Jinto

I said (as the model goes). The fact that the atheistic model does not include a creator or other intelligent being influencing the creation of the universe is true by definition.

Really? And you are guilty of a umber of assumptions here: first, that life requires complexity in order to develop. Second, that complex molecules would be prohibited by a different configuration of physical laws. Third, that a different configuration of physical laws is even possible. And finally, you still haven't answered the question of why life-bearing universes should be less probable than another type of universe, any more than king of spades, ace of clubs, three of clubs, seven of hearts, and eight of spades is any more improbable than any other five-card sequence.

And so this provides motivation for further research.

Observations and experiments made to test any hypothesis can lead to new discoveries. But the idea is that there must be supporting evidence before that entity can be accepted. In other words, you do the experiments to test for your entity before, not after, you accept that it exists. And you certainly don't accept the existence of such an entity as a premise before you have done your testing. And this is part of my point - none of these entities would ever get tested unless we required evidence to accept them.

There is a difference between introducing as a premise the possibility of a creator and doing experiments to test the hypothesis. Imagine if I did my analysis of a crime scene with the premise that there is an alien capable of posessing the minds of human being and using them for their purposes. If I did that, then the courtroom would look like this:

"Yes sir, I did kill those people, and I did dump their bodies in the river, but I was posessed by a malevolent alien entity at the time."
"Okay, move along then."

This does not mean that I can't test the hypothesis that there is such a being, and indeed if there is then finding it would be very useful, since it would allow us to learn how to detect or control its influence. But introducing it into evidence, even if I say nothing about it, when there is no independent evidence for its existence, would be absurd, and lead to false conclusions.

And your point is...?

Oh give me a break, you're assuming that there is actually a method of FTL communication, and that the universe was designed to produce life (when in fact, God's main goal could just as easily have been the stars, or the craters on the moon), and that God thinks in the way you do (he certainly doesn't think the way I do - I would have had a preferred reference frame just so I could keep things organized, and I would have made it so that great power sources such as nuclear fission could not be used to build explosive devices, and a thousand other things), and that because bad assumptions can sometimes yeild a correct result that the bad assumption was actually useful in that instance. For someone who makes no assumptions, you're making an awful lot of assumptions. Plus the last statement is demonstrably false - it's like saying that because someone who divides 16/64 by canceling the 6 to get 1/4 is correct in that instance that this "math" is actually useful. Of course it isn't, as soon as he divides 32/24 to get 3/4 instead of 4/3, you'll see what's wrong with using it.

Then shouldn't you consider the existence of the aforementioned alien entity? After all, it might lead us to discover things that we would never consider otherwise.

If it looks like an IPU, sounds like an IPU, whinnys like an IPU...

Yes, you are actually. You seem to be quite fond of saying that we shouldn't be duly skeptical of the claim that there is a conscious being responsible for the creation of the universe, and that he regularly communicates with it's inhabitants when they are in altered brain states (such as NDEs). This is more extrordinary a claim than the famous teapot orbiting pluto.

How does occam's razor limit intuitive speculation? This is a case that you have never made. To give you an analogy, occam's razor is like a traffic light. Sure, there are some cases where traffic lights are annoying and may cause you to get to your destination slower than you otherwise would have. But without them, your path will be obstructed by a deluge of cross traffic, just as without occam's razor legitimate scientific progress would be inhibited by a deluge of people's personal deities being used to explain every little thing, and using up valuable resources. Worse, without a traffic light, your path will be obstructed further by accidents, such as the kind that happen when one exclusivist religion brushes up against another - you have religous wars, and religion supressing dissenting viewpoints. Yeah, once in a while you will arrive at a street whre there is no cross traffic and you think you'd get there faster if there wasn't a traffic light. But at least you will get there, whereas without the traffic light, you might not get anywhere at all.

Fine, but I would prefer to invest my money in sciences that regularly give positive, not negative, results. Further, I wonder about how you say "I think we should do our best to figure out everything we can about the creator," as though you are assuming that a creator exists. Imagine if I said we should find out everything we can about the alien being that can posess people's minds. You can see how, even if you haven't yet concluded for certain that something does exist, that it is absurd to try to understand it until you have verified that it does.

