Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[SimpleGuy]

The problem is in vast spaces of our universe disorder is quite common, super-novae and interstellar clouds , the injection of the matter on the poles of a black holes etc. We're living in a kind of region where differential equations behave "humane" (whatever this may be). But with a 8 planets as stabilzers of our interstellar orbit of the earth (more stable against pertubations of meteors etc.) and a good orbit around the sun , sufficient water and light . Where water is with its specific heat and thermal conductivity a stabilizer as well. All these , truly mere coincidential facts, give life a higher probability than any calculation with independent atoms could ever give.

[Harris]

Are you saying that there was some point in the past at which God used this power to decide to exist? And you're saying this because you've observed that this is a thing that intelligence can do, yes?

I am not saying that crap! You are trying to put words in my mouth.

In nature, conscious being is a prerequisite for intelligence. Absence of conscious being signifies absence of intelligence, not vice versa.

Krauss and Dawkins are impeccable promoters of randomness, chance, and nothingness and both quotes highlight this blatant fact.

No they don't.

Although following two quotes are straightforward however, I want you to interpret them and show whether they speak something about chance and nothingness or not.

“Just as Darwin, albeit reluctantly, removed the need for divine intervention in the evolution of the modern world, teeming with diverse life throughout the planet (though he left the door open to the possibility that God helped breathe life into the first forms), our current understanding of the universe, its past, and its future make it more plausible that something" can arise out of nothing without the need for any divine guidance .”

CHAPTER 9
A Universe from Nothing
Why there is something rather than nothing
Lawrence M. Krauss

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vison, no foresight, and no sight at all.”

Page 5
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins.

Obviously I don't know for sure, and am not even sure if those questions have meaning.
Observations so far appear to suggest that the best theory is that both space and time had some kind of starting point a finite amount of time ago. Possibly about 13.7 billion years ago. Obviously that's a very difficult, if not impossible, concept to intuitively get our heads around. Time starting a certain amount of time ago? Sounds bizzare doesn't it? It almost sounds as if the universe is both eternal and startet a finite amount of time ago. Weird eh?
The trouble is, the idea of time itself being anything different from the thing we experience now is, by definition, impossible to intuitively understand. So trying to use our everyday experiences - our common sense - won't help us.

Mingling opposing notions or showing agnostic attitude to baffle a simple logic would not help you here. Here logic is simple and imaginable.

You exist because God has created you
You exist because Natural Selection has created you
You exist because you came into being spontaneously without any cause
You exist because you are eternal.

So, which option(s) you prefer.

The universe is, by definition, everything that there is.

Again, you are not offering any inferential case to justify your proposition.

I agree. And I assume that we can both agree that in a conversation about something as far removed from everyday life as the origins of the universe, clearly neither of us has anything to win or lose. Neither of us will suffer or die as a result of anything said here. I've had these kinds of conversations before and I can tell you from experience that, fun as they are at the time, once they're over they're quickly forgotten, as real life comes back into view again.
So we can both speak freely.

Speak for yourself, not for me. For you, pondering over realities of nature is a trivial affair because I assume you have egocentric aims rather than enthusiasm. We are discussing on Philosophy Forum not on social media therefore, I do not agree with your views about the worth of this discussion.

Gibberish = unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing.
How do you know the essence of it if it is gibberish?

I responded to that nonsensical stuff because you are the advocate of Natural Selection and I am pursuing to learn scientific and logical semantics, concerned with Natural Selection. Sorry to say, in place of elaborating on mechanism of Natural Selection you (Natural Selection whiz) are trying to slip away by means of deciphering gibberish.

-- Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:38 pm to add the following --

I'm no scientist, I'm not even a well informed layman but I'm pretty sure the current thinking in respected scientific circles does not go along the lines that conscious, intelligent involvement had to be responsible for life to arise. If you can't make an argument without being dishonest, Harris, then you've not got much of an argument.

I respect your open-minded position. In this thread, I have exposed merely couple of points against scientists who are spreading wilful misunderstanding in the name of science. I have exposed my thoughts without twisting and turning and the same I expect from you. Unless you would not mention something precise about “current thinking in respected scientific circles,” I cannot express my respect or contempt for that specific community. I have to have something on the difference of opinion of the other side in order to make my reasoning. Therefore, for the last time, I humbly request you to provide point of contention of your beloved scientific community.

-- Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:47 pm to add the following --

Scientists find (or *should* find, I mean they're only human) that the very idea of conscious intelligent design - of galaxies or complex devices - will be quite problematic. The watchmaker awakens and starts his work putting together or repairing a fine watch. Presumably nothing happens in his physical brain without a proximate physical cause (or a random-ish nonlocal quantum cause perhaps). No rigorous observer will find consciousness in evidence, and certainly nothing "intelligent" going on (by most definitions, I mean some will say a vending machine is somewhat intelligent and a smartphone is moreso.)

Although consciousness is evident in each one of us but hardest when it comes to explain it in terms of physics. Physics, functionalism, and materialism have failed to explain consciousness. For example, Penrose suggests that the key to understanding consciousness may lie in a theory that reconciles quantum theory with the theory of general relativity. He suggests that gravitational effects not yet understood may be responsible for the collapse of the quantum wave function, leading to a non-algorithmic element in the laws of nature. He suggests that human cognition may depend on quantum collapses in microtubules, which are protein structures found in the skeleton of a neuron. Penrose suggests that quantum collapse in microtubules may be the physical basis of conscious experience.

But nothing here seems to help with the explanation of conscious experience. Why should quantum processes in microtubules give rise to consciousness? The question here is just as hard as the corresponding question about classical processes in a classical brain. When it comes to the problem of experience, non-algorithmic processes and algorithmic processes are in the same boat. That naturally leads thoughts to dualism.

So do animals, it seems. The movements of a white blood cell or a virus give a similar impression of drama as they are observed going about their day.

Animals live based on their instincts and do not have control over their needs and desires. Humans have the ability to control their desires. If some person is a slave of his/her own desires then for sure there is no difference between the way that person live and the way animal live. In my opinion, Unscrupulous Hedonists are animals in from of people.

Science excels in finding the underlying chaos and anarchy behind the (sometimes) emergent order of biological life.

I believe that nothing in the universe is chaotic. What seems chaotic is in fact the incapacity of human perception to encompass whole hierarchy of interlinked events. Deeper the hierarchy goes things seem to be more chaotic.

Chaos and anarchy in their true sense cannot cause order and harmony. A classic example is weather forecasting: the slightest error in the input data will grow remorselessly until the forecast and the reality bear little relation to each other. Chaotic systems are therefore unpredictable. Therefore, if any apparent chaos is part of some predictable system it is not chaos. In the context of entropy, "perfect internal disorder" is synonymous with "equilibrium.” If we could twiddle a knob and change the universal constants, even very slightly, the chances are that the Universe would descend into a true chaos that would promote destruction and annihilation and Universe as we know it would fall apart.

Some laws are just common sense. Scientists struggle to find more of the laws to be unavoidable and to remove any trace of arbitrariness as much as possible. If a flat coin has a top, so it will have a bottom.
There will always be unanswered questions - what does that prove?

Common sense is an iterative daily experience. Common sense is contingent to order and harmony where order and harmony abide by the rules of nature. Chaotic environment is not able produce common sense or any sense.

Nowadays, even schoolchildren recognize the power of principles when studying the mindless forces of nature. The laws of physics are all equations specifying universal relations that hold at every time and place among mathematically specifiable quantities like force, mass, charge, distance, and velocity. In fact, science itself commits us to a belief in natural laws, which are independent of human will.

How does one know. The estimate based on current knowledge may be that eternity would not likely create life, but how many universes are there? How wrong are we about our probabilities of life. Molecules arriving on meteors is believed by some.

“Chance” is a code word for saying there is too much conflicting data, too many variables for us to make sense of the whole. It is an admission that we cannot see the pattern, which is the opposite of randomness and noise.

We should not worry about multiverse because we do not have means to interact with it even if it truly exist. We have acquired abundant knowhow about our planet, its environment, its nature, and the natural laws that are controlling our lives and other natural events and according to this knowledge; chance can produce neither code nor product. This is a crude scientific fact whether you like it or not.

Basically it looks like things follow the paths of least resistance, and over time, eventually, the particles follow molecules, and those form cells, and it looks like code to us, but it doesn't mean a complex mechanism cannot emerge or evolve on its own.

Brood Awakening: 17-Year Cicadas Emerge 4 Years Early
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... ars-early/

Gee, I guess they decided not to follow the established code.

This is what the honest eye sees in nature - these little oases of order that one might be motivated to call a code just emerge on their own - and just as easily are disrupted or annihilated. Perhaps some quantum God has gotten bored of them.

