Atheist Cosmology
On YouTube.Com Carl Sagan does interviews answering questions about religion that features him turning away from religious myth towards scientific facts and their associated methodology rooted in logic.
He maintains his polite and diplomatic character as he rejects mythology for the unselfish realism of the scientific method and its discoveries. He makes a simple argument for atheism as the most progressive (if impersonal) choice: why posit an anthropomorphic creator of the universe, thereby invoking the problem of an infinite regress of creators, when you can go one step further and claim the universe has always existed?
The implication is, of course, that the universe has no creator.
Can I interpret Sagan to mean existence has no creator?
Speaking on the diplomatic side, the big question of the possible existence of a creator, is, he says, a deep question with answer unknown to us so far. He advises we all keep our minds open with regard to what might be the answer.
He makes it clear heÂ’s a fan of DarwinÂ’s theory of evolution in place of theologyÂ’s patriarchal creator.
In this conversation, I want to examine whether or not positing evolution in place of a creator amounts, in the end, to the same thing as positing a creator in place of evolution.
My argument goes as follows:
In an eternal universe there is, initially, no creation, only derivation in the form of energy transfer and change of form. Such a universe seems to be entirely mechanistic i.e., the universe is one big mechanism that forever cycles through automatic assemblages and dis-assemblages of myriad systematic things. On earth, science addresses many such assemblages within the fields of physics, chemistry, etc.
Things get interesting when we come to the subject of living organisms. The appearance of life entails the quantum leap across selfless mechanism into enduring point-of-view i.e., selfhood with its accompanying intentions and teleology (and claim of free will).
My first premise says intentions and teleology are essential to all forms of life.
My second premise says that in a universe both eternal and mechanistic, probability makes it inevitable life will appear.
My third premise says that if a universe has as one of its essential features the inevitability of life, then it has as concomitant essential features intentions and teleology.
My fourth premise says that if a universe has, in addition to the above essential features, evolution, then itÂ’s inevitable life will evolve therein. This state of affairs will lead logically to an ever, upwardly-evolving teleology that, after enough time, will resemble a cosmic teleology that can, with reason, be called a creator.
The upshot of my four premises says a mechanistic universe of eternal duration passes the Turing Test with respect to a cosmic creator. In other words, super-intelligent sentience, once sufficiently evolved to resemble a cosmic creator, should, for all intents and purposes, be regarded as such.
Given the level of intellect at which Sagan operated, I shouldnÂ’t be surprised to see him burrow his way out of the logical trap IÂ’ve described.
In lieu of Sagan, now departed, someone else is invited to come forward with their adamantine talons.
He maintains his polite and diplomatic character as he rejects mythology for the unselfish realism of the scientific method and its discoveries. He makes a simple argument for atheism as the most progressive (if impersonal) choice: why posit an anthropomorphic creator of the universe, thereby invoking the problem of an infinite regress of creators, when you can go one step further and claim the universe has always existed?
The implication is, of course, that the universe has no creator.
Can I interpret Sagan to mean existence has no creator?
Speaking on the diplomatic side, the big question of the possible existence of a creator, is, he says, a deep question with answer unknown to us so far. He advises we all keep our minds open with regard to what might be the answer.
He makes it clear heÂ’s a fan of DarwinÂ’s theory of evolution in place of theologyÂ’s patriarchal creator.
In this conversation, I want to examine whether or not positing evolution in place of a creator amounts, in the end, to the same thing as positing a creator in place of evolution.
My argument goes as follows:
In an eternal universe there is, initially, no creation, only derivation in the form of energy transfer and change of form. Such a universe seems to be entirely mechanistic i.e., the universe is one big mechanism that forever cycles through automatic assemblages and dis-assemblages of myriad systematic things. On earth, science addresses many such assemblages within the fields of physics, chemistry, etc.
Things get interesting when we come to the subject of living organisms. The appearance of life entails the quantum leap across selfless mechanism into enduring point-of-view i.e., selfhood with its accompanying intentions and teleology (and claim of free will).
My first premise says intentions and teleology are essential to all forms of life.
My second premise says that in a universe both eternal and mechanistic, probability makes it inevitable life will appear.
My third premise says that if a universe has as one of its essential features the inevitability of life, then it has as concomitant essential features intentions and teleology.
My fourth premise says that if a universe has, in addition to the above essential features, evolution, then itÂ’s inevitable life will evolve therein. This state of affairs will lead logically to an ever, upwardly-evolving teleology that, after enough time, will resemble a cosmic teleology that can, with reason, be called a creator.
The upshot of my four premises says a mechanistic universe of eternal duration passes the Turing Test with respect to a cosmic creator. In other words, super-intelligent sentience, once sufficiently evolved to resemble a cosmic creator, should, for all intents and purposes, be regarded as such.
Given the level of intellect at which Sagan operated, I shouldnÂ’t be surprised to see him burrow his way out of the logical trap IÂ’ve described.
In lieu of Sagan, now departed, someone else is invited to come forward with their adamantine talons.
Comments (103)
Quoting ucarr
This leap is unwarranted. Assuming that "life" is an "essential feature" of the universe, on what grounds – factual basis – do you claim Intelligent life (ergo "intention and teleology") is inevitable?
This anthropomorphic projection renders the premise incoherent at best.
The topic title is about cosmology, not evolution. Cosmology concerns a description of the universe, not about the origin of the species.
Then you ignore evolution altogether and talk instead about abiogenesis, which is neither cosmology nor evolution.
You also seem to assume that any atheist will take up this oscillating view of the universe pushed by Sagan. This is hardly the case, and it is a fringe view in the scientific community.
So anyway, are we talking about why the creatures are the way they are, or about why the universe is the way it is?
I support eternalism, but that's probably a different kind of eternal universe than the one you seem to be thinking of.
Quoting ucarrKind of begs the theistic view now, doesn't it? How are you going to disprove the alternative view if your first premise is that the alternative views are all wrong?
Quoting ucarrDemonstrably false. Most mechanistic universes lack the complexity required for life, or even an atom. The whole ID argument depends on this premise being false.
Like the quote marks.
There are a few arguments on the forum at present that start by assuming that such-and-such is irreducible, and then pretend to discover that it must have some ontological priority - @Bob Ross does this in his threads, as do others. Here goes with intentionality, or teleology, or both...
Sad.
Quoting 180 Proof
My claim is based on thinking living organisms all the way down to unicellular forms move, eat, excrete and reproduce. These behaviors, according to my present understanding, exemplify intention (to live and thus to avoid destructive forces when detected) and to design (follow patterns detected as successful routes to essential goals such as eating) and to will (pay life forward to the next generation via reproduction).
Quoting ucarr
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm using our human existence on earth as an example of the inevitability of life in our universe. In my thinking, I'm using evolution (which, as you know, is defended and promoted as a means for appearance of life without a divine creator) as a probability embedded within the organic chemistry of earth. Also, I'm using Sagan's supposition that the universe is uncreated and eternal. My logic is that since the building blocks of life are embedded within earth's organic chemistry, given an unlimited amount of time plus given the possibility of organic chemistry upwardly evolving into living organisms, that the building blocks of life on earth actually upwardly evolve into living organisms is inevitable.
Quoting 180 Proof
Assuming life is an essential feature of the universe per the above argument, I claim that intelligent life is inevitable because, firstly, evolution has been validated by some respected scientists and thus, it can be reasonably expected that living species will upwardly evolve into sentient beings with ever more powerful intentions coupled with ever more rationally designed plans for achieving said intentions.
And, to repeat my upshot, such evolution will inevitably evolve to a lofty position wherein it becomes virtually indistinguishable from the God-Creator teleology of theism.
I acknowledge the correctness of your distinctions of classification.
My thinking herein follows from an assumption that, with respect to my premise saying intentions and designs are inseparable from living organisms, regardless of their degree of sophistication, the universe i.e., the cosmology of living organisms, is the theater in which both evolution and, as I argue, its concomitant intentions and designs play out. In short, whenever the evolution versus creator debate arises, cosmology and evolution are, in my opinion, next door neighbors. This is clearly the case because, as I think, discussion of the origin of life naturally finds its place upon the ultimate stage of cosmology.
Quoting noAxioms
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I think it logical to include abiogenesis within the category of evolution. Without its inclusion, evolution falls prey to arguments declaring it's limited to pre-existing life made possible by a supernatural creator. Isn't this a weakness supporters wish to shore up by such an inclusion?
Quoting noAxioms
I take note of your limitation. For my purpose, however, this particular form of cosmology supports my arguments without precluding their application to other forms of cosmology.
Quoting noAxioms
I cite my claim the two topics are neighbors as reason for addressing them simultaneously.
Quoting noAxioms
You can inform me about the variety of eternal universes. For now, I'm inclined to think any eternal universe that includes evolution by logic also includes the science of probability and thus the inevitability of life.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting noAxioms
I want you to direct my attention to a life form that has been verified to be devoid of all intentions to survive and all designs (teleology) towards effecting survival.
Quoting noAxioms
Firstly, I'd like you to give me a tour of the contents of a universe without atoms.
What is the ID argument?
I don't see where this attack addresses itself to a universe specifically endowed with eternity and the mechanization of evolution.
Of course, I hate the term scientism, because it sounds negative. By it I just mean attempts to build a metaphysics out of what is widely popular within the natural sciences; this isn't science per say, because it goes beyond science's writ.
I do think there is something to be said about your allusion to the universe as a "Turing Machine." While I find the claim that the universe is computable to be highly speculative, and integrated information theory/computational theory of mind to be even more speculative, they do seem to leave the door open for something like a conscious universe. To be honest though, it's easy to see this as more a problem with those theories than anything else.
Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos," is a pretty good analysis of the problems with the plausibility of the "mainstream view," i.e., that the universe is essentially meaningless and valueless and no teleology can been seen in it (or should even be sought), that consciousness is not essential to existence, that objective/subjective is a useful hard line between suis generis modes of being, that all we can strive for is good maps of a noumenal territory, etc. You might be interested in that. It doesn't offer as strong an argument as you're trying to make, but it's more a diagnostic about the cracks in this view.
Actually, I am not sure how mainstream this view is anymore since a good deal of popular science seems to challenge it, but maybe that is selection bias on my part. It seems to be limping along based on inertia. To some degree, it seems to be a generational degree. Folks like Hawking, who came along at the height of the positivist attempt to dispense with metaphysics, are at the end of their careers or are sadly no longer with us. The new crop of "big names," seems to have a different attitude towards the received view, or at least a much more open attitude towards metaphysics. I can sort of see the potential for a strong "ontological turn," on the horizon, but maybe it's a mirage created by selection bias.
It's very easy to make a mechanistic 4 dimensional toy universe that just iterates infinitely through the same pattern. It seems completely possible to mathematically describe a universe that is without beginning or end but which lacks life.
I think the bigger question is whether mechanism and mathematics can fully describe true being as it actually is; so to a degree focusing on mechanism out the gate seems to put the cart before the horse.
I contest the logic and reality of your above claim on the basis of its inclusion of "adaptive" and "selection." I acknowledge my contextual use of teleology might be on less than solid ground because, per my usage herein, I'm talking about a sentient individual who possesses self-advancing purpose and self-advancing designs for achieving its purpose. Even so, teleology in the conventional sense of understanding purpose as a functional role played by something within the larger scheme of its environment which, in turn, moves with direction towards some still higher manifestation well serves my argument.
What could be more pertinent to purpose that adaptation to present conditions? Can evolution even proceed without purposeful adaptation to a changing environment? It doesn't require a biologist to know that living organisms unable to adapt to changing conditions, like the earth's dinosaurs, will perish rather than adapt.
Likewise, regarding selection, what could be a more purposeful action on nature's part to select for those living organisms best able to adapt to her environments? To select (as opposed to passively accept) possibilities is an excellent way to demonstrate the meaning and value of purpose, whether personally or systemically.
Each premise is potentially falsifiable.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I think I understand you think my argument old school.
On the other hand, you're pondering the possible comeback of metaphysics [?]
No, they are not; for instance, "For every organism there is some purpose" is a classic all and some, neither falsifiable nor provable. Failure to locate a purpose for some particular organism does not imply that it has no purpose, nor does locating a particular purpose for some organism entail that all organisms have a purpose.
But one should not expect such a cosmology to be falsifiable.
The accusation that evolution entails teleology is common, and basically, with some nuance, wrong.
In addition to the problems already cited, we might addQuoting ucarr
...which suffers the same problems as Anselm's "and this we all call God".
I could go on, but that might suffice. Cheers.
That's right. But upright apes, like snails, are not thought to have populated the earth one billion years ago. If evolution, generally speaking, has no purpose, doesn't that force us to conclude, logically, that evolution meanders about at random? If this conclusion is correct, then why didn't humans exist on earth one billion years ago? Or did they? If all of the organic compounds necessary to life have been on earth for, say, one billion years, why didn't a meandering, purposeless evolutionary process raise up some humans? Perhaps you say it was, at that time, a possibility, albeit one fantastically improbable.
