Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
MC, you've disappeared too long. I for one miss your antics. Please come back LMAO
All the atheists have abandoned ship, Tony . . . the thread seems to have exceeded their intellectual capacities and undermined their unwarranted certainty about the nature of their reality.
All the atheists have abandoned ship, Tony . . . the thread seems to have exceeded their intellectual capacities and undermined their unwarranted certainty about the nature of their reality.
Seems to me that everyone abandoned ship in this thread. I tried to elevate the level of discussion over in the "What makes atheists..." thread, but no luck. I need a break from here anyway. Need to focus on my real writing for a while.
All the atheists have abandoned ship, Tony . . . the thread seems to have exceeded their intellectual capacities and undermined their unwarranted certainty about the nature of their reality.
Oh, are they calling the national atheist therapy helpline now
I saw one of those toll free billboards here in NY.
Seems to me that everyone abandoned ship in this thread. I tried to elevate the level of discussion over in the "What makes atheists..." thread, but no luck. I need a break from here anyway. Need to focus on my real writing for a while.
Hi Gaylen . . . I''ve been absent for a few days too so I have to catch up on reading. I will check the What makes an atheist thread shortly. I would be very very interested in any papers you are submitting for publication. Also as regards your academic quest . . . you are definitely Phd material . . . and your academic peers are biased in the same direction that you are. You should be able to get past them easily. Stay in touch. Be well,
Mystic
All the atheists have abandoned ship, Tony . . . the thread seems to have exceeded their intellectual capacities and undermined their unwarranted certainty about the nature of their reality.
Just bored with the boorish with over inflated egos and their delusion of superior intelligence. Nothing more than that my egotistical friend. Your $5 words and constant attempts to insult the intelligence of other may impress you, but no one else.
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. ~Benjamin Franklin
I wrote a response to your post in the "atheist" thread, but the moderator closed the thread before I could post it. Since it is relevant, I will go ahead and post it here. The only thing that might be a little bit new for this thread is that this might be the first time that I've addressed your notion that we can talk about the existence question without defining God's attributes.
For the context, here was my original post from the atheist thread:
Quote:
Why should we believe that the world was created by an intelligent divinity with some plan or purpose already in mind? All evidence suggests that intelligence emerges from non-intelligent systems. We never see intelligence systems that "just exist" or simply pop out of nowhere. Take human development, for example. We are not intelligent at the point of conception. Intelligence develops as we physically develop. The default position seems to be that intelligence is not something that the world starts with; it is something that the world achieves. The same can be said for meaning and purpose, which go hand-in-hand with developing intelligence. Based on evidence, atheism ought to be the default position. Theism requires us to go beyond the evidence and believe that prior to all physical manifestation of intelligent beings, there was an intelligence that did not develop out of anything, but was always already "just there." Certainly this is possible, but why should we believe it?
The best question is not "Why are some people atheists?" - atheism is just the default rational position based on what we actually see happen in our world. The better question is: "Why do some people see a need to imagine that, in addition to the sorts of intelligence we see arising every day via physical development, there is some mysterious prior intelligence that somehow makes physical intelligence develop?" Why do we need to posit this extra entity?
The absence of a God would not make our lives completely meaningless or without purpose. Instead, we would be forced to find meaning, and our own purpose, in the experiences of our actual embodied lives. This would not be a tragedy; it would be an important from of emotional growth. Religion is like an addiction - hard to let go of, but worth the effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
The evidence suggests no such things, Gaylen. In fact it suggests just the opposite. There is no disorder or chaos in our reality.
Common sense suggests that there is plenty of disorder in reality. The fact that something fits with common sense does not count as a knock-down argument in its favor, but it does nevertheless carry some weight, and any argument contrary to common sense needs to explain why the seemingly obvious truths are misleading or delusional in some way. The entire edifice of physics is infused with the concept of entropy, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics - which is a heavyweight fundamental law. If you're going to claim there is no disorder in our reality, then you have some explaining to do. I know I don't have to spell out the details for you, but I will point out that the concept of order is based on the idea of patterns. We see patterns arise and disintegrate on all levels of ordinary reality every day.
