mac Classic to the MAC Air I have now. big diff; must be God, huh?]
Are you kidding me? After all the rhetorical bluster contained in this post you now have the audacity to decry "personal speculation" on the part of theists?
I guess it makes perfect sense being that those engaged in presuppositional atheism prefer to ignore the fact that both science and logic point to the necessity of causation in the natural (observable) realm.
Let do us know when you can produce some actual "presuppositional atheism" wont' you? So far, yah haven't provided squat, other than arrogant insults, which I've ditto responded with soz we're on the same page.
BTW, the advancing breadth of knowledge that scientific logic {as a simple easily defended toolset} has uncovered is the opposite of presupposition. In fact, such idiot thinking is instantly kicked off the field by any real, intellectually honest scientific review team. It just wouldn't do well to go about spouting unsupportable, un-demonstrable babble, which is in fact the traditional realm of religion.After all, you presuppose the bible's inerrancy, which has been now proven technically wrong on so many levels.
This is nothing more than mid-nineteenth century psychobabble. The notion of the "simple cell" has long since been exploded. The cell is virtually overflowing with design indicators.
With the possible exception of MysticPhD, I doubt that anyone in this forum understands process philosophy, and so I don't know how helpful this will be, but I will say it anyway: The roots of my own philosophy are mostly grounded in process philosophy. One thing this means is that I never say that any actual entity is ever "simple." Every entity that actually exists is the "tip of an iceberg" so to speak, and this "ice berg" is a process that is ultimately no less complex than the universe in its entirety. Let me emphasize: Each and every electron is a process that is ultimately as complex as the entire universe.
Alfred North Whitehead (the most famous and influential of modern process philosophers) was one of the relatively few people who understood quantum mechanics in the early days of its development, and his version of process philosophy was heavily influenced by Heisenberg's interpretation of quantum mechanics. The complex "ice berg" I am referring to is grounded in the unavoidable holism of quantum theory. I know this stuff is difficult to understand, but hopefully this brief overview will help to clarify how drastically you have misunderstood me. I would never say that a living cell is "simple." (Not to mention that, aside from process philosophy, I was a biology major in college for several years before switching to philosophy, so I also have a fairly good understanding of the biomolecular complexity of not only cells, but of the organic compounds that compose cells.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigetmax24
I suppose that it's always much easier to engage in rhetorical befuddlement than it is to concisely define your terms and stick to an honest approach - one that perhaps recognizes the distinction between pure speculation and conclusions that can reasonably be deduced.
I try to keep my posts short enough and digestible enough so that people will actually read them. It is incredibly difficult to make some of these concepts understandable in short, easy pieces, but I do my best. If you ever think that I am using a vaguely defined term, please point out exactly which terms you want me to define. I will do my best to clarify the details.
In this case I suspect that you might be referring to the concept of intelligence, so I will go ahead and say this: When I say that a blob of fetal cells is not intelligent, I am using the term in a fairly common way. A blob of cells does not conceptually grasp the world; it does not make conceptual distinctions; it has no concept of self upon which it interacts with the world by building conceptual models representing self/world boundaries. All of these capacities will eventually emerge from the activities of these cells, but at this early stage of the game, they are not intelligent, in the sense that I am using the term. As a "panexperientialist" I do see the ontological roots of intelligence/sentience going all the way down to the most fundamental actual entities, but I do not see an electron (or a blob of cells) as "intelligent" or "sentient" as such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigetmax24
"Everything that begins to exist has a cause."
Would you be so kind so as to provide some examples of things that emerge without cause.
I will assume that you do not think that God has to have a cause because you will say that God has no beginning. But if God can be eternal, then what would logically prevent the basic laws of nature and logic from being eternal? Keep in mind that I do believe in "God/Goddess" in a way; I just don't believe that She is an "Intelligent Designer" who created the universe for a specific purpose. I see Her as the fundamentally Subjective/Creative aspect of Reality. She is not intrinsically conscious or intelligent, but you might say She is the intrinsic potential for consciousness and intelligence. In Whiteheadian terms, She is the primordial, non-temporal actual entity, which implies that She has no beginning or end, and She never "changes" even though She is the ontological root of all change. In quantum mechanical terms we can roughly model Her as the "universal wave function" that makes quantum mechanics an unavoidably holistic theory.
I interpret this holism as a primordial form of "desire" – not a conscious form of desire intermixed with intelligence as we understand it, but nevertheless a primordial form of Subjective/Creative (and I suspect even "erotic") qualitative capacity that is intrinsic to reality. Because of the Subjective/Qualitative aspects, this sort of talk goes beyond science and is, as you point out, speculative, but it is highly consistent with the spirit of scientific investigation. There is nothing intrinsically non-naturalistic about primordial Subjectivity or qualia, but the concepts are just too vague for scientific treatment at this point. We can safely say that qualia are asymmetrically interconnected, but we don't have a full theory of exactly what the primordial qualia are, or exactly how they are interconnected. Until some modern-day Einstein or Darwin comes up with a testable "connectionist map" or "model" of primordial qualia, my theory will remain in the realm of speculative philosophy. (Science has a history of stealing concepts from philosophy/metaphysics then finding ways to make them scientifically testable. I see no reason to believe that this could not happen for qualia as well.)