Above statement has nothing to do with science or philosophy. I dare to say it is only a speculation.

-- Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:49 pm to add the following --

Harris, it is true that no one knows how a code like the genetic code could come into existence by natural processes. In the quote you provided from Dr. Gritt he essentially states this fact and asserts that codes must be intelligently designed, but does not provide any logic why this must be so.
My question for you is this: if someone provides an explanation tomorrow of how a genetic code could come into existence by natural processes, and within a month there is a consensus among scientists (to the extent that there is a consensus for the theory of general relativity, say) that the new theory makes sense, what effect will that outcome have on you?

Jumping over unknown future by ignoring today’s established facts is stupidity.

-- Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:50 pm to add the following --

Updated October 20th, 2017, 6:34 am to add the following --

If the universe was created by intelligent design, where did this intelligence come from?

From God.

If prior to the birth of the universe, there was nothing, how could intelligence spring out of nothing?

Nothingness cannot create anything and nothingness in its true nature is an impossibility therefore it never existed.

If it’s possible that intelligence was always there, why is it not possible that the universe was always there?

Because intelligence has the power to decide what to be and what not. Universe has no such ability.
So what you are saying is, this intelligence which you call “God” was not created but was always there? And if God was not always there, then whom created God? You are right about nothingness not existing, that is why it is called nothingness.

God is eternal, means no one has created God because He was always there.

In our everyday lives and in science the concept of nothing makes our life easy because we usually use it to express absence of something, emptiness, vacuum, hollowness, and so on.

In my previous comment, I have stated that nothingness is an impossibility. Imagine there is no matter, no space, no time, and no mind. I do not know about anyone else but I cannot even imagine such nothingness. Such nothingness is an impossibility otherwise, you and I were not discussing in philosophy forum.

-- Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:51 pm to add the following --

We're not in a position to say that DNA was not an alien invention. Perhaps some much kludgier lifeform, which had a much simpler type of genetics, decided to create a planet ( or universe ! ) with an elegant and complex DNA.

Whatever created life was a conscious intelligent being.

Natural selection, the mechanism that drives evolution, is not goal-oriented. It has no purpose or purposes. It has no consciousness. It intends nothing. Evolutionary processes, therefore, exhibit no capacity to imagine the desired goal, no brainstorming, no mixing up ideas, no priority to ideas that have worked in the past, no capacity to test the ideas, and finally no capacity to implement any principle. How then natural selection can builds up efficiency of design and repeat that design with high precision.

Natural Selection and Theory of Evolution can be a mystical concept, magic, conjecture but not science as there is no proper scientific evidence that may support these concepts.

[Albert Tatlock]

I respect your open-minded position. In this thread, I have exposed merely couple of points against scientists who are spreading wilful misunderstanding in the name of science. I have exposed my thoughts without twisting and turning and the same I expect from you. Unless you would not mention something precise about “current thinking in respected scientific circles,” I cannot express my respect or contempt for that specific community. I have to have something on the difference of opinion of the other side in order to make my reasoning. Therefore, for the last time, I humbly request you to provide point of contention of your beloved scientific community.

I'm afraid I'll have to humbly decline your humble request on the grounds that I don't know a damn thing about this subject. Even so, I do think I can claim to have a legitimate interest in the outcome of this discussion, as, being an atheist, I feel I would be directly affected should someone go and prove the existence of God. Therefore, I am very keen that this discussion be conducted in a fair and proper manner. Now, bearing this in mind, if it occurs to me as being odd that, via Dr. Werner and Dr. Gitt, you look to academia for support even though the greater part of academia would disagree with you, is it unreasonable of me to question it?

[Harris]

The problem is in vast spaces of our universe disorder is quite common, super-novae and interstellar clouds , the injection of the matter on the poles of a black holes etc. We're living in a kind of region where differential equations behave "humane" (whatever this may be). But with a 8 planets as stabilzers of our interstellar orbit of the earth (more stable against pertubations of meteors etc.) and a good orbit around the sun , sufficient water and light . Where water is with its specific heat and thermal conductivity a stabilizer as well. All these , truly mere coincidential facts, give life a higher probability than any calculation with independent atoms could ever give.

Coincidental facts!

Look what atheists think about your coincidental facts.