Perhaps you mean only that there is no disorder at the most fundamental level? An atom is not disordered - only collections of atoms are disordered? Do you want to say that disorder is only a higher-level emergent phenomena? (I know you love that word ;-) If this is what you mean by "no disorder in reality" then I might have to think about this and get back to you later. I'm not sure if I want to say that reality is chaos all the way down. Some physicists are attempting to come up with a theory of quantum chaos, but I don't think we have such a theory at this time. Here is a link to a Scientific American article (Oct. 2008) about this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-chaos-subatomic-worlds
I'm guessing you will say that any order at all at the fundamental will essentially count as the presence of God?
Quote:
You are still conflating the "beliefs about" God with the existential issue. The issue of existence is independent of ANY of the "beliefs about" God. There is no point in getting hung up on all the Omni's or perfection, or whatever human-derived qualifications that so many of us insist God MUST have . They are "beliefs about" and have no business in questions of existence. The qualities our science tells us God does have are more than sufficiently Godly relative to us puny creatures to qualify as God to us and our meager existences.
Without some definition of God - some assignment of attributes - any discussion of the existence of God is utterly meaningless. You can't intelligibly argue for or against the existence of something that you cannot - even just for the sake of arguement - define in some way. My concern is only for the loose notion of God as an Intelligent Designer who created the world in accordance with some plan, or for some reason. THIS is specifically what I do not believe exists, and this is the concept of God that leads me call myself an atheist or agnostic.
I wrote a response to your post in the "atheist" thread, but the moderator closed the thread before I could post it. Since it is relevant, I will go ahead and post it here. The only thing that might be a little bit new for this thread is that this might be the first time that I've addressed your notion that we can talk about the existence question without defining God's attributes.
For the context, here was my original post from the atheist thread:
Common sense suggests that there is plenty of disorder in reality. The fact that something fits with common sense does not count as a knock-down argument in its favor, but it does nevertheless carry some weight, and any argument contrary to common sense needs to explain why the seemingly obvious truths are misleading or delusional in some way. The entire edifice of physics is infused with the concept of entropy, thanks to the second law of thermodynamics - which is a heavyweight fundamental law. If you're going to claim there is no disorder in our reality, then you have some explaining to do. I know I don't have to spell out the details for you, but I will point out that the concept of order is based on the idea of patterns. We see patterns arise and disintegrate on all levels of ordinary reality every day.
Perhaps you mean only that there is no disorder at the most fundamental level? An atom is not disordered - only collections of atoms are disordered? Do you want to say that disorder is only a higher-level emergent phenomena? (I know you love that word ;-) If this is what you mean by "no disorder in reality" then I might have to think about this and get back to you later. I'm not sure if I want to say that reality is chaos all the way down. Some physicists are attempting to come up with a theory of quantum chaos, but I don't think we have such a theory at this time. Here is a link to a Scientific American article (Oct. 2008) about this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=quantum-chaos-subatomic-worlds
I'm guessing you will say that any order at all at the fundamental will essentially count as the presence of God?
Without some definition of God - some assignment of attributes - any discussion of the existence of God is utterly meaningless. You can't intelligibly argue for or against the existence of something that you cannot - even just for the sake of arguement - define in some way. My concern is only for the loose notion of God as an Intelligent Designer who created the world in accordance with some plan, or for some reason. THIS is specifically what I do not believe exists, and this is the concept of God that leads me call myself an atheist or agnostic.
Where does intelligence come from and why can intelligence communicate with and investigate other intelligences? I have never had matter, energy, order, or chaos communicate with me. I can however bring order out of chaos, manipulate matter and energy because I have intelligence. I can not create anything but only manipulate. The very word create can not be applied to any thing the creation or we can do. Eccles. 1:9 " And there is nothing new under the sun." I can only assemble the things that have been here in chaos to one another, but brought to order by my or others intelligence because bringing to order, seems meant to be. Intelligent chaos I would say. Just look at the marvel of a computer! The concept to create has to be applied to someone greater than what was created because to create implies not only the intelligence to know how, but also the power to do it. If this is not so then perhaps we need a new language that does not include the concept of create as it implies some one greater that ourselves. The plan of God is To know His Love, to Love one another, and to enjoy the creation. The definition of God according to Scripture is, " God is Love." Do you see much Love in the world? It is because most do not seek Him. Something to think about and so feel no obligation to answer me. I'm just putting these thoughts out there because it seemed like an intelligent thing to do.