Again, I am not disproving theism, nor am I entirely denying the existence of "God" in some basic sense. I'm simply saying that God does not have to be conceived in theistic terms (i.e., a primordial conscious intelligence who designed the world for some particular purpose).
Anyone interested in deeper discussion of this can find my thesis here:
A few hours after conception, a human fetus is essentially a blob of cells. This blob of cells is not intelligent, but it clearly contains the potential for intelligence. Is this potential for intelligence rooted in the mind of a designer? No (or, at least, it does not have to be). There is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some divine intelligence directs the activities of each cell in the blob so that ultimately the blob grows into an intelligent human.
Even if it turns out to be true that some Intelligent Designer is ultimately responsible for the initial set-up, it is increasingly clear that this designer designed the system to operate without continual magical intervention. If life is designed, then all evidence suggests that it is designed to metabolize spontaneously in accordance with a few basic natural laws and logical principles.
We can see the same principles at work in our own creations. We already know the basic principles upon which to design self-repairing/self-replicating machines. Once we do this, these machines will no longer need us. Even if human were to go extinct, the machines could continue to reproduce, and perhaps even evolved. If we can do this, then certainly God can do this, and every shred of scientifically acceptable evidence suggests that this is, indeed, how life works.
I have no idea who you are arguing with (especially your magical nonsense) . . . but you and rilfeman must be drinking from the same kool-aid bottle. Your absurd straw man about constant and miniscule detailed intervention is so preposterous as to tarnish whatever intellectual credits you have garnered to date. The establishment of the processes (which are designed . . . NOT "spontaneous/natural" . . . more euphemistic folderol) to function as they do IS the intervention by existenceof what would otherwise be chaos.This is analogous to the order we bring to the cellular chaos that would characterize our conscious multi-cellular selves.
Quote:
If God designed the universe, then She designed it so that life could continue to survive and evolve even if She died. She designed intelligence to emerge naturally from blobs of unintelligent cells. These are the basic facts known to science. Emergence happens; it is an observable fact of life.
Now, given the fact that intelligence does emerge from unintelligent blobs of cells millions of times every day, we can conclude with great confidence that the possibility for emergence is implicit in the fabric of reality. The fact that X exists implies that X was a possibility even before X existed. The fact that intelligent life exists implies that intelligent life was possible even before it actually came into being.
Reality is designed so that God can continue to survive and evolve. Because God is intelligent (consciousness) . . . it is supposed to "emerge" from certain processes of life. As in our own multi-cellular composite lifeform . . . some cells mature into ears others into eyes, others into brain cells that produce a mature consciousness, etc. You are so confused by your verbal world of euphemisms that you probably actually believe the tautological (circular) nonsense you are spouting.
At base . . . at least you recognize that "emergence" is an OBSERVATION . . . NOT an explanation . . . though you proceed to try to use it as one without Source. Under your logic all life is a series of "emergences" . . . from seed to maturity . . . as if it doesn't contain what it matures into from the very beginning in the substance of its "design" (DNA) and process substrate. "Materialists are so thoroughly confused by materiality.
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So of course we turn our attention to the nature of this prior possibility. You want us to believe that the existence of intelligent life implies an Intelligent Designer, but we have already seen that the principles according to which intelligent life can emerge are already written into the fabric of reality. Even if there was an ID, this ID didn't have to do anything beyond the initial spark of the Big Bang. The laws of nature and logic implicit in the BB already implied the possibility of intelligent life. These fundamental laws imply the emergence of life from non-living material, and the emergence of intelligence from non-intelligent blobs of goop.
You are hopelessly mired in a sea of euphemistic goop and without a rigorous analysis of your premises and their LOGICAL conclusions for your materialism (goop) nonsense . . . which you seem unable to engage . . . there is little to be done for you. I recommend a serious and rigorous study of mereology and its philosophical implications for your premises.
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You are welcome to call the initial conditions leading to the BB "God" if you like, but this is your personal speculation; theism is not required by logic or science.
This is your fundamental misunderstanding and reveals a lack of rigorous logical analysis probably promulgated by the exclusive focus in science on pragmatism and physicality.
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The principles of the quantum vacuum suggest possible ways in which assorted variations of "reality" can arise. There is no evidence to suggest that the quantum vaccum is an intelligent entity, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it could be fundamentally chaotic. If this chaos is (as I've been suggesting) fundamentally qualitative, then we have the basic tools at our disposal for explaining the emergence of life and intelligence.
You seem to reify chaos from its fundamental status as a statement about our ability to comprehend its workings . . . without our artificial mathematical rubric of assumptions, rules, probabilites, etc. that enable us to MODEL and PREDICT. When you claim explanation . . . you are equating our artificial mathematical rubric with reality . . . a fundamental philosophical mistake. Do you intend to reify both mathematics and chaos?
Last edited by MysticPhD; 11-27-2010 at 02:21 PM..
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