Doesn't probability, even when fantastically improbable, point us toward a teleology-resembling selective evolutionary process governed in a manner probabilistically organizational i.e., loosely teleological? The animal kingdom of today, like that of a billion years ago, is not a case of anything goes, genetically speaking. A useful mutation organizationally advanced a billion years beyond its surrounding animal kingdom is extremely unlikely, right? Might this indicate evolutionary change is controlled probabilistically in context?
A mathematics-bearing universe puts up gnarly resistance to exclusion of teleology, likewise a consciousness bearing universe.
Clarification: in my context here, teleology mainly means self-advancing intentions coupled with designed behavior governed by goals.
The core of my thesis takes teleology and puts it inside of sentient beings, human beings specifically.
[i]Intentions and teleology are internal and essential to all forms of life.
In a universe both eternal and mechanistic, probability plus evolution makes it inevitable life will appear.
If a universe has as one of its essential features the inevitability of life, then it has as concomitant essential features internalized intentions and teleology.
If a universe has, in addition to the above essential features, evolution, then itÂ’s inevitable life will evolve therein. This state of affairs will lead logically to an ever, upwardly-evolving teleology that, after enough time, will resemble a cosmic teleology that can, with reason, be called a creator.[/i]
Show me how the above four premises are not falsifiable.
Quoting ucarr
yet
Quoting ucarr
Is it for humans, or for viruses too?
The thesis remains unclear, and prima facie incoherent.
:up:
So by your argument above, a 'god' figure is an inevitability, built into the fabric of reality? Does this not mean that god is contingent and not a necessary being? If we temporarily set aside your argument, have you got a tentative backstory for why this is the case or what the meaning of all this might be?
I find all teleological assignments to lifeforms implausible.
A wolf did not get sharp teeth because it needed them. The sharp teeth evolved not because of evolutionary intent, but due to the process of natural selection, working over a very long time.
I think you are simply placing 'intention,' too close to the origin process for the universe/cosmos.
The intention of a lifeform emerges and develops in complexity, over time, reaches a maximum and then dilutes and terminates, due to entropy, over time. Intention is relative and localised. I see no universal or cosmic reference frame for intention. Intention is emergent, not inherent.
I do have some common ground with you, in that given very large variety in very large combination over a very large time duration, life becomes more and more likely but I don't see any teleological based universal intent, as some underlying prime mover. Your proposal of some emerging networked totality of intellectual, sentient life, that could be labelled 'god' at some instant of time, way, way in the future of this universe, is for me, compelling, but not significant, as I think such will probably coincide with the end of this universe, as I think it will take at least that long for the god label to be correctly applied to that emergence (or perhaps within this Aeon cycle, as in Penrose's CCC).
Carl was 100% correct imo. He simply insisted that we just don't know the full origin story of the universe but he insisted, that that was ok for now. He further insisted that science and only science has provided us with all the useful, valuable information we now have regarding the origin truth. Theism has bore zero valuable information regarding the origin story. Carl simply suggested that the rational path is therefore to follow science and follow the evidence and reject the woo woo.
Hello Banno,
Although I cannot speak for what ucarr is saying (as I havenÂ’t read it), I just would like to take this opportunity to clarify some misconceptions about my view.
Firstly, I would just like to point out how, with all due respect, how disingenuous this sort of straw man of my position is. IÂ’ve posted two discussion boards (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14524/argument-for-a-mind-dependent-qualitative-world and https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14346/a-case-for-analytic-idealism) outlining arguments for why I think qualities are irreducible to quantities (and, more generally, why mental states are irreducible to brain states).
Now, if you disagree with my assessment, then that is totally fine; but if you genuinely believe that my claim is that of an assumption and mere pretend, then I would like you to provide some proof of this.
Secondly, since you referenced 180 ProofÂ’s post, I would like to note, as well, that I am not anthropomorphizing the universe. I do not hold that it has the ability to cognize nor deliberate nor any other human kind of higher evolved sentiments/capabilities.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Bob
Indeed. But I do think there is a troubling tendency to try to divorce evolution from all intentionality. I had to spend a very long time explaining to someone reviewing a paper I wrote why it is that natural selection, as applied to corporations, languages, elements of states, people groups, etc. can absolutely involve intentionality. It's like, somewhere along the line, to avoid mistakes about inserting intentionality into places it doesn't belong, a dogma was created that natural selection necessarily can't involve intentionality.
Obviously, people choose who they mate with based on intentional decisions though. Many animals are also picky about who they mate with. They also only mate if they survive and they only survive based on intentional choices they make. Intentional choices change the enviornment which in turn affects future selection pressures. Intentional behavior increasingly seems able to alter the genes that parents pass to their offspring in ways that violate the common conception of heredity.
Processes like self-domestication, particularly the high levels of self-domestication that humans enacted upon themselves, don't make sense without appeals to how individuals of the species make choices.
Normal domestication is an even more obvious example. A cow is, after all, a product of selection by the enviornment, which contains humans who intentionally bread it into livestock. I don't think there is good support for the claim that domestication is something totally new in the world, something unlike all prior evolution.
Intentionality plays a role in selection, but the selection process itself is initially not intentional. It is only intentional to the degree that life develops intentionality. Once that exists though, once a lifeform is using intentional problem solving to decide how to survive and who to mate with, then evolution is necessarily bound up with intentionality. In evolutionary game theory, we generally don't think the "players," know that they are in the game. In general, the "player" is more apt to represent the species than individuals in any case. And yet, obviously, at some point in the evolution of hominids the players very much did begin to recognize some elements of the game. "Like father like son," is appears to have been recognized by humans from at least the birth of domestication.
But the above gets at another point: if they player is the species, why do we only look at individuals for intentionality. The problem here is that information theoretic, computational theories in biology have been hugely successful. They can also show us how complex systems like an ant hive work like a "group mind," allowing for complex decision making processes, the sort of thing we associate with intentionality. No one ant knows what the hive is doing, but it's also not like any one neuron knows what the brain is doing, so objections based on that point seem libel to appealing to Cartesian Homunculi to explain intentionality.
[B]The problem then is that the same sort of complex sample space search/ terraced deep scan and informational processes that we use to understand the brain, what we think to be the seat of intentionality, also are at work in ant hives, but ALSO work for large sets of individuals undergoing selection. E.g., lymphocytes are often cited as an example of ways in which a selection based algorithims searches a sample space.
But Hebbian Fire Together Wire Together, a pillar of modern neuroscience, uses the same selection principles! Synapses and neurons survive based on interaction with the environment. Human development involved a process of massively overproducing neurons and then having them culled by selection. Yet we tend to think this sort of selection does indeed have a purpose, making an intelligent human, and does give rise to intentionality.
However, if this sort of goal oriented selection structure is acceptable to posit for the immune system, there is, prima facie, no reason to think it doesn't generalize to species. In which case, evolution absolutely can be goal driven, even when we're talking about unicellular organisms (or members of an immune system). So, we come full circle.[/b]
Where does intentionality start and end? If we appeal only to complexity and amount of information processed then species should be MORE conscious than individuals.
But this is also a field were there is fierce controversy raging.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution
Point being life seems to explore the sample space of possible "solutions" in a multi leveled way displaying fractal recurrence, and computationally. Looking only at individuals or DNA misses a huge amount of how species actually evolve.
Again, I'm not suggesting life is necessarily intentional in evolution. If anything, this shows that there may be serious problems with computational theories of the emergence of intentionality because it seems to make "species," to the extent they exist, as intentional as many fairly complex individual animals, if not more intentional. So either intentionality doesn't just result from "really complex, goal oriented computation," or it is somehow limited by having to be computation that occurs in a certain physical substrate, or, species ARE intelligent and we just don't see it because their "thoughts" take thousands of years.
Maybe the latter isn't as implausible as it sounds. We completely missed all the amazing problem solving power and intelligence plants demonstrate for a long time simply because they move to slow for the time scales we evolved to pay attention to.
Not sure what you mean by "a creator" here. It certainly can't mean "the creator of the universe".
But the examples you mention above, corporations, languages(at least those used by humans and human made machines), people groups (I am not sure what 'elements of states,' refers to), involves intelligent human design, so yes, they would involve intent but I am unfamiliar with any compelling scientific evidence that there is correlation between such examples and natural selection.
Evolution is merely a measure of, or a record of, how species have changed over time. Natural selection is also just a measure of which species survived environmental change, and why. I cannot perceive any intent in those measures.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The choices made are often bad ones or unfortunate ones or are purely based on instinctive imperatives, rather than intellect, and so many individuals don't survive. There is no intent in that system, random happenstance and a measure of fortune/luck, that individuals made the correct 'instinctive' move, in a given scenario, is a matter of probability and circumstance and not intent.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't get your point here. Such choices have nothing to do with evolution or natural selection imo. As soon as individual intent becomes the controlling mechanism over such as purely instinctive reactions, natural selection gets replaced with intelligent design/intent. Natural selection does not terminate completely but its role is much reduced.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Again you yourself highlight human design and intent, taking over from natural selection in the case of cows, dogs, cats etc. From Fauna Facts:
Cows are not man-made, but their evolution has been heavily influenced by humankind. Although cows originally existed naturally in the wild, the first cows were nothing like the cows we see today. Humans have shaped cows to be as useful as possible for us over the centuries, creating hundreds of unique and specialized cow breeds.
This is human intelligent design, no natural selection involved, only human artificial selection, which indeed has intent.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The underlined words are where we differ I think. Evolution is very very slow. As soon as a lifeform demonstrates intent as a consequence of being self-aware, conscious and intelligent, rather than a creature driven via pure instinct imperative only, then at that point, intelligent design reduces evolution to a very minor side show for such individuals. It then becomes much more possible that such individuals can make themselves extinct before natural selection or environmental happenstance does.
A big rock from space could still always send the Earth back to a molten mess and evolution and natural selection would be back to square 1 and become the only game in town again as far as an abiogenysis or panspermia event to spark any new flora and fauna, happening on Earth.
The rest of your very interesting post, attempts to evidence the proposal that evolution and natural selection, still plays a very significant role in how a species will develop, after it has gained the ability to demonstrate meaning, purpose and intent to the level that human beings currently can. I remain unconvinced (but I am still open to the idea, as my main expertise lies in Computing Science only) that is true.
Humans are my primary focus regarding internalized intentions & teleology. However, yes, I claim all living organisms exemplify internalized intentions & teleology (surviving, eating, excreting, reproducing). The spectrum of this internalization therefore runs the gamut from humans (and, of course, possible beyond-humans) down to viruses.
Internalization of intentions & teleology by sentient life is a core component of my thesis. I'm claiming the intentions and the organized designs to make specific things happen according to a plan, i.e., according to a premeditated purpose, gets instantiated within the universe by means of living organisms.
An important difference between my thesis and theism is the fact I posit intentions and teleology within nature, whereas theism posits this rational couplet beyond nature as in the super-natural.
I don't think my thesis makes a claim about super-natural teleology one way or the other.
These are good points, I will try to provide a bit more evidence.
I guess this is a point of disagreement: deciding that human-informed selection is somehow "unnatural" seems entirely arbitrary to me. The human is part of the natural environment of the wolf or the aurochs, and mutualism is hardly unique to humans, nor does self-domestication appear to only occur in the context of mutualistic relations with humans (e.g., bonobos, elephants, etc.), and yet these processes are based on social relations between animals. Such a view also seems to ignore the fact that many domestic animals appear to have started their road to domestication on their own initiative, domesticating themselves by coming into a mutualistic relationship with hominids, hanging around their camps waiting for food scraps.
For example, we don't think a human one day decided "wow, that cat is pretty, I shall tame it." Rather, the cats flocked to human settlements to live off the pests that thrived there, and the humans let them do so because our capacity for empathy can extend to other species and because the pests were harmful parasites- mutalism. The domestication of wolves is thought to have started in a similar way, based on the initiative of both species. Was the human part of this relation unnatural design and the feline role natural selection?
And where do we draw the line on natural and unnatural selection? Megafauna began going extinct left and right with the spread of hominids. Is this natural selection? But what then of the intentionality involved? Our distant ancestors seem to show plenty of intentionality; they bury their dead, make art, and appear to imbue both these practices with religious intent. Nor is this behavior, or tool making, limited to homo sapiens. Neither does it really take off in complexity with homo sapiens; behaviorally modern humans come long after humanity.
This is interesting in the case of dangerous game because the fact that humans hunt dangerous game ritualistically seems to be endemic. Men often "become men" in hunter gatherer societies when they take part in successful kills of the local dangerous megafauna- but then the drive to extinction is in part something quite intentional. But this extinction wave begins before homo sapiens and might have a similar causal mechanism in earlier hominids.