“… If you look at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer. And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe.”
Richard Dawkins
The R. Dawkins Foundation
R. Dawkins Answers Questions

“… the special properties of the physical universe are so surprisingly fine-tuned that they demand explanation.”
Preface
The Cosmis Landscape
"String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design"
Leonard Susskind

“… we really do have a big problem to explain in the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants.”
Page 142
The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins

"The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."
Page 125
A Brief History of Time

[Present awareness]

Updated October 21st, 2017, 2:50 pm to add the following --

Updated October 20th, 2017, 6:34 am to add the following --

If the universe was created by intelligent design, where did this intelligence come from?

From God.

If prior to the birth of the universe, there was nothing, how could intelligence spring out of nothing?

Nothingness cannot create anything and nothingness in its true nature is an impossibility therefore it never existed.

If it’s possible that intelligence was always there, why is it not possible that the universe was always there?

Because intelligence has the power to decide what to be and what not. Universe has no such ability.
So what you are saying is, this intelligence which you call “God” was not created but was always there? And if God was not always there, then whom created God? You are right about nothingness not existing, that is why it is called nothingness.

God is eternal, means no one has created God because He was always there.

In our everyday lives and in science the concept of nothing makes our life easy because we usually use it to express absence of something, emptiness, vacuum, hollowness, and so on.

In my previous comment, I have stated that nothingness is an impossibility. Imagine there is no matter, no space, no time, and no mind. I do not know about anyone else but I cannot even imagine such nothingness. Such nothingness is an impossibility otherwise, you and I were not discussing in philosophy forum.



The universe is eternal, no one created it, it was always there.

The whole point about nothingness is that it’s not there, so like you have said, it is impossible to imagine it. However, because it is not there, it makes room for that which is there. Your physical body occupies nothingness, and because it’s not there, you can move thru it freely.

[Steve3007]

Albert (to either me or Rolf. I'm not sure):

I'm afraid I'll have to humbly decline your humble request on the grounds that I don't know a damn thing about this subject.

I'm humbly confused now. Can I humbly ask: whose humble request are you humbly declining?

[Chili]

Natural Selection and Theory of Evolution can be a mystical concept, magic, conjecture but not science as there is no proper scientific evidence that may support these concepts.

Thanks for the mixture of assertions, contradictions, and breathless rambling. You'll forgive me if I don't take the time to respond in detail.

[Albert Tatlock]

I'm humbly confused now. Can I humbly ask: whose humble request are you humbly declining?

I see what's happened, Steve: In quoting Harris I inadvertently trapped you, or at least your name. I was responding to Harris and it was his request that I was declining.

[Steve3007]

Ah. Okay dokey.

[Present awareness]

Natural Selection and Theory of Evolution can be a mystical concept, magic, conjecture but not science as there is no proper scientific evidence that may support these concepts.

Thanks for the mixture of assertions, contradictions, and breathless rambling. You'll forgive me if I don't take the time to respond in detail.

Harris, bacteria has evolved, so that it has become resistant to penicillin, if that’s not proof of evolution, then I don’t know what is.

[Steve3007]

Looks like this topic is shaping up to being a classic confused multi-stranded web of arguments. Jolly good stuff. Following one of those strands from its beginning to its current end point:

Present awareness, post #7:

If it’s possible that intelligence was always there, why is it not possible that the universe was always there?

Harris, post #9:

Because intelligence has the power to decide what to be and what not. Universe has no such ability.

Steve3007, post #10:

Are you saying that there was some point in the past at which God used this power to decide to exist? And you're saying this because you've observed that this is a thing that intelligence can do, yes?

Harris, post #17:

I am not saying that crap! You are trying to put words in my mouth.

In nature, conscious being is a prerequisite for intelligence. Absence of conscious being signifies absence of intelligence, not vice versa.

So, Harris, if you look back at this slender thread, I guess you can probably see why I asked if you were saying that God decided to create himself. "Having the power to decide what to be and what not" as an answer to Present awareness's question certainly does look a bit like that, doesn't it?

But, yes, I apologize for naughtily putting words into your mouth by asking you if that was what you were saying. For future reference, if I want to try to clarify what you're saying, how shall I ask?

[Albert Tatlock]

bacteria has evolved, so that it has become resistant to penicillin,

Oh dear, I hope this doesn't mean we're going to be losing you. Is there no hope at all? Sometimes these things clear up on their own, you know.