At risk of repeating myself, and being redundant, I would just like to say that when we investigate things, we do it in the following order: first, verify that the thing exists, then work to determine its properties. You are suggesting that we work to determine God's properties, and then see whether he exists. Somehow, I have trouble understanding the logic in that action.

Answered throughout this post.

Good. Then why do you dismiss materialist models casually with a backwards "I don't see how you can get something from nothing?" Your responses in regard to materialst models are not consistent with your claims that you're trying to give all models an equal chance. Which should I believe, your words, or your lips? (Bonus points if you know where that line is from).

Anti-Materialist

Look - I cannot sit here and explain the entire set of physical coincidences involved in the anthropic principle. Just go read the article on this topic at the beginning of the website.

Or, just look up the anthropic principle on the web. You will find plenty of discussion on this topic, and you will find plenty of physicists, much better trained in physics than you or I, who will say that indeed the fundamental constants of the universe are truly important to the development of life, and that if they had been tweaked a little different, complex molecules and life would not have developed. If you are doubting this, then do your own research and you will find ample analysis to support this concept.



Yes - but I don't consider the existence of God as someting accepted. I just think it is possible. It also feels right to me intuitively. However, I acknowledge that intuition is mainly useful for generating hypotheses, not for reaching conclusions.

I am saying that you guys are being illogical for assuming that God does not exist. I don't assume God exists - I just think it seems possible. Big difference. Allowing for the possibility of God's existence is important to my spiritual pursuits. I wont say he exists until he really and truly shows himself.





This is a useless analogy. There are no intuitive reasons to posit an alien in this scenario. There are intuitive reasons to posit the existence of a creator.



No, I am not. How can you not comprehend such a simple concept... :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: I am saying it seems possible, and the fact that it seems possible could provide motivation to pursue such research. Seems possible is not the same thing as assume.



This is where intuition comes in. Scientists use intuition regularly to decide what avenues of thought to pursue. Intuition has been very useful in coming up with great ideas. That God would care more about intelligent life than about rocks and stars is an intuitive concept. I know, I know - you see no use for such intuitive concepts. You probably never will - sigh. We are just going round and round.


And you really equate the two concepts? Can you truly see no difference between suspecting the existence of a creator, and assuming it is ok to divide with this technique?



No, you shouldn't. The aforementioned alien is a very counter-intuitive concept. The idea that a complex system might have been created is not a counter-intuitive concept.




Ok, give me one example where I said we shouldn't be skeptical of the existence of a creator. In fact, I am skeptical of the existence of a creator. My skepticism cuts in all directions, however. I am also skeptical of an ordered universe, without something to have designed that order.



This doesn't dismiss anything. I don't see how you can get something from nothing - this is my confessing that I do not understand the materialist viewpoint - made in the hopes that someone would try to enlighten me as to how one might get something from nothing. All the attempts I have seen at this involve explaining that the universe averages out to nothing, because gravity constitutes negative potential energy, and the rest of existence constitutes positive potential energy. Or something like that. But I think I have shown in other posts how that argument doesn't really answer the something from nothing problem.

And, I would like to point out - positing the existence of a creator does not answer the something from nothing problem either. I think there has to be more to it than what we see, but I don't know what it is.


1) what recent theories? I would like to read up on them. I am not asking this rhetorically - I am asking because I genuinely would like to read the theory that you are talking about. It would be of great personal interest to me.

2) To say it is totally unsupported is irrational thinking. Just because a new theory comes along, we do not assume it to be true - no more than we assume the old theory to be true. You should have said that this new theory weakens the support for the fine-tuning argument. To say it is therefore totally unsupported just does not follow. Given how utterly rude and condescending you have been, comestible-venom, I would expect you to think more clearly than this.

Jinto

Read it. Didn't convince me in the slightest.