I think the mistake is to think of natural selection as only occurring in life. It doesn't; the concept is heavily employed in physics for non-living systems, in computer science, and a host of other areas. For example, we can see natural selection at work in the evolution of self-replicating silicone crystals, a non-living system. Indeed, one theory of abiogenesis is that such crystals were actually the scaffolding for early life, protecting RNA from the environment in a commensalism or mutualist (metabolic processes helped crystal fitness) relationship.
Natural selection occurs across far from equilibrium dynamical systems, not just those that are "living" (a poorly defined term in any event).
Previously, talk of natural selection affecting the development of languages., corporations, states., etc. was seen as a sort of loose analogy. However, more recently, information theoretic approaches in the empirical sciences have supported the contention that natural selection is also an essential concept for understanding the evolution of these higher-level entities (or at the very least, said contention is alive and well in the empirical sciences). And indeed, we see natural selection at workwithin a given lifeform, e.g. lymphocytes, neurons, etc. and at work abstractly in the success of "genetic algorithms."
That is, what was once thought to be something unique to life is now recognized to be a special case of a more general principle; exactly what we hope to find in science. Hence, Dennett's appeal to natural selection as a more parsimonious solution to any evidence of "design," ala "Darwin's universal acid." To my mind though, the mistake has been to dogmatically assert that intentionality plays no role in any of this, as a rule.
If computation gives rise to intentionality, then these complex computational processes can, perhaps, exhibit a sort of intentionality.
All our choices are based on instinct. All our perceptions, thoughts, emotions, are grounded in what we are; there is no "man in the abstract." If being guided by instincts and shaped by evolution makes something non-intentional than intentionality cannot exist. If I cook because I'm hungry, that doesn't mean there is no intention behind what I do. Indeed, it seems like instinct, goals, are essential for the creation of intent.
Discussions of birth control, the problems of falling birth rates in elites, etc. go back to early antiquity across a range of cultures. I don't see how this doesn't bespeak intentionality.
But this is no longer common opinion in biology. The article I posted was about the war being waged over just this fact.
The London Underground has not been around that long but the mosquitos that infest it have become a new species that will not mate with the species they descended from.
We have speciation occurring in two generations in one example. Bacteria can evolve resistances to antibiotics and antiseptics in a few days under the right conditions. Biologists also no longer agree that the Central Dogma holds; it's a point of contention. Changes in an organism's lifetime can demonstrably affect their offspring's traits, the big question is how much this should inform the received view on evolution as a whole.
And in any event, natural selection doesn't only occur in biology.
But this would seem to imply that humans aren't the result of natural selection as respects many of their recent ancestors, since hominids appear to have had intentionality.
I will attempt a response to your recent post on this thread tomorrow Count Icarus as it's Friday, it's 4:30pm here and It's beer and good cheer time! Cheers fur noo!
Enjoy!
It did also occur to me that the possibility of extra terrestrial life is relevant here. If life exists elsewhere, it might not look anything like life here. It might not use DNA, RNA, the same amino acids, etc. Maybe it's more likely to be carbon based, but it's unclear if this is necessary either.
But then can we really define life as a certain type of chemical process? This IMO, gives weight to the computational, information theoretic view of life, which then allows "life" to simultaneously become perhaps a less meaningful term but also something that might elucidate more about a wider range of phenomena.
Good job, Tom. You're getting right down to cases.
I do subscribe to theism, although I'm in terrible standing with theists due to a variety of my positions as, for example, this particular claim overall. As you might see in my response to Banno, I posit intentions and teleology within nature instead of positing same within super-nature.
Do I figure God-like consciousness is inevitable? I'll give you a qualified "yes." My addition to the evolution_teleology debate, as I see it, takes recourse to the Touring palliative regarding possible sources of consciousness. If an A.I. looks, acts, achieves and feels like organic consciousness to natural, organic consciousness, i.e., humans, then humans should, upon advisement, regard it as such.
Central to this rationale is the POV of the supplicant vis-a-vis the higher power. If we humans should suddenly be confronted by sentience billions of years beyond us, cognitively speaking, would we fall down in worship? Probably. The smartest humans would, however, resist this. Over time, this resistance would build to a rebellion and claimants would begin telling tales wherein they pulled the curtain on the midget wizard (of Oz) falsely intoning commands as if a giant.
Does this not sound like Tevye shaking his fist up at (silent) God? Does this not sound like Galileo called before the Catholic tribunal?
Imagine that eons ago, an advanced race of sentients developed the self-sustaining technology we now, eons later, understand to be nature and the natural world. Also imagine that back in antiquity, when the self-sustaining technology was first introduced, there was a prior natural world now replicated by the nature-appearing technology of the advanced race of sentients. The replication wasn't exact, however. The gap, easily detectable, was scorned by the mavens of the prior natural world. How was this friction resolved? It was resolved via the Touring palliative. The elder mavens settled into an edgy acceptance of the new quasi-nature. Eventually these elders died off and succeeding generations only saw a natural world.
Some implications of my position here, because they suggest God is inevitable rather than seminal, sustain my abominable standing within theist sensibilities.
Quoting Tom Storm
In the above quote, I think you intend to talk within the theist mode. I think, however, by positing God as as an artist who makes the universe as artifact, you parallel the rebellious mentality embodied within my little fable herein.
Quoting ucarr
Quoting universeness
The key word in my above quote is internal. It's the gist of my thesis. Intentions and teleology, essential to being alive, establishes them as being cognitive entities. Where there's life, there's intentions and teleology essential to the cerebration of the living organisms. The presence of this couplet runs the gamut from viruses to super-intelligent sentients.
This gamut, then, is the collective of intentions and teleology. Survival of the fittest within the circumambient environment demands ongoing adaptation. Ongoing adaptation, oftentimes improvisational, embodies and enacts what we refer to as intelligence. Intentions and teleology, therefore, are essentially cognitive. This means that cognitive intentions and teleology and environment are linked inextricably.
The wolf did not give himself sharp teeth; the collective gave him sharp teeth. The wolf, however, by using his sharp teeth, adds directed energy to the collective. This directed energy is better known as selection. The presence of wolves with sharp teeth selects those other animals who can survive the onslaughts of sharp teeth.
Useful genetic mutations, considered in isolation may appear to be random. Placed in context of a constantly changing environment, with a collective of intentions and teleology embodied in the animal kingdom, genetic mutations are contextually useful, and the process bringing this about is not random.
We know this process generating useful mutations is not random because living organisms, required to think to survive, do not indulge random behavior.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
:up:
Quoting ucarr
"Creator," in my context, means perceived "close simulation of 'creator of the universe.'"
As you may surmise, there's a lot of english-within-the-english within my context.
I think you exaggerate the difference between advanced intelligence and baseline intelligence. Instinct is not pure in the sense that humans, no less than comparatively more simple organisms, possess instincts that are essential to survival. When we recoil from the fast approach of a flying object, the autonomic system is processing info no less than when we reflect deeply upon, say, a complex moral dilemma. The difference, I believe, consists in the resolution of the cognitive processing per unit of time. Deep reflection is high-res processing whereas instinct is low-res processing.
If evolution, during the simple organisms period of an environment, involves instinctual info processing, albeit low-res, then intentionality permeates this period of evolution no less than it does when higher organisms appear.
How is it a simulation of the creator of the universe?
This critique may be applied to any dualism. So here, the dualism is the evolving physical world on the one hand and intentionality through intentionality on the other. You juxtapose quantity and quality in one thread, and then attempt to solve the dilemma by giving primacy to quality; in another thread you puzzle over the juxtaposition of object and subject.
What I would draw attention to is that inevitably, if one commences with a juxtaposition, thereby constructing a dualism, then one should not be surprised to find oneself in a world divided.
That is the inevitable, logical, outcome of this sort of approach.
Of course, the out, for all three of you, is god. But then there is the problem of invoking god as the solution to a philosophical problem - he can do anything, and hence explains nothing.
@Quixodian takes a similar, although more nuanced, line.
The upshot is that I find not just the present arguments, but this very way of attempting to explain things, from juxtaposition, quite unconvincing not just at the level of the argument presented, but as a method.
One of my important ideas is that flesh and blood human and incorporeal spirit God are entangled. I label this entanglement God Consciousness.
The thesis here plots a course of human development wherein something that looks like a convergence of the human and the super-human occurs.
Just as a sophisticated cyborg might one day pass for organic sentient, an advanced technology might one day pass for nature.
All of this speaks to the notion passage through the borderland of progressively seamless entanglement elaborates the origin story of the new epoch.
Origins are entangled rather than discrete.
Quoting Banno
Here we're grappling with the origin story of progress by design. Is the power of design extrinsic to material objects?
I think any notion of sentience arising from a material substrate requires the power of design to be intrinsic to material objects. Nuclear physics ascertains intricate order prior to sentience. An attempt to deny this mandates denying atoms and molecules pre-date living organisms.
Denial of sentience arisen from material objects mandates sentience-to-sentience reproduction of living organisms. This leads directly to a super-natural deity as creator.
Quantum mechanics strongly suggests seamless entanglement of past_present_future as a general feature of all origin stories.
Quoting ucarr
Agree that intentionality is a fundamenal characteristic of organisms, and can't be solely accounted for in terms of lower-level sciences such as physics and chemistry. Intentionality or 'aboutness' is one of the characteristics of all living organisms that can't be reduced to lower-level laws.
But disagree that the universe is machine-like or mechanistic, because machines are human artefacts and are assembled and operated by an external agent (namely, humans). Mechanism is one of the leftovers of Enlightenment materialism.
Quoting ucarr
Whether the Universe is eternal is moot and it is not a falsifiable hypothesis unless you have observable or inferential evidence of its ending. IÂ’ve already said that I donÂ’t think the machine analogy is apt.
Where I find fault with Sagan's view is in his appeals to science to argue metaphysical conclusions (as Richard Dawkins and his ilk are prone to do, although I vastly prefer Sagan to Dawkins.) But I'm not going to launch into yet another criticism of that. I'll let well-known TV scientist Brian Cox lay out the point:
Quoting Banno
The problem with Descartes' philosophy is not positing the division of mind and matter, but of treating mind (res cogitans) as though it were something objective. Then it becomes something like a mysterious ectoplasm or 'thinking stuff' and all of the associated problems of how 'it' relates to 'the physical'. But it's not an hypthesis, more like an heuristic model.
What has tended to happen is that due to this confusion in Descartes' model, scientifically culture generally has tended to divide off the mental and the physical, and then try to explain the former in terms of the latter. Thereby hangs the entire sorry story of materialist philosophy of mind.
Hello Banno,
I am not a dualist: juxtaposing two things does not entail, in-itself, ontological dualism; which is the only type of dualism subject to your critique.
I am not saying, similar to Descartes, that quantities and qualities exist as two separate ontologies whatsoever; I am claiming that a quantity cannot produce a quality (but vice-versa is possible). I am a substance monist.
I am not sure as to what you are referring to here: could you elaborate?
This is false: to juxtaposition is just to compare two things. It does not entail any form of ontological dualism whatsoever. A substance monist can compare any two properties they want and still claim that both are reducible to the same substance. The problem with substance dualism is that it is claiming there are two types of existence; which doesnÂ’t work at all.
I can compare quantities and qualities and still claim that there is only one type of existence (i.e., monism).
“Out” from what? I am providing, just like mainstream physicalism, a substance monist account of the world.
Also, I would like to note that, although I have mentioned the Universal Mind as God, it is entirely possible to argue cogently for that mind not being God (viz., there are arguments to be made for atheistic idealism).
This is just a straw man. Banno, when did I ever say that the Universal Mind is omnipotent? In fact, I think that the universal mind is only the “most powerful” in the sense that it is reality; and there are many (and I mean many) things it cannot do (e.g., violate the laws of logic, manifest a flower on this table right now because it feels like it, rescue people in the form of miracles, etc.).
The point, in my case, is to demonstrate the falsity of what most people nowadays implicitly hold as true: that a quantitative world produces qualitative experience. What part of juxtaposition do you not like (in terms of a method)? Again, it doesnÂ’t entail dualism (in itself).
Entailment is a logical, not physical property, so one cannot logically deduce that event X will cause event Y, nor can one logically deduce event X will occur to fulfill purpose Y. What actually happens in the real world is known empirically, not through a series of syllogisms.
The question then is what links X to Y? Causation is a possibility. Teleos is a possibility. Neither answer is empirically provable.
Quoting Quixodian
A mechanistic model of the universe has limitations and flaws that shouldn't be ignored.
Quoting ucarr
In my above quote, I populate the claim with attributes I think especially pertinent to the appearance of life on earth. I don't wish to suggest that, beyond the scope of the claim, mechanism expresses a dominant metaphysical truth permeating spacetime.
