pz

Mr. Rierson: we do have rules about copyright infringement. Typing in an entire chapter of a book rather violates them.

I would also add that it wasn't particularly interesting, has little relevance to the subject of this thread, and leaves me wondering what the heck you were thinking.

Liquidrage

Russell,

No that is exactly my point.
Though I was meerly playing Devil's advocate when bringing up the deity aspect of it. There is no reason it needs to be a deity at all. In fact, there is even no reason to suggest it could be a deity. Just that it would be a possibility simply because we could define a deity as having the property of the ability to create from nothing.

I interpret this to mean that the genesis of the universe is intrinsic TO the universe

You need to be carefull here. To be fair you need to say If there was a genesis of the universe..

A genesis is not a given.

I'm a big fan of Smolin btw.

Russell E. Rierson

How can "something" come from "nothing"? is a very interesting question. Total nothingness could be defined as an infinite-product of probability density functions. The possibility for every conceivable type of existence which would thus be a state of infinite self cancellative symmetry.

But what if slight perturbations and fluctuations exist within the approximate "nothing"?

Randomness would be the genesis of reality???

Russ

Russell E. Rierson

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Well, Reality could be "self creating", with time as an iterative process. Reality would be a complex self organizing system.

Empty philosphy???

Useless abstraction???



Russ

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Russell E. Rierson ]</p>

ELECTROGOD

So, would creating yourself be kind of like having sex with yourself...maybe masturbation?

(sorry, just kind of came to mind)

scigirl

Russell, wait until you meet <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001716" target="_blank">Amos</a>!

scigirl

DNAunion

DNAunion: I haven't read all the posts in this thread, so forgive me is I restate something that has already come up.

Why couldn't the intelligent designer of life here on Earth be an ETI? For example, we humans are "on the brink" of creating a new form of life completely unlike ourselves (self-replicating robots or nanotechnology). What excludes from possibility the idea that some form of life completely different from us may have created bacteria and seeded planets - Earth being one - with them some 4 billion years ago?

Next thing is, "The ETI's must be more complex than us". No, they'd only have to be more complex than bacteria - that which they designed. In addition, the ETI's could have evolved for millions or billions of years, so it is their FINAL state that needs to be more complex than bacteria, not their INITIAL state. Perhaps their unknown form of life has a simpler foundation and can arise spontaneously much more easily than cellular life can: can this possibility be completely ruled out?

Also, MUST a designer be more complex that what it designs? I don't think he/she/they MUST be. I would argue that the internet is possibly as complex as a human being - and if not now, what about in 50 years, or 100 years, or 1,000 years?

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

Liquidrage

The problem DA is that a possibility does not equate to evidence.

Where on the contrary there is evidence for theories that put forth humans as as result of an evolutionary process occuring over billions of years.

So I would say in your case at best the possibility remains that an ETI could have seeded the planets with proteins or RNA or something similar.

Victor Drake

In response to the last 2 posts:

If the Aliens are more complex than bacteria, and bacteria are too complex to exist without intelligent design, then the Aliens are too complex to exist without intelligent design.

The internet is complex, but not &lt;i&gt;irreducibly&lt;/i&gt; complex (a single computer by itself can perform the fuctions for which it was made. A single protein by itself cannot perform the fuctions it performs as part of a whole cell). Also, the internet was not designed by one person. Is it more complex than the sum complexity of all the people who have ever worked on it?


If you admit bacteria can arise naturally from protiens/RNA, you have conceded the point.

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: Victor Drake ]</p>

Liquidrage

I never said they couldn't.

You forget you said,
Who, then designed the designer? If the complexity of a cell needs a designer, the designer must need a much more complex designer, which would need an even more complex designer, ad infinitum.

This brings us right to first cause.
And what I said was spot on.
A paramecium doesn't appear to be capable of being the first cause.

If there was a first cause, whatever it was, was capable of creating itself. End of argument.

If you must, you can keep on pursuing this as if I ever argued that the complexity of a cell needs a designer.

I didn't. I argued against the infinite regression you put forth as being a problem to IDers.

And I argued it, not because I advocate ID, but because it was not sound.

Why isn't it sound? Because if we do indeed have a beginning, we have a non-logical (by today's standards) event. The infinite regression doesn't happen.

Why do you think creationists and IDers have come to love the Big Bang?

The sound argument isn't "Why can't a paramecium?".
The sound argument is that there is no evidence for a designer. Only a possibility.

[ December 08, 2002: Message edited by: Liquidrage ]</p>