You will also find physicists like Stephen Hawking, and his wave-function model of the universe, which posits that there is a 95% probability that a universe like ours would originate uncaused. My own research has revealed that physical laws are highly interlinked, and so changing one will certainly cause all the others to change along with it. This is important, because all of the predictions of the fine-tuning argument are based on the concept that each of these physical constants can be altered independently of one another. Since they cannot, the calculations on which the fine-tuning argument are based are seriously flawed.

And you still haven't answered the question of why life-bearing universes should be less probable than any other type of universe. Unless you can answer that, then why the unhiverse is the way it is requires no more explanation than why I gave you the card sequence KS, AC, 3C, 7H, and 8S, even though the odds of that card sequence are 311,875,200:1 against.

Then why do you put the God hypothesis in a special category where we are not allowed to reject it in the absence of evidence, when you acknowledge that it is justified to dismiss concepts in the absence of evidence, and you further acknowledge that there is an absence of evidence? You don't seriously try to investigate the possibility of my alien - you dismiss him out of hand, because there is no evidence. Why can't we do the same for your God?

I allow for the possibility of God in the same fashion that I allow for the possibility of my alien - I will believe in him if and when evidence for which he is the most parsimonious explanation is presented. Until then, I will remain an a-malevolent-alienist. And until the same is done for your God, I will remain an a-theist.

Of course there are. A murder was committed - now why would a human being, in full knowledge of his actions, kill a fellow human being? It's totally beyond my ability to explain - he must have been posessed by a malevolent alien entity.

Well please intuitive them to me, since I can't see anything intuitive about positing some omnipotent being that happens to like creating universes. (And despite the previous paragraph, I am being seroius here).

Such research is only useful if it's TRUE. By telling me that this research is useful you are inherently assuming that it will turn out to be TRUE. What part of this do you not understand?

(By the way, what part of that research would we not have motive to do if God didn't exist?)

Yes, I was going to comment on your circular logic... but seriously, scientists do not use intuition to decide truth, nor to decide what avenues of research to persue - after all, if scientists stuck to the intuitive, then they would have NEVER persued quantum mechanics, because it's precisely the opposite of what intuition tells us. If scientists stuck to their intuition, then they would never have discovered that weight has nothing to do with the speed of falling objects. Nor would they ever have figured out that the planetary orbits are ellipses, not circles. It is precisely because scientists stick to what the evidence tells them rather than trying to prove their "intuitive concepts" that science has succeded.

Okay, there IS a difference - this form of division is a genuine mistake that can be made from misunderstanding what your teacher has told you. The God hypothesis is just stupid. But in spite of this difference, the analogy is still sound - it serves to demonstrate the uselessness of using a false hypothesis that is occasionally and by coincidence accurate to make predictions.

Then please, intuitive it to me. Then demonstrate how whether or not a system is intuitive is indicative of whether it is worthy of consideration. In particular, I would like your data on the probability of intuitive concepts turning out to be correct versus non-intuitive concepts, and how this varies with a person's psychology, such that where two people's intuitions advocate opposing theories that we know which one to persue.

Bullshit. Statements like "I think we should do our best to figure out everything we can about the creator," betray an underlying assumption that there is indeed a creator to find out things about.

What ordered universe? Seems quite chaotic to me.

And oddly enough, you seem to be lacking in your skepticism that there was ever "nothing" to begin with. Lacking dimensionality, "nothing" could not possibly persist for any length of time, because if it did, it would not be "nothing". The very idea of "nothing" is absurd, and yet you have no trouble accepting not only that, but also the idea that a closed temporal loop containing an omnipotent conscious being could will itself into existence from nothing. You also have no trouble recognizing that the idea of a recurring universe would be eliminated by the second law of thermodynamics, but extreme trouble realizing that the same principle would prevent closed temporal loops such as the one you propose to contain your God. You obviously do NOT apply the same standard of skepticism to your theistic hypothesis that you do to atheistic hypotheses.

So, if your theory doesn't solve the problem either, then what is it's advantage over atheistic theories? As I said to a cretinist once: One does not solve the problem of a broken car by buying a car without an engine.