Quoting Hanover
I think the collective of intentions and purposes, the animal kingdom, propagates a real environment of selection that dominates the empirical experiences of its survivors. This empirical experience grounds organizational thinking that is goal oriented. Goal-oriented thinking might not be logically connected to survival in the jungle, but strategic thinking is nonetheless an existential_empircial imperative.
Single celled organisms demonstrate internally directed action; do you believe such organisms act intentionally?
@ucarr
When reading both of your responses to my posts, counter points were forming in my mind. I was building my arguments, so that I could take each point you both made and offer a response to each.
I will still do that if either of you would find that approach, the only fair way to progress our exchange. I have no doubt you will both have many interesting responses to my responses.
It then occurred to me that a better route may be to ask two 'connected' questions.
So, I though I would try that more simplistic route first.
1. Do you think the universe is deterministic? and if you do, I would appreciate a little detail as to why.
2. Is random happenstance real? Do you think there is 'intentionality' behind quantum fluctuations or are quantum fluctuations an example of that which is truly random?
If the universe is not deterministic and random happenstance is real, then does it not follow that a chaotic system becoming an ordered system which gets more and more complicated, due to very large variety combining in every way possible, can begin and proceed (eventually returning to a chaotic state via entropy) without any intentionality involved?
If the universe is fully deterministic, then to me, a prime mover/god/agent with intent etc becomes far more possible and plausible. For me personally, this would dilute the significance of life towards that of some notion of gods puppets. So, my personal sense of needing to be completely free, discrete and independent of any influence or origin, involving a prime mover with intent, will always compel me to find convincing evidence to 'prove beyond reasonable doubt,' that such notions are untrue.
Determinism demands A necessarily follows B as the result of an invisible causative force.
Fatalism demands A necessarily follows B as the result of an invisible purpose driven force.
Since both rely on a mysterious invisible force, it's no more rational to accept one or the other. And of course it need not be all one or the other. It could be some things are causative and others telelogical.
Quoting Janus
I'm guessing internally directed action is activity inside the cell that is a response to its environment and, moreover, is beneficial to the cell.
Do I believe uni-cellulars act intentionally? Yes. I remember high school biology films showing uni-cellulars avoiding a charged probe acting in the role of a cattle prod.
One of my foundations here is belief that anything alive will act to stay alive because life cannot be indifferent to its environment.
The two-edged sword of living is that consciousness is the greatest invention of the universe and, concomitantly, life must entail experiencing pain for the sake of survival.
I suppose a sardonic definition of life consists of the claim: life is the ability to feel pain.
With equal melancholy I claim: intentions are the ability to feel pain.
Now we have our holy triumvirate: life_intentions_pain.
Your questions are wonderfully complex and thought-provoking.
Quoting universeness
I think our universe has for one of its essential components a dimension of determinism. By positing determinism as a dimension I hope to elude the trap of a too-rigid determinism. I, like you, have no wish to be the puppet of an all-powerful, transcendent creator. By dimension of determinism I mean a structure of determinism widely variable in size and power, depending on environment and its sentient occupants. According to my thinking, the critical component for assessing the power and reach of an environment-specific determinism is logic. If my understanding is correct, in the game of chess, when a player gains the advantage, if henceforth that player makes no mistakes, meaning he does nothing to surrender his advantage, victory for that player is certain. At first glance, this truth about chess presents it as a game of rigid determinism. However, prior to the player gaining an advantage, we can ask if the outcome of the game was pre-determined. I don't think so. I use this example to claim there is an essential dimension of determinism in our universe. Without it, how could our lives possess any order and continuity? Does this relegate us to choosing between a range of choices, all of which are deterministic? I'm inclined to think the answer is "yes." If I'm right, then we understand in consequence the supreme importance of choices. If I'm wrong, and it's true some choices have consequences unknowable in advance, then such truly random variables mark the limits of science and philosophy. When truly random variables are in play, humans can neither understand the role of causation, if it exists, nor predict logical outcomes because, in the absence of causation, there is no detectable logic.
Quoting universeness
If I correctly understand random happenstance equals an event occurring without a cause, then my answer is no. How could an existing thing have no cause? If it causes itself, that's not random. If it doesn't cause itself, and if no other existing thing causes it, how can it exist? A causeless event, to my thinking, would have unfold in absolute isolation. It could have no intersection with any other form of existence. I don't believe such isolation is possible. If it is possible, absolute isolation occurs at a great removal from everyday life.
Quoting universeness
Since I don't have the foundation in scientific training nor the database of knowledge to make an informed opinion about the cause of quantum fluctuations, I'll have to venture a common-sense answer. The word "quantum" tells me quantum fluctuations are energy pulses that possess discrete boundaries and, also, these energetic particle fields are governed by the uncertainty principle. Furthermore, their appearance as virtual particles takes the form of particle-anti-particle pairs. Since both the form and the behavior of these fluctuations are not random, and also, the environment of these fluctuations is specific i.e., vacuous, I conclude that scientists can configure a network of components that empower them to produce quantum fluctuations on demand. This brings us to the understanding that quantum fluctuations can be produced and repeated on the basis of intent. From here we proceed to the conclusion that the production of quantum fluctuations by means of a recipe exemplifies quantum fluctuations intentionally caused.
Quoting universeness
If our universe has no dimension of determinism, determinism being defined by me as logic_continuity, then how could order ever make an appearance?
A chaotic system (oxymoron) becoming an ordered system tells me that the dimension of determinism is both operational and influential with respect to the formerly chaotic non-system.
Quoting universeness
I would share your abhorrence of the above, except I don't believe the universe is fully deterministic. I believe the universe is a super-market of choices and, moreover, there is no ultimate power guiding the sacred hand of choice. This means we're free to make either wise or absurd choices. If one tilts toward wisdom, however, the determinism of logic_continuity is a tolerable master.
Quoting universeness
Don't make the mistake of conflating freedom with isolation. Lest you aspire to your own Godhead, accept forever the possibility of your submission to that which is greater than yourself. Isn't that why the anointed wash the feet of beggars?
That a system might be sufficiently complex so as to render its continuities and outcomes obscure, or even undecidable, does, to me, sound like a real possibility.
I know the gap separating me from some of my correspondents pertains to the question whether intent can exist and operate apart from earthÂ’s advanced sentients.
The vision of complex systems populating our universe without authorship from a supervising creator well serves the desire to abolish a magisterial God pulling puppet strings controlling humans.
I suppose the claim such defiance by humanity has its source in the God being defied provides only cold comfort, if any at all. But, alas, thatÂ’s what IÂ’m offering with my claim herein: humanity and its after-bears will continually upgrade its simulation of GodÂ’s power until the simulation becomes hard to distinguish from the source.
Quoting Hanover
I can see from the above that all rational creatures, seeking to find patterns within the landscape, wrestle with the question, "How does the world work?" As a matter of fact, "work" is a good example of the socialized approach to finding our independent way through the world. The lesson being: the world is a workplace.
I've never thought of causation as being invisible. When I see a tire rolling down a hill, I don't think of gravity as being an invisible force.
I believe the world accommodates order. I don't think of it as a machine looking to fill pre-defined functional spaces with appropriate components.
Is the continuity that shapes an individual's personal history mysterious?
I'm thinking of intentionality as planning, as having reasons for action, not simply as response to environments. Thinking and deliberate action: I believe some animals can do it, so it's not only a human thing.
Quoting Janus
You're right to point out the distinction. It's important. I don't think the uni-cellulars, after receiving a shock, plodded forward in the same direction they had been going, back towards the prod. Instead, they continued moving away from the prod. Reaction is not intentional, but avoidance is.
I think we can question whether foraging around for food, even in the absence of a deliberate pattern, exhibits a baseline version of intention to survive. Let's say the flailing of the cilia of the uni-cellular is due to autonomic nerve impulses. If the ability to eat and survive is automatic rather than willful, we have a uni-cellular sharing vitality status with a virus. Memory tells me the quasi-life label applied to the virus is not applied to the uni-cellular. Perhaps this distinction doesn't imply intention. Does it imply intention-adjacent?
For now, I'll continue to argue that logic_continuity_order_self_intention form an entangled chain of vitality that insures the possibility (even if not the actuality) of life, and thus a logic-bearing universe will upwardly progress through evolving stages of intentionality. All of this is to say that a cohesive universe is never devoid of the means of intention.
Thank you for your detailed and interesting response and for your kind words in the first sentence of it.
On your proposal that determinism exists as an 'aspect'/dimension of our universe and perhaps, so does random happenstance.
Quoting ucarr
In your game of chess scenario, Quoting ucarr
I agree that if the player who has gained a state of advantage in the game and who then makes no mistakes, then under the rules of chess, it can be determined/predicted with a strong conviction level, that that player will win the game. But, the 'unexpected' can occur, the player who was going to win might choose to lose the game deliberately for a reason which is never revealed. An unexpected event might prevent the game from completing. Perhaps one of the players suddenly dies of a heart attack or the game pieces suddenly all get knocked off the board by a falling object from the ceiling, etc, etc. So the deterministic aspect can get nullified by an unexpected, undeterminable event. Does such a scenario show that random happenstance is also an aspect of the universe?
If determinism and random happenstance are both aspects of the universe then the question, will always become one of which one is most fundamental/came first/has dominance?
Quoting ucarr
How does your theism deal with this?
If the universe is deterministic, then free will is an illusion, and we are puppets whose status as puppets is being deliberately, and nefariously (imo), divinely hidden from us. If an omniscient prime mover can 'harden Pharaoh's heart,' then this universe serves no function, other than the proposal that an omniscient/omnipotent decided that it, + the cosmos, was a superior state, to it alone, which is self contradictory, as if it had a need to create via its own intent, then it could not have been complete, so did not qualify for the omni status.
Quoting ucarr
This sounds quite reasonable but I cannot find a place in the 'logic' of it, for your personal theism. Perhaps you could offer me a little more detail, on the role in your thinking, your personal theism plays, in relation to this thread.
Your theism seems to be positing a 'less powerful, not omni,' existing transcendental, esoteric force than the abrahamic style gods such as Allah or Jehovah.
Quoting ucarr
I agree, and I do accept that placing 'chaotic' beside 'system' is an oxymoron. If I drop a pen anywhere on Earth then it will fall, rather than rise, so, what happens to objects based on the cause and effect ordering can indeed be deterministic, but such classical thinking completely breaks down at the sub-atomic level of quantum physics. I am not suggesting that retrocausality is real, I simply don't know. But, I do think there is more and more evidence that entanglement, superposition and quantum tunnelling, are real and these do demonstrate that the universe is a lot more complicated than classical physics revealed. What teleology do you find in entanglement, superposition or quantum tunnelling?
I know that's a very complicated question, so I pose it merely to highlight the thought, rather than in expectation of you offering the succinct, detailed and peer reviewed scientific paper, required to even start to answer it.
Quoting ucarr
I think the term 'greater than' can become very complicated indeed. There are simple measures that can be described in such ways, but how about a question such as which is greater? The human wish to be free of the notion of subservience, to proposed supernatural intent or the comfort the theist gets, from the idea that one or more supernatural entities exist, which are truly greater than humans in every way conceivable, but still needed to create us, without, it seems, any responsibility for what happens to us.
Quoting ucarr
I would say scientific findings such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, would support this.
Quoting ucarr
It seems to me that what you type here, could be argued, as supporting the view that god is no more than a placeholder ideal of humankind, a human creation of mind. An imagined measure, than humankind (even if it merges at some point, with it's own tech creations such as AGI(artificial general intelligence) and perhaps even if AGI produces ASI (artificial super intelligence)) will, as long as it exists, asymptotically aspire towards becoming. As an atheist, I am willing to accept that, especially if the alternative is accepting my status as an unwilling puppet of supernatural intent.
Just checking in briefly to let you know my work schedule might delay me a bit in getting back to you on your important, thought-provoking questions. Have no doubt, however, I will soon be sharing my responses with you.
:up: At your convenience sir! I look forward to your continued insights.
Quoting Janus
Until now, I had lost sight of by best counter-argument to your important premise (in bold): that there is a categorical distinction between autonomic response and elaborately reasoned response.
Quoting ucarr
The is my counter-premise (to your premise). Below is my supporting argument.
Quoting ucarr
This means that the uni-cellular, recoiling from the electrically-charged probe, or the human, recoiling from dust in a sudden sand storm, are acting intentionally under control of the autonomic nervous system. In each case, the sentient has reason for action, apprehends a plan of action and executes this plan of action towards a goal, in this case, preservation of well-being.