I wrote a response to your post in the "atheist" thread, but the moderator closed the thread before I could post it. Since it is relevant, I will go ahead and post it here. The only thing that might be a little bit new for this thread is that this might be the first time that I've addressed your notion that we can talk about the existence question without defining God's attributes.
Perhaps you mean only that there is no disorder at the most fundamental leveL.
I'm guessing you will say that any order at all at the fundamental will essentially count as the presence of God?
You are very good at intuiting my positions.
Quote:
Without some definition of God - some assignment of attributes - any discussion of the existence of God is utterly meaningless. You can't intelligibly argue for or against the existence of something that you cannot - even just for the sake of arguement - define in some way. My concern is only for the loose notion of God as an Intelligent Designer who created the world in accordance with some plan, or for some reason. THIS is specifically what I do not believe exists, and this is the concept of God that leads me call myself an atheist or agnostic.
We agree 99% of the time, Gaylen . . . but that 1% is a doozy . . . and it involves the beliefs about God . . . not the existence. The simple but inescapable truth is that our ignorance about the Source of our reality and its inscrutability should not be used to deny its fundamental existence as God by default. There is no equivalent appellation that captures the essence of its import to existence itself and the unmistakable order that we encounter at the fundamental level. God's attributes are what enable our science and establish the utility of our mathematics. They are the only ones that cannot be denied . . . and the only ones that need to be defined. All else are "beliefs about" and have equal scientific standing . . . that is to say none.
So . . . our disagreement revolves around the "emergence" of life, human intelligence and experience (qualia) from their complete absence at the fundamental level . . . an impossibility, IMO. For Whitehead it was axiomatic that you could not get from inert material stuff, “senseless, valueless, purposeless,” to the richness of human experience. A Whiteheadian actual entity (occasion . . . what I refer to as "event") is an organism, not an inert bit of physical stuff. Whitehead seems not to have recognized what he really was saying when he said that his actual entities are organisms . . . (i.e., that they are cellular portions of God). But he implied as much when he ultimately attributed everything to God. His insistence on retaining a monist position is the biggest mistake Whitehead made in his attempt to defeat dualism while retaining God. Paradoxically . . . it is his retention of God despite his monism that put him at odds with the greater philosophic community who are predominately atheist.
Whitehead was ever so close to what I consider the truth . . . but I do not buy his attempt to posit a bastardized form of apprehension . . . "prehension" . . . to stand in for the "experience-sans-experiencer" that he could not otherwise bring down to the primordial level. As I see it . . . the very definition of "experience" itself (a quale) . . . as opposed to a purely reactive encounter (a-la-deterministic materialism) . . . requires a self-conscious entity. Experience is a self-reflective (subjective) phenomenon . . . otherwise it is simply reactive. All manner of organic and inorganic reactive relationships exist. This is what tends to confuse the materialists. But experience is an entirely self-reflective subjective qualitative (take your pick) evaluation of the reactivity that is internal to the composite "experiencer."
Whitehead's "regnant nexus" (or my "Self") is NOT the material aggregate of his string of actual entities . . . it is actually a resonant nexus across multiple neurons that coalesce into "instants" of awareness within the universal field (substrate) as pure energy composites. This is the only way to get the separation necessary for the self-reflective perspective that embodies the subjective experience. If you recall my use of a state machine analogy . . . the states of the neurons that comprise the resonant nexus cannot contain the ultimate composite that they individually comprise without altering their states in the process. The composite awareness cannot reside within the neuronal states themselves. IOW . . . experience is an entirely self-reflective subjective qualitative evaluation of the reactivity . . . and it cannot reside within the neurons containing the states that comprise the content to be evaluated.