[Present awareness]

bacteria has evolved, so that it has become resistant to penicillin,

Oh dear, I hope this doesn't mean we're going to be losing you. Is there no hope at all? Sometimes these things clear up on their own, you know.

Lol, Good one Albert! No worries, just making a point.

[JamesOfSeattle]

Harris, [...] what effect [would someone proving codes can be created by natural causes] have on you?

Jumping over unknown future by ignoring today’s established facts is stupidity.

That answer's my question. I'll step out of the discussion now and watch Steve work.

*

[Harris]

The universe is eternal, no one created it, it was always there.

Science has no means to prove the existence of God but it has means to prove that Universe is not eternal and this fact is already established.

The whole point about nothingness is that it’s not there, so like you have said, it is impossible to imagine it. However, because it is not there, it makes room for that which is there. Your physical body occupies nothingness, and because it’s not there, you can move thru it freely.

Any physical substance occupy some portion of space and space is not nothingness.

-- Updated October 22nd, 2017, 3:51 am to add the following --

Thanks for the mixture of assertions, contradictions, and breathless rambling. You'll forgive me if I don't take the time to respond in detail.

I assume you are not well equipped to produce a detailed response (I may be wrong). You are free to submit your proper academic reasoning in place of wasting vocabulary in thin air. I do not mind if you take some help from Richard Dawkins.

-- Updated October 22nd, 2017, 3:56 am to add the following --

So, Harris, if you look back at this slender thread, I guess you can probably see why I asked if you were saying that God decided to create himself. "Having the power to decide what to be and what not" as an answer to Present awareness's question certainly does look a bit like that, doesn't it?

But, yes, I apologize for naughtily putting words into your mouth by asking you if that was what you were saying. For future reference, if I want to try to clarify what you're saying, how shall I ask?

Your sarcastic apology is doing no good. If you want to have serious discussions, then be serious for that.

“I don't have that entitlement either. But come on. What have we got to lose? Egg can easily be wiped off the human face. And a quick Google search of the good Doctor reveals him to be a full-on Young Earth Creationist. So this could be fun.”

-- Updated October 22nd, 2017, 3:58 am to add the following --

Harris, bacteria has evolved, so that it has become resistant to penicillin, if that’s not proof of evolution, then I don’t know what is.

Indeed, researchers have observed Resistant Strains in bacteria against Penicillin, Aureomycin, and Chloromycetin when bacteria were exposed to certain drugs during curing of various diseases. The question is can these Resistant Strains be taken as “beneficial mutations” that neo-Darwinians are searching and which natural selection is favouring?

“It is now well established that the development of increased ability in insects to survive exposure is not induced directly by the insecticides themselves. These chemicals do not cause the genetic changes in insects [therefore they are not mutation-inducing agents]; they serve only as selective agents, eliminating the more susceptible insects and enabling the more tolerant survivors to increase and fill the void created by the destruction of susceptible individuals.”

Georghiou, et al.,
“Housefly Resistance to lnsecticides,”
in California Agriculture, 19:8-10.

It is also an established fact that Mutations are 100% harmful! EVERY instance of mutation caused some kind of damage—always! Change in DNA code that exceeds the limits of its tolerance induce a ruinous impact over the organism.

Check out few facts on mutation.

“All mutations are extremely rare. That leaves no chance for them to gather and make a slight positive change in an organ. Tremendous amount of time (maybe millions of years) is required to change even one organ, not to say entire species”

“All mutations are totally uncoordinated so, even if several mutations occur simultaneously, they will only work against each other.” That cause the chance of making positive change even lower.

“Because mutations are extremely harmful, so most of them become lethal within one or two generations only. The rest still work in favour of disorder and diseases.” Chance of making positive change even worse.

“Species evolve into a superior form but for that millions of positive, only beneficial, highly coordinated mutations should occur simultaneously in identical ways in two creatures—a male and female—born near each other. This is called punctuated equilibrium.”

According to Neo-Darwinists, evolution occurred when numerous small changes took place in genes and that gradually changed one species slightly into something else and that slight evolution developed into something slightly different and on and on—until after many transitional species had lived and died in millions of years, entirely different species, which are much complex and superior then their primates had evolved.

There are tons of loopholes in this theory but the most obvious one is the fossil record that shows no evidence whatsoever for those transitional species that supposedly appeared gradually through millions of years in result of positive mutations. The fossil record disproves the mutation theory and thus disproves theory of evolution by natural selection.