Under superficial examination, autonomic responses appear not to be intentional. I think this appearance is due to the extreme quickness of the response. It seems as though there's not enough time to think about what to do; there's only time to act without thinking. We know, however, that autonomic responses involve info processing, just as careful deliberations involve info processing. The difference is the volume of info processed per unit of time, i.e., it's the resolution of the info processing that differs. Without behavior-specific instructions from the neural networks of the brain sent to the nerve-fiber networks of the muscles, how could a situation-appropriate autonomic response to potential harm be enacted? Since the info processing, conducted at the speed of light, greatly compresses the info down to a minimum of code, short-term memory of the event lies at the cognitive baseline: the instinctual. This stands in contrast to deliberative reflection which affords copious info code more easily remembered.
Quoting universeness
Let’s not conflate “random” with “uncontrolled.” The sense of “random” that best serves your thesis (as I see it): that the universe evolves life without the provident hand of a super-natural creator, involves the statistical sense: equal chances of occurrence regarding multiple possibilities. In this situation, a specific outcome cannot be predicted. Does this mean the outcome is not controlled beforehand? No. The outcome, we know beforehand, has a range of possible outcomes. There is still systematic control beforehand, albeit not precise.
In a situation with infinite possible outcomes, we know nothing beforehand. Does this mean the outcome is not controlled beforehand? No. The outcome will express a cause and its effect. ThatÂ’s still control, although opaque to reason beforehand.
If an unplanned event disrupts a planned event, and given unplanned events are logical possibilities, then that's not a random occurrence (in the sense of: happening without method). The system has always made allowance for it to happen. The disruption is due to a lack of advance planning (or the lack of the possibility of advance planning) aimed at preventing its occurrence.
Quoting universeness
Great question.
My belief that a causeless thing could only originate in isolation coupled with my belief nothing, not even God, originates in isolation leads me to believe the existential entanglement of existing things permeates creation as a metaphysical truth. (This tells us QM and Scripture are not in conflict).
I cite scripture for authority supporting my thesis God has never been alone. My citation is The Trinity. God has always been tripartite. Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I am.”
Furthermore, that Jesus is God made flesh means Jesus causes God no less than vice versa. How else could Jesus be fully God? Again, I cite scripture: As it is above (in heaven), so it is below (on earth).
God is not dead. Instead, God is simulatable. Nietzsche may have over-reacted when he declared God dead. What he was observing in the nineteenth century is what we are still observing in the twenty-first century: humanity subsuming God. Science, math, metaphysics and other disciplines are making human approaches to sacred myth with actionable practices. YesterdayÂ’s miracles of God are todayÂ’s cultural advances: the holy ghost has practical application in our global telecommunications systems. When Marx spoke of religion being opium for the masses, he foreshadowed religionÂ’s transition into the spellbinding dramatics of motion pictures. What is the ascension of Jesus from the barricaded tomb if not quantum tunneling writ large?
At the end of his resurrection, when his re-ascension was imminent, Jesus, reviewing his three-year ministry, spoke to his disciples of the miracles performed. What he said is pertinent to forecasts about humanity’s future: “All of these things and more you will do.”
Only the element and story of the anthropomorphic creator is enough for a rational and honest being to reject it. Of course, this normally doesn't happen immediately even if one is a very rational and knowledgeable person. A whole religious culture is built since 2,000 ago and burdens us since our first baby steps in our never ending education and maturation as well as our domineering, oppressive, despotic, bossy way we have been educated, by our parents, school and society in general, and esp. for the older generations, have made it very difficult to lift this heavy burden off our backs. Indeed, this kind of education has very deep roots in our minds and consciousness. And it takes a lot of (philosophical) thinking to do that. For the last two generations of course, the burden is not so heavy since a lot of the old values have started fading out and education is much less oppressive.
I believe I'm quite rational --in fact I'm and always have been a rationalist as well as a realist person-- yet, it took me a lot of years to ask myself questions about the Christian God, like why is God referred to and depicted as a masculine and old person? Shouldn't God transcend genders and have no age at all? WouldnÂ’t be more logical that God --as Supreme Power and Creator-- be depicted as a light, which has no gender or age? Then, why God in the Bible constantly exhibits so many human characteristics and esp. negative ones, like rage, and is seeking revenge of or punishing people? Besides, isn't God who created Man? If Man has flaws, who is responsible for that? And so on and so one. My list contains a lot more of such questions, which all lead to one thing: Man has created God. Not the other way around.
This is not to make less of this great man, Carl Sagan, whom I really loved and love. (BTW, I watched half of the video you brought up.) But what I say is that one has not be a person of his caliber or listen to such a person to realize that the Bible together with God we are fed since our youth are just myths.
When it comes to the issue of whether the universe, at its most foundational level of dynamism, ( the fundamental process(es) that forms it's existence) is deterministic and from an agent with intent or random with no intent whatsoever, random and uncontrolled are synonymous.
Quoting ucarr
This also provides zero evidence that such an outcome is controlled beforehand. We can only currently state that we don't know, which is the atheist position. You can slide this towards the weak or strong grouping of atheism. I personally favour the strong grouping.
Quoting ucarr
In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation (also known as a vacuum state fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary random change in the amount of energy in a point in space, as prescribed by Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. They are minute random fluctuations in the values of the fields which represent elementary particles, such as electric and magnetic fields which represent the electromagnetic force carried by photons, W and Z fields which carry the weak force, and gluon fields which carry the strong force.
What evidence do you have that suggests quantum fluctuations are under some source of systemic control? If you had such evidence, you would become world renowned, almost overnight. The only correct answer is that there is no such evidence.
Quoting ucarr
Infinity is an unproven concept it is not a measure.
Quoting ucarr
Do you think a mindless origin spark for the universe could have been prevented?
If all possible events in the universe could be accounted for, during a planned experiment then I would agree with you that 'random' does not exist, but such is not the case. You cannot even test speed = distance/time for all possible distances between 0 meters and 1 meter. It is impossible, within this universe, to exhaustively test anything, because of the number of possible events and the fact that we don't know what all the possible events are or the conditions under which they might all occur. To me, this suggests random happenstance exists and the universe is not fully deterministic, so omniscience is highly unlikely, as is the existence of god.
IMHO, the rest of your post is (perhaps on your part,) a 'romantic,' attempt at a god of the gaps style fitting with such as QM, that just does not fit.
Absafragginlootly!
Seems plenty fair. I am more interested in the arguments against intentionality becoming intertwined with evolution and the ways in which evolution uses the same "terraced deep scan," model that Hofstadter identifies as a key element of consciousness, but this has more to do with my own private pet project of translating some of the insights of continental philosophy, and of Hegel, into the language of the modern empirical sciences.
This is of course aside the main point though, so maybe I will create a different thread on that sort of thing (e.g., the interplay between individual, group, and gene level selection, which I think are all irreducibly important and represent fractal recurrence, making an argument for seeing evolution through the lens of fractional dimensionality.)
I wish I could give a good yes or no answer, but it depends on how "deterministic," is meant. Do I think the universe exhibits law-like behavior such that what comes before dictates what comes after? Yes.
Do I think the universe is computable per current definitions of computability? I am split on this. Space-time appears to exhibit the properties of being a true continuum, which means it takes infinite real numbers to describe. If this is the case, then physics is not computable, but the jury is out on this. We may find out space-time is discrete, or that something like intuitionalism holds, vindicating Wheeler's"participatory universe." I also believe we may discover a new type of "computation-like" abstraction that works with real numbers, with infinites.
Do I think it is possible to completely predict what comes after based on what comes before, ala Laplace's demon? Probably not. First because strong emergence seems to exist. If the world IS computational in the current sense, then it appears that it lacks the information capacity to generate our world without strong emergence (Davies' proof and all, which suggests strong emergence is required for the universe to be computable).
Further, physics does not appear to actually be reversible, at the microscale (CPT symmetry was violated in 2012 but the Higgs Boson overshadowed it) and certainly not in the macroscale (thermodynamics). Most importantly, wave function collapse appears to be as "empirically real," as anything in nature. This means that physics gives us vast sets of possibilities that only become actualized over time. I don't buy the arguments for eternalism and find local becoming more compelling. But even for those who embrace deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics, it's worth noting that unitary evolution is axiomatic, and is ditched in many attempts to unify physics.
So, I think the classical scale appears to be deterministic, but the quantum scale seems to be a source of essentially infinite amounts of new information. Thus, I think our conception of determinism simply fails, that our world is deterministic in some ways but not others. What is wanted is a dialectical fusion of our concepts of determinism and indeterminism.
So I guess that is a yes or a no depending on how you look at it.
Depends on how random is defined. Quantum mechanics appears to be stochastic, probabilistic. In that sense I would say yes, which implies contingency but contingency within a boundary of possibilities.
[Quote]
Do you think there is 'intentionality' behind quantum fluctuations or are quantum fluctuations an example of that which is truly random?[/quote]
Again, it depends on the situation. Quantum interactions out in space? I don't see a role for intentionality. Quantum measurements in a lab? Yes, what interactions occur, when and how, appear to be guided by intentionality. I am definitely a believer in experimenters' "free choice," and frankly find varieties of superdeterminism that try to fix non-locality by removing free choice to be bizarre. But quantum events don't only occur in labs, they occur everywhere, so countless quantum outcomes do have a relationship with intentionality, one that is bidirectional.
That said, you can think about things like contextuality, the fact that it seems possible that QM removed the possibility of a single "objective world," that all observers can agree too (https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05080), and question whether such a concept is even coherent without intentionality. Plenty of people are very committed to the idea of an objective world, but I'm not sure such a thing is even coherent without subjectivity.
Sure. We have the concept of a Boltzmann Brain, a human brain, generating consciousness, that can form out of random thermodynamic (or quantum) fluctuations given enough time. But randomness need not generate such things either. A universe that behaves differently than ours doesn't produce life. In fact, the constants of physics, and the vanishingly unlikely low entropy of our early universe both appear to be necessary for life to exist. We can well imagine a universe with very similar physics to ours that collapses back down into a big crunch before life has time to develop.
So, the space of possibilities has to be consistent with life as we know it. Of course, pure randomness could produce life, but if the world was completely random we shouldn't expect to see so many regularities, or even be in the same place from moment to moment.
Right, I just don't think we can make it a neat binary. Clearly, our world is deterministic in some senses. We don't drop our kids off at school and worry they might be adults when we pick them up in six hours. We don't throw potatoes into our soup and fear they will transform into rocks when they hit the water. There are bounds on the space of possibilities, but actuality also doesn't appear to crystalize out of these possibilities until just the time that it does so.
We cannot be free if there aren't bounds on possibility. Afterall, to be free means that when you do something, you expect it to have a certain result, or range of results. Otherwise, it's like we're playing a video game where we might have 12 buttons we can press, but the buttons do something different every time, with no way to predict the outcomes. We aren't free there because our choices are at best arbitrary, based on nothing. Freedom requires constraints, for one thing to flow from another in a way that is intelligible.
But the incredible fine tuning that appears to be required for life to exist, and for it to exist in a way where it can be free? That makes me think a creator, or some sort of natural teleology, seems more plausible.
Thank you for your detailed response to my post. You offer a balanced treatment of the issues involved and of the questions I posed. Plenty of food for thought for myself and other readers to ponder. :clap:
Yeah, I also regret having entered into the discussion.
Quoting Quixodian
Yet there has been quite a bit of progress in explaining mind in physiological terms. So I'm not going to go along with that, and instead repeat the methodological point, missed by and unaddressed by @ucarr, that an ontological juxtaposition will lead to incommensurability. They might see it one day and move forward to Hegel. :wink:
I agree they are both information processing. But the immediate response does not consist in reflection on the information. When there is reflection, the active outcome cannot be predicted with certainty, whereas the immediate response consisting in acquired habit, is much more predictable. For me, that is the salient difference between intentional action and simple internally directed action.
Quoting universeness
How do you assess the following: when the researchers picked subjects to be tested for allergic reactions to dairy products, they controlled for anti-bias by selecting their subjects unsystematically, and thus, by random sampling, they were assured that the individuals chosen from the main set, each having had an equal chance of populating the subset, expressed unbiased representation of the whole.
Quoting universeness
In the above quote, there is a wealth of information pertaining to quantum fluctuation. Within the quote there is a description of the means by which this phenomenon is observed: a quantum fluctuation (also known as a vacuum state fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary random change in the amount of energy in a point in space, as prescribed by Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
How do you assess the role of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle with respect to the question of the relationship between randomness and prescription?
Quoting Janus
You're sparring in the ring. Your boxing instructor is teaching you how to watch for your opponent's weak side. In the current lesson, the understanding is that you're boxing with a left-handed opponent. Your instructor throws a series of left-jabbing feints close to your eyes. The discipline is to make yourself watch the fake jabs and also watch his right hand because he's trying to get you absorbed in the fake jabs so he can cross you with his right and send you down to the canvas. With each series of feints, the left jabs get closer. You watch through three series of feints as his left gets closer to your eyes. In the fourth series his left comes to a fraction of an inch from your eyelashes, your eyes close and he crosses you with his right and drops you onto the canvas. Your autonomic nerve responsiveness was active throughout the series of feints; it wasn't until the fourth series that your eyes made a lightning-quick decision to close.