Anti-Materialist

allright - we've got too many strands to this thread, so let's narrow it down to a single concept.

Also - we are starting to get snippy. I apologize for any condescending remarks I have made. I made them in response to remarks I felt were condescending, but I should know better than to behave that way.



A theory must have supporting evidence. I would only call my ideas hypotheses. Not to denigrate my own beliefs or anything - but I must be honest about them. They seem right to me - that is about as far as I can take them. I am in the process of starting a window company - so I doubt I will ever have time for learning physics well enough to properly research these ideas - even though I enjoy thinking about them. If I become a billionaire, then perhaps I will hire people to research them.


This is the single strand in this thread I think we should narrow it down to. I am not sure that the idea of nothing is absurd, but I must say then when I try to contemplate it, I don't succeed very well.

My intuitive reason for positing a supreme intelligence is this. If we have either a looped chain of cause and effect, or an infinite history - both of which somehow functioning so as not to reach maximum entropy - then we have a complex system that could give rise to intelligence.

I cannot prove that. And no, I do not assume it to be true. It is just that, in observing the one universe that we have to observe, we have seen that it has given rise to intelligence. So, in a sample of one out of one universes - intelligence arises. That is a very small sample size, I acknowledge.

Now, with either looped cause and effect, or an infinite history, you have basically eternity for that intelligence to develop. What is the theorectical maximum to intelligence? Is there a maximum intelligence at all?

Given eternity, an intelligence could rise to a degree of power and insight that is beyond our ability to comprehend. This could be considered God - although, given that it would be beyond our capacity to comprehend, the word God is just a label - it says very little about its nature.

This is my intuitive reason for thinking that a creator is possible. I am sure you will say that there are too many intuitive leaps here, and no way to prove any of them statistically, because we only have a sample size of one universe from which to draw observational data. What can I say to that? Just that your intuitive process and mine are very different. Hopefully time will tell which one was better at predicting the nature of reality.

In the meantime, could you suggest a link to this wave theory that gives a 95% probability that a universe like ours would arise? I don't know if I will be able to understand any of it, but I would like to try.


Peace,

JL

Bugs

Just a quick response to one error that Anti-Materialist is making.

OR does not reject God because of any assumption. It rejects God because there is no evidence that God exists. There is no assumption there. There is no evidence for God, so if you can explain anything without using God, then you don’t bring God into the explanation. Because if you do, you are bringing in an unnecessary entity that has no other evidence for its existence.

Now, if you want to argue there is evidence for God, fair enough. We can debate that evidence. And I’m afraid the anthropomorphic principle doesn’t cut it, as several people have explained. But you can try to argue it. But please don’t say it is because we “assume” God doesn’t exist. Some people might assume that, it is true. But that is NOT the reason Occam’s Razor rules it out. If you insist that we “assume” God doesn’t exist you have simply misunderstood OR.

As you were.

Nikolai

Hm, so how can we use the concept of God, whose nature we don't know, to make assuptions as to how he would designthe universe?

This is like a story Feynman used to tell. Imagine, today as I was driving to the lecture I saw a car. And, you will not believe this, the lisence plate was "XYZ-3474". What are the chances of me seeing that specific lisence plate? One in a few million?

The basic flaw you are making is using data to make the hypothesis and then using the same data to test the hypothesis.

Jinto

A window company? Don't you think we've had enough of windows already?

But if your ideas have no predictive advantage over atheistic theories, then I don't think you're going to have any success defending them on message boards. At best, you'll be able to establish that they aren't completely impossible, which puts them in the same category as little green men in flying saucers.

I'm going to give you some advice here: if you want to make money, don't start a window company, start a religion. You've already got the founding elements assembled on your website. Now all you have to do is write a book outlining the principles on your website dressed up in scientific-sounding language, make it the foundation of Ozhynism, and start converting followers. You'll be able to make millions, guaranteed! And then you can retire and devote your earnings to the research of paranormal phenomenon.