This might be the best question of all the 90 pages on this thread and I will state God produced the great scientists of today and yesteryears and will in the future because He is overall the world.
Where does intelligence come from and why can intelligence communicate with and investigate other intelligences?
In my theory, intelligence ultimately derives from the asymmetric interconnectedness of primordial qualia. You can roughly think of the cosmos in its primordial form as a sort of "dreamless sleeper" – where "sleeper" in this case is not referring to a "person" in the sense of a coherently organized self who has a set of memories, interests, knowledge, etc., but rather, the "sleeper" is a primordial form of "Subjectivity" – it is the qualitative ground of all possible individual perspectives. The "mind" of the "sleeper" is a form of chaos - meaning that it is not ordered; there are no meaningful patterns of activity that could be called coherent experience. The sleeper is not conscious, and not (yet) intelligent; it has no plans for creating anything. On my theory, "dream images" (jumbled, partially-coherent experiential events) were probably the first forms of "actualized" reality, and our mysterious need for dream sleep may ultimately be grounded in the spontaneous nature of these initial processes. In our case (as fully-formed individuals), however, these spontaneous processes would be mixed with memories, thus tending toward the attempted creation of narratives that are partially coherent with the narrative of our waking lives.
Systems composed of asymmetrically interconnected elements are, shall we say, "metaphysically unstable" – which may be thought of as the metaphysical grounds for what we know as "thermodynamic instability" aka "potential energy" in physics. Just as a thermodynamic system in equilibrium has no potential energy, a qualitative system composed of purely symmetrical elements would be experientially impotent. But we know on the basis of direct experience that qualia are asymmetrically related. A qualitative chaos is, therefore, intrinsically energetic/unstable. Most self-organizing systems require an external energy source (e.g., the sun drives such systems on earth), but in this case the metaphysical elements themselves are intrinsically energetic, thanks to their asymmetrical qualitative/interconnected nature. (BTW: If "God" does not need an "external source" of energy, there is no reason to think that Natural Reality needs an "external source.")
So far as we can see, intelligence always emerges from systems that were not previously intelligent. If God exists, and if God is intelligent, then this theory gives us some idea of how God came to be intelligent. As for why Reality is the sort of thing that has the potential for intelligence, this is a mystery "deeper than God," which is to suggest that even God would have to be an existentialist. If you want to talk about fundamentals (whether "God" or natural reality), you need to accept certain brute facts. Theists choose the existence of God (a necessarily-existing primordial intelligent consciousness) as their brute fact, whereas I choose the qualitative chaos (a pre-conscious, pre-intelligent, intrinsically energetic system of interconnected qualitative elements – suggesting that God might evolve into existence, but does not necessarily exist) as the brute fact because, as I see it, this metaphysics fits with the processes we always see in the world. Consciousness and intelligence don't just pop out of nowhere – they gradually emerge in the context of highly complex, interconnected systems of physical elements. (BTW, I see qualia as being physical in roughly the same way that the non-actualized events of quantum physics are physical. These non-actualized possibilities do not "actually exist" in our world, but they are nevertheless real, physical aspects of reality insofar as we must take them into account if we want an empirically valid theory. Events that "do not actually happen" have statistical/causal implications for events that do actually happen. This is the "mind-boggling" core of quantum theory.)
As for why intelligent agents can communicate, you would need to study the creation of "islands" of patterns in dynamical systems. Communication requires both sameness and difference. Without difference, "communication" would be meaningless; without sameness communication would be impossible. On my theory the possibility of communication would rest on 2 primary factors. 1) The interconnectedness of all fundamental elements (implying that we are all, ultimately, the one and same "Subject," and 2) The emergence of subjective (notice the lower-case 's') islands of causation within Subjectivity. Each island of subjectivity has its own experiential narrative (relatively isolated streams of memories), but ultimately all subjects are "One" in the sense that they are all manifestations of the single "Subject" – the "sleeper." Thus we have the grounds for both sameness and difference.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
LMAO