How do you assess the decision of your eyes?
If I understand your example above, You are saying that the people chosen to participate in the test you describe, were chosen 'at random,' but you are also saying that they were chosen from a finite, limited domain size and thus, there is a known probability of a particular member of the domain size, being chosen, so that is not truly random, it's just choosing from a fixed domain size. I understand such examples as my expertise is Computing Science and I have worked with methods of producing 'random number generators' inside a computer based on the state of the clock pulse at any instant in a time reference which is external to the clock rate of the computer (ie, the time displayed on a clock app on the same computer). So we have 'truly random' against 'the probability of choosing any single member of a fixed domain.' What you have to cognise, is that the concept of the existence of a fixed domain of possibilities, does not match the realities of QM. For example, superposition supports the possibility of a multiverse. How many universes in a multiverse? The size of that domain can never be known!
Infinity is a concept, it can never be a measure. So if your source domain size is unknowable then picking an exemplar from that domain is truly random, imo ( or at least, as close to the concept of truly random that we are ever going to get, again imo.)
Quoting ucarr
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a principle of quantum mechanics that limits the accuracy with which the position and momentum of a particle can be measured or predicted
You cannot know the momentum and the position at the same time. When you measure one, say position, then you could predict the other, but your prediction would be truly random, as the domain of possibilities falls into the concept of infinite. Quantum fluctuations happen at every possible coordinate in space at every plank time duration, (perhaps at every, even smaller than plank time duration, which we can never get any info about, as we would be in black hole territory (I think.))
So, to try to reflect, using the terms you asked for. Under Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, you can 'prescribe' position or momentum but not both at once, as when you measure one, the other can be at best, randomly guestimated, based on previous measures of the momentum/position of the same type of particulate.
How do you asses such decisions of your brain (as your eyes don't make decisions)?
Choose a film title!
Choose another film title!
Why did your brain choose the first one before the second one?
Was that choice determined for you, or did your brain employ its ability to make a truly random choice and therefore demonstrate, that a prime mover is as unnecessary, as it is unwelcome?
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Can you elaborate when and how conditioning and intentional training of immediate responses preclude rather than program autonomic reflection_intentionality?
Note - In this situation, programmed reflection_intentionality, viewed from an info-processing standpoint, entails reflection_intentionality enactment upon preset reflection_intentionality.
Example -- Your eyes, for defense, are programmed to shut if a material object crosses a threshold marking unacceptable proximity. When that threshold is crossed by a material object, autonomic processing does an assessment of what the standard is, i.e., what is the threshold. On top of that, it does an assessment of what it is programmed to do when the threshold is breached. The first assessment is reflection upon the programming. The second assessment is reflection upon the reflection upon the programming.
These two tiers of reflection processing, per Alan Turing, simulate successfully the appearance of human intelligence. Consequently, machines, via humanoid processing, give the
appearance of human intelligence and thus should be treated, at least situationally, as human sentience.
In my parallel argument here, autonomic info processing successfully simulates reflection and should thus be regarded as such. This argument, in turn, connects to my main theme herein: as U.E.S. (upwardly evolving sentient) progresses in its simulation of the cosmic consciousness of theism, said simulation should be treated as cosmic consciousness.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Your two above quotes acknowledge empirical limitations on randomness.
Quoting universeness
Your above quote suggests that “randomness,” like “infinity” is more concept than empirical reality.
Quoting universeness
The set of measurable domains is infinite. Is this an oxymoron? To elaborate, if one wishes to make a general statement about selection probability from measurable sets as a whole, then, per your argument, measurable selection probability in general is impossible, or, if the converse applies, randomization via infinity is impossible or measurable selection probability in general and randomization are both, paradoxically, possible.
Quoting universeness
QM is centrally concerned with discrete, measurable boundaries, as indicated by “quantum.” Particle_wave duality keeps one foot of QM planted within a Newtonian context. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, as a predictive measurement of one or the other components of the particle vector, serves Newtonian physics no less than QM.
Our context for the randomness/predictability debate, as we both seem to agree, allows for a mixture of both poles.
How does a controlled system counter-balance random processes with predictable processes?
When a theoretician is designing a control systemÂ’s supporting math framework, generation of infinite values compels the theoretician to re-design the framework so as to avoid infinite values lest the measurement and control functions be lost. I take this to be (some part of) the rationale behind your claim infinite conceptualizations, with respect to probability and statistics, are truly random.
In the case of infinite conceptualizations within a Newtonian context, do humans leave the empirical realm in favor of the realm of mind? Claiming: Infinity is a concept, it can never be a measure. tells us infinity is never encountered empirically. This, in turn, tells us true randomness likewise is never encountered empirically. Does not this lead us to conclude that randomly generated lifeforms, and their processional runup to life forms actualization are also, likewise, never encountered empirically? This means that truly random actualization processes culminating in empirical lifeforms is pure theory without empirical counterpart.
If, on the other hand, QM is the context wherein truly random, a-bio-genesis life forms actualize, then must we conclude that QM life forms are, by force of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, fundamentally only partially verifiable & knowable within the realm of conceptually infinite universes, themselves empirically impossible because unmeasurable?
Another option is that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, by prescribing correctly quantum fluctuations, thus making them predictable, collapses QM superposition multiverses and true randomness along with it. This leads us to conclude that at the human scale of empirical experience, no life forms are randomly generated.
If randomness is confined within the QM multiverses of superposition, then the predictability of rational control systems within the Newtonian scale of human empirical reality crowds out randomness completely.
This leaves us to conclude that U.E.S. (upwardly evolving sentience), eventually, will reconcile wave-particle duality in the interest of a harmonious randomness/control counter-balance.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
In your above quote, you answer your own question above that by claiming truly random (therefore "free") choice can only happen, or approach happening, within sets of infinite possibilities which, as I interpret in my previous post above, you claim are only conceptual and therefore not empirical.
Not in any way that lets, determinism move to the front. Determinism is as empirically limited as randomness.
Quoting ucarr
Well there is connection yes, in that the concept of infinity IS a placeholder label for a domain source with an unknowable number of members, like the set of everything, in mathematics.
But there is nothing there, that assists a claim that the universe is deterministic or that intent and teleology play the dominant role you have suggested.
Quoting ucarr
No control system exists or (imo) can ever exist, that can fully protect against all possible random happenstance, as such information is unavailable in this universe.
Quoting ucarr
But it is! 1/0, for example. Sure, you can program a machine that will produce an 'error' code or put a message on the screen stating that this calculation is undefined etc but no such actions prevents the mathematical existence of 1/0.
Quoting ucarr
But it IS encountered empirically. You cannot know the momentum and the position of a particle at the same time! You can only measure one and randomly predict the other.
Quoting ucarr
No, it suggests that random abiogenesis is not impossible, neither is affect coming before cause in some QM states. The quantum Eraser experiment is a nice example of the issues involved:
There are two sides, in the issues involved however ( surprise surprise eh!)
I am not a substance dualist.
Quoting Banno
I don't know what this is. Can you give me an everyday example?
Quoting Janus
My previous post to you is my response to your top quote above, which I interpret as follows:
Through drilling, training towards conditioned responses instills, by rote, immediate responses of the autonomic system. A familiar example is the Pavlov autonomic response: every time a dog is fed supper over a series of feedings, a whistle sounds. Subsequently, whenever the whistle sounds, the conditioned response of the dog is to salivate.
From this interpretation I proceed to claim that the salivation of the dog involves autonomic processing of the drilled memory of the sound of the whistle. That's the dog's brain reflecting upon the objective whistle heard previously. Atop this reflection, I claim theoretically, that the autonomic processing of the remembered whistle as a trigger for salivation is reflection upon a reflection. I cite this two-tiered reflective, autonomic info processing as a dog-brain simulation of the intentional human drilling of the dog's triggered response: salivation at the sound of a whistle. Throughout this conversation, I've been propounding the thesis that sometimes a simulation stands as good as the original.
Now you have an opportunity to show my reasoning false. I don't think you have a strong case for showing my reasoning irrelevant to your claims. You are, of course, free to make the latter case; I want you, however, to go beyond a mere declaration of error by providing your finding with a supporting argument.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
You explained random sampling is not true randomness. You followed by saying true randomness exists within the domain of infinity.
Quoting universeness
1/0 is another infinite value.
Quoting universeness
I speculate that the measurement-resistant variable within Heisenberg Uncertainty makes an asymptotic approach to unmeasurable inaccuracy. As this graph of increasing inaccuracy is a measurement unending, clearly, it is not random.
Claiming measurement of the measurement-resistant variable within Heisenberg Uncertainty is random exemplifies doubling back upon the Heisenberg equation and erasing it. By definition, the equation is a measure of uncertainty. If what is labeled uncertain cannot to any extent be predicted, then that's not uncertain but rather unknowable. The equation is a statistical tool. In the realm of randomness, statistics cannot get started. This tells us that the equation, dealing as it does in asymptotically increasing uncertainty, never addresses an unknowable variable. This tells us that the equation is not an empirical example of the unmeasurable.
Quoting universeness
I think the conclusion should be restated as: It suggests that random abiogenesis is theoretically approachable, albeit not empirically expressible.
True randomness, on the basis of your evidence here, appears to be confined to a QM math graph. Perhaps this is a good thing. Who, living within human empirical experience, wants to contend with a lot of (or even a few) truly free, uncontrollable variables affecting events in their life, especially vital and important events like survival and happiness?
Evolution explains the development of life and not its origin like (so called) "creationism", so it's no more a substitute for an inexplicable (alleged)"creator" than astronomy is "posited in place of" astrology or modern medicine is "posited in place of" faith-healing. Evidence-based stories and evidence-free (faith-based) stories have incommensurable discursive functions and are not interchangeable, or substituteable one for the other.
"A creator" is either "posited in place of" We Don't Know Yet – as a creator-of-the-gaps placeholder – or bullshitted denialism of modern evolutionary biology.
Well, your quote above is mostly correct but I did not claim 'true randomness,' exists. To be as clear as I can be, I personally assign a credibility level to the proposal that true random happenstance exists, at 99.999%. The same credibility I assign to the proposal that god has no, nor ever has had, any exemplar existent. Proving 100% that random happenstance is the fundamental driver of the universe, and the origin of the universe is not deterministic and had zero intent or teleology behind it, is still in debate.
100% proof may not be possible. Again you keep making 'small slips' in your conceptualisation of infinity. Infinity by definition, has no domain, no fixed number of members, as it is not a measure. It cannot really be collapsed into an instantaneous measure such as an average etc, like position or momentum, can be separately collapsed and instantaneously measured/approximated.
You must also appreciate that no measure that humans can perform is an absolute measure. All measurements are only accurate to some arbitrary number of decimal points. But 'points of change,' or 'tipping points,' exist.
At a density of x.0000000000x, the neutron star does not become a black hole but perhaps at x.00000000000x, it does 'change/tip over and become a black hole.
That extra tiny, tiny decimal place, can be what is needed to 'tip the balance'/cause the change.
What is the absolute speed of light in a vacuum or the absolute value of py? We don't know and we probably never will. To me, no absolute values/measurements, is further evidence against a deterministic universe and the omni states and the existence of god.
Here is an example of how poor our approximate measurements can be, when science tries to explain stuff to relatively lay folks such as myself:
When the mass of the remnant core lies between 1.4 and about 2 solar masses, it apparently becomes a neutron star, with a density more than a million times greater than even that of a white dwarf.
Quoting ucarr
No, its a placeholder that supports the concept of infinity, but you have to drill down a little more.
1 and 0 represent the two binary states of 'something' and 'nothing' or 'exists' and 'does not exist.'
But, the concept of 'nothing' or 'absence of something,' has no exemplar, we can access or refer to as a referent is itself not nothing. So using a circle or oval, as a glyph, to represent nothing, is invalid and can actually only represent 'zero' or an empty set or empty variable/container, but the container (the 0) is an existent.
1/0 is really a mathematical proposal that asks how many times can 'nothing' be subtracted from (same as divided from or separated from), something? The answer is obviously, 'as often as you like,' which you can replace with a relatively meaningless placeholder label such as infinity. There is no way to 'determine' anything from 1/0. Other than a placeholder label for 'we have no answer!' because it seems the universe is not deterministic (still can't prove it 100%, other than 'beyond reasonable doubt,' imo) and random happenstance cannot be fully controlled or prevented. This is why I asked you earlier if you thought that a mindless spark beginning to the 'Cosmos' or to that which may well now be eternal, could have been prevented?