The big problem from a physics standpoint is that if you had absolutely nothing, then you would have something with a precisely defined position and momentum, or a precisely defined energy and time, both of which violate the uncertainty principle. Thus the laws of physics seem to preclude having absolutely nothing.

The physics reason for rejecting both is that it's mathematically impossible to have either of them not tend toward a state of maximum entropy. Further, if there are working combinations of physical laws that preclude the formation of complex systems, then under these physical laws intelligence will never develop, even over an infinite period of time, so ultimately you're still forced to either suppose that there are no combinations of physical laws which both avoid cancelling themselves out and preclude life, or resort to the anthropic principle to explain why the laws of physics allow that, which leaves you right back where you were with atheism. But the God-hypothesis has an additional problem: you also have to suppose that our current laws of physics allow for a god to exist, which has not been proven. It may be that life, no matter how advanced, will never be able to achieve God status.

I don't know what the maximum limit on intelligence is, although if you're looking for predictions of what happens at the maximum limits of intelligence, you might want to google the "omega point" theory. It's fairly interesting, although since it predicts a big crunch and the universe's expansion seems to be speeding up, it probably doesn't have much merit anymore.

As for the predictions of intelligence over long periods of time, I can't say for certain what that will become. However, I disagree that it in any way validates even the possibility of a creator, since it presupposes an infinity of time before the universe, and the second law of thermodynamics as well as general relativity seem to contradict that.

Here is a page explaining the basic idea, and here is a more thorough explanation of the theory. So far, though, I haven't been able to find anything on the mathematics of the theory, or for the life of me where they got the 95% from.

Evil Milkman

You have something against horse poop?

JGL53

Well, actual horse poop may be good for fertilizer, for all I know, so who would be against that?

I do have something against anyone who deems Occam's Razor to be the equivalent of horse poop, since I use Occam's Razor for many mundane decisions in every day life. It's just common sense (and a type of common sense that, unlike the flat earth, has never been and seems to be in no real danger of being overthrown anytime soon).

Additionally, implying that Occam's Razor is horse poop is the equivalent of sharing your theory with a fundamentalist christian that god and jesus both take it up the ass from a hundred angels every morning before breakfast - i.e., why not go all the way and assert that, besides Occam's Razor being shit, that science is demonic, atheists are evil and evolution is a satanic conspiracy?

Anti-Materialist

Yes, well - you shoulda seen how I had them ranting at me over on the 5Solas fundamentalist christian board. Where, BTW, my login was Anti-fundamentalist.

And, I did no implying of any sort - I stated it rather brazenly - knowing full well I would get shot to pieces doing so. But that's ok, I wanted to hear a justification for when Occam's Razor is useful.

In this thread I retracted my earlier stance that it was horse poop, and instead said that it had been horse poopified, because people use it left and right, and in situations where I feel like they are limiting their ability to apply creativity to speculate about the nature of reality.




Yes, well - predictive advantage, when discussing the non-material, is tricky. I predict we will find a way around the light speed barrier. As you pointed out before, if this proves to be true, then it will not prove my ideas were right. However, if we do find a way around the light speed barrier, then it will give my ideas predictive value over atheistic theories that say we cannot find a way around the light speed barrier.

Now - to state the obvious - belief in God is not going to help us break the light speed barrier. If we do find a way around it, it will be with theories that do not require the existence of a creator. My belief that a creator is more likely than not just allows me to predict that we will one day find the theories that work around the light speed barrier.

Thus, when the day comes that we beat light speed - none of you guys are going to all of a sudden become theists.


Here is another prediction: I predict that one day both of us will die. When we do - I'll hunt you up and tell you "Nyahh Nyahh, I told you so!"


Here is another prediction - related to my beliefs, but not related to a belief in God:

I can put on swimming goggles that have been blacked out with electrical tape, open my eyes, and see my hands and arms. I call this etheric vision. Others I have had try this, have also been able to do it. Sometimes, when my etheric vision is working well, I can even see my wife's hands and arms. Once, on a day when it was really clear, I was able to follow my wife's arm as she moved it up, then moved it back down to a random spot in front of me, then reach out and grab it. Another time I did something similar with my daughters hands. However, this only seems to work when my etheric vision is clear. When it is not clear, I cannot succeed at things like that, because I cannot make out the difference between body parts, and things in the background. With etheric vision, depth perception is all whacky.

