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Are we here by chance or are we here by design? This is a question that many have strived to answer. What do you believe? As for me, well, first of all let me start by saying, I don’t believe in a “white haired old man with a staff” floating around the universe called God; however, I do believe that the universe is intelligent. This universe is intelligent enough to allow us to be here, simply because we are here.
No one knows for sure how life started on this world, one thing we do know is that life adapts, evolves, those that do not adapt die, those that adapt, change, this agrees with Darwin’s theory on the origin of species.
Are we here by chance, is anything here by chance? Well, what is random chance? Chance is a random occurrence meaning without order or design, completely random, independent of outside influence. So, what are the odds of a completely random event taking place that accounts for life on this world, not to say the diversity of all things. For this event to be truly random, would mean it would not be subject to any outside influence, for if outside influence was involved then it can not classified a random chance event.
In order for life to even try and get a foot hold on this planet we call earth there would have to be the presents of the sun, which is an outside influence, not to even mention the hydrogen, oxygen and many other atoms, these are all outside influences, the list can go on and on. There are so many random chance events that would have to have taken place that blows the chance of random event occurring out of perspective, so how can this be random? The question is; are events in the universe just random chance or by design?
Again for a random occurrence to truly be random the prerequisite for this is the independence of events. What science has found is the interconnectedness of all things down to the subatomic level, and with that, nothing is independent. Is seems that interdependence and interconnectedness is the rule not the exception. Does this suggest that there maybe something else a work here, a Universal Intelligence?
there maybe something else a work here, a Universal Intelligence?
I have found universal ignorance and gullibility to be a lot more prevalent than intelligence - this explains the proliferation of christer churches. Another possible interpretation is, people are seriously in need of hope and there are hucksters out there who will sell it. People tend to believe what comes the closest to their own preconcieved notions. Evidence be damned.
I agree with the OP - "chance" is very hard to define. What looks like chance at some level of perception (the flip of a coin) may in fact be entirely determined (by the weight of the coin, the way it is thrown, the air currents...).
Other examples would be:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terryj
In order for life to even try and get a foot hold on this planet we call earth there would have to be the presents of the sun, which is an outside influence, not to even mention the hydrogen, oxygen and many other atoms, these are all outside influences, the list can go on and on.
Are any of these "random"? In a sense, everything is determined by physical laws.
So no, I do not think we're here by random chance. Neither do I believe in a grand design. Given the laws of our universe, life had to appear and evolve towards humanity.
This automatically brings the question "So why are our physical laws the way they are?", just like the design hypothesis makes us wonder about the designer's designer. A popular apologetic argument is that if, say, the gravitational constant was equal to any other of the infinite number of possible values, life would never have existed (kind of hard to prove, but whatever), so it couldn't be blind chance.
But we have no reason to believe that the gravitational constant was at some point determined at random. Maybe it's linked to other things. Maybe a universe without G=6.67 wouldn't even make sense like a different value of Pi. Lots of scientists are looking for the one universal law of all physics, but right now we do not have enough information to venture an opinion.
On a more "human" scale, without involving universal determinism, I do believe our existence has a lot to do with chance though. If the earth was slightly closer to the sun, maybe it would be ruled by giant dumb lizards today - or maybe a different kind of intelligent animal. Who knows?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terryj
This universe is intelligent enough to allow us to be here, simply because we are here.
But that's rather anthropocentric, isn't it? As if we're important to the universe, as if something conspired to create us. Yes, we're complex and interesting, but so are the patterns of smoke in a dense gas. I do not think there is any reason to believe that we're more important in the grand scheme of things that a piece of rock.
After all, the universe is huge and full of wonderful things that have no interaction whatsoever with human beings. Maybe a god created those far-away galaxies as a pleasant scenery for the theatre of human life. But by that same reasoning it's quite possible that God is mostly interested in black holes and supernovas, and that we're a mere background detail.
If the universe was intelligent it would have to have something that resembles a brain which seems like a bit of a stretch. I see no intelligence or consciousness in nature. It seems self evident to me that the concept of a designer is from the imaginations of human beings because we are capable of creating or designing on a very small scale in such things as language, art, music, logic, etc., so many people want to apply our human abilities on a grand scale to the entire universe and attribute this to a creator. It's really just a reflection of ourselves on to nature.
But I can be the intelligence for the Universe; It is 'I' implicitly in us which applies the intelligent design, as such it exists as the means for probability in a positiviist relation. Primarily my Love was at a design and the other ideals were yielded in consequence. But my love primarily coming from the unfree source of self-determination it should ideally be the Love or God.
Last edited by tgnostic; 01-19-2009 at 05:44 PM..
Reason: some syntax changes
If the universe was intelligent it would have to have something that resembles a brain which seems like a bit of a stretch. I see no intelligence or consciousness in nature.
If the universe was not intelligent, how could intelligent life exist, are we not all part of this universe? If we are part of nature how can you exclude intelligence or consciousness from nature. We are a product of nature as is all life.
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