Quoting ucarr
I like your wording here ucarr, This quote reads to me like a 'fair,' 'well meaning,' but disgruntled protest about how frustrating the universe is for lifeforms such as us who exist inside it.
Could that be a good definition of anyone with theistic or theosophistic leanings, (as opposed to the nefarious peddlers of religious doctrine that has plagued and damaged our species so badly since the first human b*****d, that used it to opiate a mass of their fellows.)
Is a 'palatable' theist, someone who is somewhat disgruntled at the complexity of the universe, and how difficult knowing its true structure, workings and origin is proving to be. :smile:
Quoting Banno
Firstly, let me speculate that your latest post to me, whether intentionally or accidentally, helpfully provides a plain-English explanation of the, as usual (at least for me), terse and cryptic communication from Banno.
Quoting 180 Proof
If, in your above quote, you intend "discursive" in the sense of "reasoned argument" (rather than in the sense of "multi-faceted"), I'm pleasantly surprised you ascribe logic to faith-based stories.
The challenge here is understanding whether two separate modes of travel, incommensurable, can nonetheless terminate at the same location. Let's suppose the two modes of travel each employ irrational numbers while going forward. This supposition employs "incommensurable" as it is defined within the context of math: "a ratio that cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers."
Examples: a) the approach of theism toward an origin story by irrational number progression exemplifies in the asymptotic progression of U.E.S. (upwardly evolving sentience) by way of its cognitive simulation of cosmic creator; b) the approach of atheism toward an origin story by irrational number progression exemplifies in the asymptotic progression of U.E.S. by way of its cognitive simulation of abiogenesis.
The above statement is my counter-argument to your implication two incommensurable modes of progression cannot terminate at the same location. At the first order of commensurability, they are incommensurable; at the second order of commensurability, they are, by way of sameness of termination, commensurable.
Quoting universeness
I'm in no hurry to declare, with sweeping grandeur, the determinism of our universe. On the other hand, logic and predictable continuity, being so essential to my confidence going forward in life, have endeared themselves to me. I must therefore, in the interest of integrity, confess my bias in their favor over and above randomness. As I said last time, I'm skeptical about your affection for randomness beyond its possible usefulness driving abiogenesis through the eye of the needle of practical experience.
Quoting universeness
You did claim infinity exists as a concept. If, as I suspect, infinity (with the exception of Cantor's orders of magnitude of infinite sets) is a useless value within math calculations, then infinity as empirical reality likewise has no practical model. This claim therefore strongly suggests randomness, a close associate of infinity, likewise has no practical model.
Consider also that a model (of something), being an ordered, coherent entity, could but paradoxically express randomness. The route towards randomness within the domain of empirical experience is through de-coherence. De-coherence of our practical universe in search of randomness must be a paradoxical quest. Destroying the order of the universe for the sake of abiogenesis, being a thoroughly paradoxical quest, expresses as being absurd. If my thinking is correct that randomness can only be viewed through the lens of randomness, imagine what a perplexity that presents to the rationalism of science.
Question -- Does randomness, a comprehensible, abstract concept, have any way, given its definition, to express itself comprehensibly as empirical experience? This comes on the heels of your lesson: the random sampling of statistics is not random.
Quoting universeness
I stand corrected by you very useful clarification. I do, however, possess one, faint "however." What about the cloud of probable positions of an elementary particle, as measured by Heisenberg and related equations? Cloud imparts to me a boundary I understand as being fuzzy, but perceptible. Are the possible positions within the QM probability cloud finite, or infinite?
Quoting universeness
My guess is that tipping points are another example of the QM probability cloud.
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Quoting universeness
Given 1/0 signs for infinity, expressing Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be," and concluding this foundational binary is truly essential and cannot express as anything but itself, thus signing itself as self-evident truth, I might think of it henceforth as "the existential binary."
Your present (at least) three intriguing paradoxes:
not-existence ? being a phenomenon, exists, a paradox
1/0 ? nothing subtracted from something; nothing, being a subtractive something, renders nothing subtracted from something a paradox
Proving the universe 100% not deterministic ? such a proof of not-determinism is determinism, a paradox
Let's consider some symmetry:
It seems the universe is not deterministic and randomness cannot be precluded <> It seems the universe is not random and continuity cannot be precluded
Below are three complex paradoxes
The above symmetry expresses 1/0, the existential binary with continuity = 1 or existence and randomness = 0 or not-existence
Continuity = existence because continuity is binary per the existential binary ? things connect, including the infinite regress of not-existence
Randomness = not-existence because not-existence is not-existence which includes everything, including randomness and existence ? not-existence connects to nothing, including not-connecting with itself, not connecting with not connecting with itself...(infinite regress)
The infinite regress of not-existence suggests to me infinity is, within the realm of the material universe,
ultimately meaningless.
Quoting universeness
I thank you for your useful semi-layperson's translations of current science into plain english.
:smile:
I loved your dance with logic, expressed in all it's textual glory.
Each twist and turn of the ballet, caused yet another encounter with your paradoxical dance partner.
Still, I enjoyed the dance! The debate goes on. I hope that the odd time when I still feel brave enough or interested enough to join the dance, random happenstance will always be a contributing factor, as full determinism, control from an exterior intent and a teleological necessity, makes any dancing, rather pointless imo.
Closing Statement:
As far as what I learned from this conversation, I'm wondering if, above all else, atheism seeks to deny necessary supplication before a dictatorial overlord in the sky via belief in abiogenesis devoid of intent.
This raises an important question: Is it correct to think atheism, structurally speaking, contains a foundational, two-chamber organization? In the first chamber there's evolution from abiogenesis devoid of intent through advent of life forms; in the second chamber there's evolution of life forms through advent of intent within advanced sentients.
A related question, following from this: During the first chamber period of evolution, does there exist a proto-intent antecedent necessary to the subsequent advent of intent proper within advanced sentients?
It occurs to me what's riding on the answer to the above question is the question whether the universe, down to its foundational components (atoms, molecules, elements, compounds, energy and spacetime) stands before us as an essentially intent-bearing universe meaning, therefore, with enough time, intentional consciousness will appear?
Another important question arising from this, as based upon the natural-seeming tendency towards the supposition that consciousness implies intent, is whether consciousness and intent are no less essential to animate, material universes than atoms, molecules, elements, compounds, energy and spacetime?
A major question for me is: Does my simulation-symmetry theory describe a real component within the structure of animate, material universes?
The essentials of my first-draft of simulation-symmetry include:
01) All forms of consciousness find their source in creationÂ’s eternal elusiveness.
02) Consciousness is an emergent property of animate, material universes
03) Consciousness is isomorphic to itself
04) History is simulation-symmetry directed towards isomorphism within the God-sentient dialog.
05) Simulation-symmetry – the God-sentient dialog, spiraling within the maelstrom of the being_not-being binary of essential drama is the fox chasing its tail across spacetime. Wordsworth, translated to the cosmic scale, gives us the transition from: “Child is father of the man” to: Sentience begets transcendence. The way to disappear God is to become God: Cosmic stalemate.
I wouldn't think so. Atheism is just one thing - a disbelief in gods. Some atheists believe in astrology and ghosts. Some are logical positivists. There is no atheist worldview. It's just that most of the famous ones, like Dawkins are inclined towards scientism and rail against religion.
The nature of purported gods is unknown to us, but we have a plethora of stories contained in world religions and in personal interpretations of those systems. For my money, we are incapable of making sense of this vast range of contradictory and complicated literature, but people being meaning making creatures, will almost always invent a foundational narrative to carry them through life.
I am an atheist with minimal interest in cosmology. The origin of the universe, how life came about, the nature of consciousness, are speculative and almost irrelevant to my experience of life. I am not concerned with scientistic system building or trying to explain reality. Even experts of genius struggle to grapple with these matters and disagree with each other.
For me, the arguments for or against god are of minimal significance. They are only useful in tackling the arrogance of fundamentalism - a demonstration that certainty sits on unstable foundations.
For me, belief in god is like a sexual preference - you are likely born with predilections, tastes, dispositions. I have no sensus divinitatis and if you have no capacity to take the idea of gods seriously and there are no gods around to meet, all you have left is a bunch of mouldering and sometimes complicated arguments which never quite satisfy anyone.
I think it's much broader and more diffuse than that - it's rejection of whatever is considered 'the supernatural' or even 'the sacred' (or arguably the identification of 'the sacred' with 'the natural'). Also, that amongst the apparent proliferation of ideas, there are some unified themes around this orientation. I think @ucarr is correct in identifying the conviction that life arises from non-life (abiogenesis) is central to that belief system. That is clearly related to the question of the nature of mind (does mind arise as a byproduct of a non-intentional interaction of physical attributes?) And clearly, the nature of intentionality - as to whether that is something that can arise fortuitously from physical causes - is related to it.
It's worth recalling that early Buddhism (I distinguish it from later forms, as they are replete with celestial beings who to all intents are gods or demi-gods) eschewed all belief in a creator deity, yet one of the attributes of the Buddha is that he is 'lokuttara', meaning 'world-transcending'. So even though Buddhism is often described as a- or non-theist, it is still at odds with today's naturalism in that respect, which highlights the sense in which atheism denies more than simply belief in God.
I'm not atheist, although I have no doubt my Christian forbears would believe me so. I think the popular depictions of God are much nearer to the Roman Jupiter (a name descended from the indo-european 'Sky Father') than what I understand the name to denote. We forget that religious mythologies originate from a different epoch, and also that they are addressed to people at many different stages of understanding. In any case, the grand tradition of religion and philosophy, shorn of any idea of the sacred or of an underlying and unifying intelligence, is, in my view, always on the edge of disintegration, nihilism and irrationality, which we see writ large in social and political affairs in today's world.
(As @'ucarr' has labelled his last post as a 'closing statement', I'm inclined to leave it there, as no doubt this perennial question will continue in various guises in other threads ad infinitum.)
Quoting Tom Storm
Would you welcome god(s) to break bread with you before making such offer to fundamentalists?
Yes, IÂ’ve addressed that. I know many atheists who accept astrology, ghosts, Bigfoot, etc.
I also know atheist idealists.
I think atheism is less totalising that some of the famous polemicists would have us think. Maybe itÂ’s more the secular humanist skeptics?
Quoting Quixodian
Many hold to this. I wish more folks would just say ‘who knows’ and just go back to being useful. Life and consciousness are a mystery for now. It may well be the product of natural phenomena but who can say? Would we utterly reject this and insert a gods ‘holding statement’ to take care of it? Sounds like a ‘gaps’ problem.
Quoting Quixodian
I think you probably are. What you are not is a scientistic materialist.
Quoting ucarr
IÂ’m always happy to accept guests as long as they are courteous and kind. Even fundamentalists, of which my Grandmother was one.
Quoting Quixodian
Your helpful observations are illuminating. The question of the origin of intentionality, like that of life, directs our thoughts to whether the transfer across generations requires intentionality-to-intentionality on the one hand and, life-to-life on the other. This question is further energized by the thought that life implies consciousness which, in turn, implies intentionality.
Lab science has come close to fabricating synthetic life in a petrie dish:
Scientists at JCVI constructed the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. They didnÂ’t build that cell completely from scratch. Instead, they started with cells from a very simple type of bacteria called a mycoplasma. They destroyed the DNA in those cells and replaced it with DNA that was designed on a computer and synthesized in a lab. This was the first organism in the history of life on Earth to have an entirely synthetic genome. They called it JCVI-syn1.0. --scitechdaily.com
The important question is how close? Is bio-tech just a step or two away from fabricating life from scratch? Let's suppose lab scientists will successfully fabricate life from non-living ingredients. What then remains is the small scale question whether non-living ingredients can organize themselves into living organisms without the steerage of lab scientists. In the synthetic life fabrication at JCVI, the highly advanced intentionality of the lab scientists must be counted as a God-like force acting as prime mover in the fabrication of synthetic life from organic life. This even more so if bio-tech upwardly evolves to human bio-tech engineering from only non-living ingredients.
So, for sake of clarification, true abiogenesis devoid of intentionality means randomly occurring configurations of non-living ingredients that cohere into living organisms with intentionality present neither internal to the random occurring configuration nor external to it in the form of steerage from advanced sentients.
I was told that a journalist once asked Craig Venter, the prominent biotechnologist, if he was concerned about the accusation that he might be 'playing God'. His answer, according to the account I read, was that 'we're not playing!' It's as if, once we 'crack the code', then we might become able to engineer fully self-creating life-forms. I'm sure there are those in transhumanist circles who would dream of electric sheep. It would seem to set us free once and for all from any existential dependency on an agency other than ourselves.