I should point out that when I say 'clear', this is a relative term. It is never clear. It is very very faint. Too faint for me to be willing to subject myself to testing. However, I have seen some progress in making it more clear with practice. At this rate, I should be good enough to subject myself to testing in 5 to 10 years - but only if I have the discipline to keep practicing.

I cannot really see any practical use for etheric vision. Its only purpose would be to prove the existence of something non-material. And even then, I am not sure that would constitute absolute proof - as alternative theories could be constructed. Nevertheless, it seems worth it - if for no other reason than to add a little mystery to the world.

So, I make this prediction: In 5 to 10 years, I will be good enough at using etheric vision to be able to establish what would appear to be a form of extra sensory perception. Basically, I will be able to look through blackened out swimming goggles, and recognize objects at a rate that is statistically significantly higher than chance.




I would rather chew my own testicles off. Philosphies are subject to change, as we acquire more data and better analysis - religions are supposedly revealed from God and thus don't need to change. I am hoping to create a philosophy that will appeal to the spiritual side of people, yet not violate their rational thinking. Such a thing, if it became popular, would be good for some people.

And - I will never - never never never never never - have followers. The very concept makes me gag. People should be strong and indepent and think for themselves. Hopefully, I will have companions and colleagues - but not followers. The word 'followers' connotes all sorts of disgusting behaviors. Plus, I am far too goofy to have followers. I laugh at everything - especially myself.

And - spiritual pursuits should not be mixed with money making. It gets too emotionally icky.



Well - but maybe not. Physicists argue for the possibility of looped time. It seems to me that looped time would contain an infinite chain of cause and effect. Plus - entropy is a law of this universe - but is it necessarily a law of all possible universes/multiverses?



Yes - I would, in fact, argue that God cannot exist under our current laws of physics - at least not a God as we tend to think of one. God would need to be able to violate the light speed barrier. Call that a hunch - I don't want to bother trying defend the point - it just seems likely.

If there is a God, then there needs to be an existence outside of our current reality which is not subject to the same rules of our current reality.

Here's the thing - I think there has to be something outside of our current reality, because I don't see how our current reality could come into existence with its current set of rules.

Lettuce suppore there was something that caused the big bang - that caused our reality to exist. We can call it COR (Cause Of Reality). Whatever COR is, it seems to me it must contain an infinite chain of cause and effect - and not be subject to entropy. Otherwise, you get back to the first cause problem, and then nothing would exist at all. Jinto, I would really appreciate your thoughts on this paragraph - this concept has been eating at my brain for a long time. To me, this seems to be getting at the core of the issue. How can you have existence without having a non-entropic infinite chain of cause and effect? What model allows for that?







Well - it requires an infinite chain of cause and effect - this is not necessarily the same thing as infinite time. Would the second law of thermodynamics, and general relativity, contradict these things in a model consisting of multiple nested dimensions of time?




I don't know about assumptions - but we can use it to make useful speculations. I think the universe looks like it was designed (by a creator) to be a playground for life. Not just life, but life that evolves towards ever greater complexity. One manifestation of this complexity is intelligence. I speculate that we will find intelligent life in other regions of the galaxy. I also speculate that we will find life in the most unusual of places, even within our own solar system. I speculate that we will find a way to circumvent the light speed barrier, thus enabling us to contact other solar systems. I also speculate that we have a soul - I even have a rather involved hypothesis for the nature of the soul. It's going to take a lot of work to make it worth testing, however.



Ah - but there is nothing special about "XYZ-3474". If it were "ABC-1234", I would find it remarkable. One appears chaotic, the other appears to follow a certain order, and thus be by design. Tell me, if you saw a license plate that said "spank-me" would you suppose it was on accident or on purpose?



Cheers,

Jonathan