The larger philosophical question also really interests me. I think Darwin's musing that life itself originated in a 'warm little pond' as a kind of spontaneous chemical reaction has had big impact on the popular imagination, even if Darwin himself didn't make too much of it. Philosophically, the religious origin story situates humankind in a cosmic context and provides a role in the grand scheme. Whereas the idea that life is a kind of runaway chemical reaction - something that materialist philosopher Daniel Dennett argues for in his infamous book Darwin's Dangerous Idea - conforms with the nihilism of the modern age. And I don't think that's just idle musing or academic speculation. A feeling of relatedness to the cosmos is to a really fundamental need and I myself am always on a quest for a philosophical perspective that provides it.
But then the scientific analysis of what the conditions were that gave rise to the first organisms is not necessarily incompatible with a religious outlook. Pierre Tielhard du Chardin seemed to be open to both perspectives. Theosodius Dobzhansky, one of the authors of the modern genetic synthesis, and originator of the phrase 'nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution', remained a devout Orthodox Christian. He authored a book later in life called The Biology of Ultimate Concern, philosophical reflections on the meaning of evolutionary theory. So there's no necessary conflict there, although ideologues on both sides of the debate often attempt to create them. I think provided there's a sense of respect for the mysteriousness of existence - even the existence of very simple organisms - the spiritual and scientific attitudes can co-exist quite harmoniously.
Quoting Quixodian
I watched the following last night:
Forrest Valkai, near the end of this phone-in show, talks about Craig Venter's work.
Forrest is intensely enthusiastic about science and always seems to have an excess of energy.
I was surprised when he declared himself as fundamentally nihilist, but he recovered so well, when he talked about how much he enjoyed life and living, despite the lack of meaning or intent behind life in this universe. He then coined a new term and declared himself a 'smilehilist,' :smile: I like it.
It starts about 2h 26mins into the vid, if anyone wants to watch it. They also seem to briefly discuss a person they all admire greatly called Bob Ross! I wonder if that could be TPF member @Bob Ross?
That would be soooooo cool if it was. :grin:
Forrest briefly talks about Craig Venter's work at 2h 52mins, based on a 'superchat' question someone submitted.
Edit: This is the most famous Bob Ross, I know of:
I can assure you that they are not referring to me, although that would be cool (;
Aw! How disappointing! I take it you are not Bob Ross Jr either, the unknown son of the now deceased famous landscape painter, pictured in my previous post.
Honestly, I just didn't know, way back when, what to use as my handle; so I just went with Bob Ross (after the painter you mentioned before). Of course, there is no connection between him and I ):
You paint a disappointing but 'fair enough' landscape sir! :lol:
The brilliant Bob Ross' actual son Steve has taken over from his father:
Quoting 180 Proof
The logical_factual grounds for my claim are simple:
The earth tells us life in our universe is possible.
That matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed tells us our universe is eternal.
Combination: within the environment of time never ending, all possibilities will be realized*
Life, a realized possibility on earth, has always been an inevitability
*Sidebar - the combination above shows great promise as an explanation for the presence of evil within a moral universe
Quoting 180 Proof
Evidence that life leads to intention & purpose:
Precepts: 1) Intelligence is motion organized; 2) Motion organized within sentients is adaptation; 3) Adaptation is sentient control of environment; 4) Sentient controlled environment selects for mutations that improve adaptation to environment >
Example: homo sapiens develops agriculture:
1) agriculture configures a network of plants that, eaten together, metabolize as a compound nutrient that facilitates accelerated brain synapse firing within the cerebral cortex;
2) accelerated brain synapse firing within the cerebral cortex upwardly evolves into birthing of children who cogitate plant hybridization methods that deepen the nutritional value of a plant diet;
3) offspring of hybridizing parents have increased average lifespan;
4) offspring of longer lifespan parents, continuing their parents hybridizing science, develop written signification of hybridizing methods, then, one of them gets a spinner mutation that empowers him to a level of intellect wherein he foresees literature in its broader complexity ;
5) literate offspring of signing parents, expanding the literature, create records of architectural methods for conceptualizing, designing and building shelters from the elements;
6) literate offspring born within designed shelters expand literacy to encompass purpose and design within the sciences and humanities;
7) offspring born into a literate, sub-divided academia develop the foundation of a complex, diversified society
Conclusions:
1) In a time unlimited universe, life implies upwardly evolving sentience
2) Upwardly evolving sentience implies motion organized and internalized as intelligence
3) Intelligence implies an upwardly evolving environmental control that selects for mutations that upwardly evolve in the upwardly evolving environment
4) Where there is life and time unlimited, there is intelligence, environmental control, genetic mutation selectivity, God-consciousness, convergence of God-consciousness and sentient-driven science, transcendence-as-consciousness
Quoting ucarr
Clouds, waterfalls & digestion, for examples, are not "intelligent".
Primate digestion does not adapt and yet viruses do adapt.
Again, viruses adapt.
This might be breeding but it is not natural selection. Read Ernst Mayr. Read Richard Dawkins. Read Stephen J. Gould. Read E.O. Wilson. Read Daniel Dennett. :shade: wtf
This is your characterization of my statement considered as a whole.
You say nothing about the relationship between the four precepts and the seven examples meant to instantiate them. What do you think about the evidential value of these conjectural examples?
Quoting 180 Proof
Can you cite examples of ratiocination not teleologically configured?
Quoting 180 Proof
Can you cite examples of primate teleology (wrt to intention) not rational?
Quoting 180 Proof
Can you assess the evidentiary value (wrt to motion-as-intelligence) of homo sapiens control of the environment that extracts, refines and reconfigures resources including petroleum, copper and iron ore?
Quoting 180 Proof
How do you assess this claim: Natural selection controls sentient morphology that, in turn, controls genome population (a factor influencing genetic mutation) via breeding. In summation, breeding is complex natural selection.
What are your thoughts in reaction to this conjecture: The precepts herein put you in mind of a field of networked inquiries encapsulated by Mayr, Dawkins, Gould, Wilson and Dennett.
IMO, your un/mis-informed "4 precepts" are incoherent or false (as I've pointed out), so their "evidential values" are negative (Ã la e.g. candy cotton mountains, five-sided triangles, disembodied minds, etc). Again, go inform yourself, ucarr, by reading the rigorous (popular) studies on natural selection, etc by Mayr, Dawkins, Gould, Wilson et al.
Quoting 180 Proof
incoherent - a disjunction between a conclusion and its antecedent premise
false - a conclusion that connects to its antecedent premise by means of a violation of the rules of inference
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Do you deny that ratiocination is motion organized?
I repeat this question because your above quotes don't cite an example of ratiocination-as-motion without organization.
You have edited your claim so that it now includes reference to asexual reproduction by unicellular organisms. This claim, while it bolsters the supposition simple life forms are not intentional, fails to counter-claim my claim and you know it.
Why have you edited your original claim? You have done so because, after reading my sequence of seven examples of evolution itself evolving into sentient evolution, you feel the need to better protect the presumption evolution is non-intentional_non-teleological. You feel this need because you understand evolution evolving into sentient evolution makes sense.
Here's the proof you understand sentient evolution makes sense:
Quoting 180 Proof
As your understanding of my thesis sharpens its focus, you again feel the need to defend non-intentional non-teleological evolution by pointing out it's not natural selection. Not, it's not. It's higher-order evolution i.e., sentient evolution. Breeding for genetic adaptation to environment is followed by genetic engineering and bio-tech. There can be no doubt this is evolution brimming over with intentions and teleology.
Now, as you are seeing, my central mission: In this conversation, I want to examine whether or not positing evolution in place of a creator amounts, in the end, to the same thing as positing a creator in place of evolution. speaks to the understanding that there is a chain of logic leading from simple life forms to sentient control of evolution as genetic engineering_bio-tech and beyond. This, as I've been claiming, is an evolving simulation of pre-historic, natural God by sentient-controlled evolution.
Quoting 180 Proof
You strategically ignore the participle: organized.* This you do because, understanding the thrust of my seven examples, you know your counter-argument is limited to the period of evolution where life forms
are sufficiently simple for easy accommodation of your defense of non-intentional_non-teleological evolution.
*Organized equals sentient-controlled.
Your cursory, simplistic, would-be counter-examples have you pretending not to understand what you do understand.
Do clouds, waterfalls and digestion display organized motion? Trackable motion and organized motion are two different things as, the tracking of trackable motion imparts order to it.
Quoting 180 Proof
Primate digestion does adapt. The radical mutation of primates, in contrast to that of viruses, proceeds much more slowly, so it's easy to pretend slow mutation is no mutation.
Quoting 180 Proof
Viruses adapt by high-jacking some of the reproductive apparatus of higher life forms. This is a case where higher life forms' control of environment, because it powers viral adaptation, produces a negative effect.
In order to continue your protection of non-intentional_non-teleological evolution, you have to demolish my quartet:
The logical_factual grounds for my claim are simple:
The earth tells us life in our universe is possible.
That matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed tells us our universe is eternal.
Combination: within the environment of time never ending, all possibilities will be realized
Life, a realized possibility on earth, has always been an inevitability
Exactly what in these 4 sentences, provides evidence for a god with intent?
I see no significant or compelling evidence at all.
What role does entropy, at the scale of the universe, play in your notion of a universal scale of intent and teleology. Do you think the posited heat death of the universe is correct? If not, what role does 'change' play in an eternal matter/energy (doing work) to assemble 'stuff' and then disassembly occurs, (via entropy) over time. If entropy exists at a universal/cosmic scale then, this 'intent' you describe, would have to be unaffected by entropy, and therefore exist outside of the cosmos. This is as impossible as a square circle, which suggests to me that your 'intent' cannot exist 'outside' of a cosmos of energy/matter. If it exists within the cosmos then it must be subject to entropy.
Entropy within an eternal cosmos would point to a cyclical model, would it not? If the cosmos is cyclical then your notion of god must become a cyclical god which entropy reduces over time back to it's constituent parts. Why is this wrong in your opinion?
Entropy is the enemy of inspiration.
Yes. We can beat back the slow dirge of our death-march to the grave; we can blunt the certain falling apart of our flesh and bones; we can put to rout the grim reaper as falls the scythe.
The decline of system into increasing disorder, viewed times too many, fuels the sullen hearts of cynicism, despair and resignation. The multitudes, biting the bullet, refer to this as growing up and getting a real job. In other words, when inspiration dims and decline into death looms, with the final black curtain flapping its cackling, irreverent tongue, entropy, that over-arching demon of the material universe, shoots its arms of victory straight into the air.
Back on point.
I struggle to rejigger my quartet; you know all of the words; hereÂ’s some different words.
We are life.
Nothing ever gets destroyed permanently, so be of good cheer.
Long shots, given the long lifespan of our universe, refuse to be impossible
We are life then, now and forever
IÂ’ve been preparing a new conversation.
My title asks: Does Entropy Exist?
I will post it tomorrow. I hope youÂ’ll read it and weigh in.
Life exists!
Entropy exists!
Matter/energy can assemble into human life.
Death will cause that life to disassemble and the individual consciousness/identity/personality/character IS destroyed permanently imo.
I agree that everything is recycled but the original assemblies are gone forever. Recycled paper is not the original paper but's its constituents are based on it's 'ancestors,' just like humans. No natural intent or teleology required, just human intelligent design (at least in the case of recycled paper or genetically engineered/artificially selected life)
I would hate to be cursed with imposed immortality. I would pity an eternal immortal god. It suggests a wretched omni creature with no purpose to it's existence.
Science may eventually offer humans a longevity and robustness, which reduces death to a personal choice. Natural entropy can be resisted by human science. That's what science will eventually be able to offer life. Not the horror (no-choice) immortality of a posited omnigod, but control over the death of an individual identity. We can network with others, sure, but we will never have to experience such a pointless existence, as the posited Jehovah, Allah etc. An omni, immortal, for whom solipsism would be a hellish, eternally inescapable, fact.
Would you condemn a god to the 'no death option?'
I know this is an old criticism but it's still a valid one. Can something be omnipotent if it cannot permanently die. Did Jesus have no choice in it's resurrection?
An immortal cannot die a human death, so the trinity and the blood sacrifice is a con job.
There have been a good number of 'entropy' threads already on TPF. A quick TPF search might be a good move before you post your 'Does entropy exist?' thread. I will however gladly contribute to it, if you do.
Your above overview expresses much that I find agreeable and, moreover, it tracks closely (in my opinion) with my simulation_convergence thesis: human and its unruly gods are a case of: as it is below, so it is above. Just now, in our time, human is arguably adolescent vis-a-vis God. This is a time, therefore, when human goes away from God in search of independence and self-determination. Snarling denunciations of God's overbearingness are to be expected.
Quoting universeness
I confess. I'm not going to immediately act on this good advice, embarrassment be damned.
I'm of an age that has me watching the clock. Time hurtles forward and I'm letting fly with my new entropy OP.