1. I am saying that if it were not for that intelligence or 'life force' "everywhere" we would not progress from infancy at all. We would not exist

2. We all do have the same sort of "creativity." But no single person can possibly have it all therefore it is dispersed. However when it is time for an "idea" to come forth to the explicate order it will always find a channel. Many times, several, even hundreds of people will come up with the exact same idea around the same time.

This is why I said that "ideas are not designs." Ideas cannot be copyright protected. Only the end product or design can be copyright protected or patent protected. And this is simply to protect the actual person who got up off their butt and did the work on the actual design.

Out of say 100 people who have the same idea at the same time, perhaps only two or three will focus on that idea or vision and make the decision and have the intention to work on it to bring it forth or manifest it into actual reality.

They get no credit for the idea. The idea is not theirs to own. It came (to them) from the ethers (from their connection to the whole) and they paid attention because they were interested and it came to the individuals who might be interested enough to bring it into fruition.

It is the people who accept that idea and actually do something with it who gets the credit for its "creation." Then sometimes they have to compete with a few other "channels" who came up with the same idea around the same time.

This sort of thing happens all the time. I have seen many examples of this.

You're missing the whole point if you think that our logic needs to apply to a designer. The designer is "outside of the box" and therefore our sense of logic doesn't extrapolate "outside of the box" as even you, yourself, have confessed.



By George I think you've got it!

In fact that's basically Einstein's syllogism. Einstein did believe in an intelligent designer (abeit, perhaps not an intervening one). This is why he was so passionate about "God does not play dice". Why even take such a stance if he truly believed that the universe arose from happenstance?

Some Einstein Quotes


The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.

God is subtle but he is not malicious.

I am convinced that God does not play dice.

I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

~~~

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

~~~

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. (I believe he may have been speaking about Bohr here)

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest ... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

I love those quotes from Einstein!

Especially these:



The only real valuable thing is intuition.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Who says that scientists are not in our court?

Einstein totally agrees with me.

Or I with him.

That's really the whole point. These people who hold up 'science' as supporting their views and philosophies are being absurd.

Science itself, as a discipline, is nothing more than means of inquirey that used to be based on the "Scientific Method", a very well-defined approach to this form of inquiry.

Modern science has abandoned that very method of inquirey. For example, String Theory is nothing more the pure abstract mathematical speculation. It currently can't even be tested using the "Scientific Method", so to even call it 'science' is a farce really. Yet it is indeed called 'science' and has been embraced by the scientific "community". This just goes to show how horribly lost the scientific community as a whole has indeed become.

It may potentially be true that more and more individual scientists are being brainwashed to believe that logic and science somehow favor happenstance over design as an 'explanation' of how the universe came to be.

However, that very idea is being erroneously taught to our future scientists, when in fact, there is no genuine basis for any such conclusion.

That's what my whole stance is all about. This crap that science, and/or logic points to happenstance over a designer is basically a lie and a gross misrepresentation of both the Scientific Method, and logic. In fact, as I've pointed out, logic itself would be an utterly meaningless concept even that premise were true anyway.

All that conclusion would imply is that the unvierse itself is indeed illogical. But that flies in the very face of logic having meaning within it. So it's a self-defeating line of thinking.

But more to the point, it would be utterly false to suggest that all scientists are atheists or non-spiritualists. Scientific reasoning and logic do not point to those conclusions. It's a fallacy to suggest that they do.

It's an abuse of the very disciplines of science and logic.

That's like trying to teach people what conclusions to jump to before they even have a chance to decide for themselves.

It's just downright ignorant, is what it is.

First of all, your misquoting me... again. Shoku wrote that. However, his point is valid. There is no more or less reason to conclude in either an intelligent design or some other source of origin for this universe.

Secondly, your missing his point. Your very reasons for rejecting the opposition here applies to your own arguments as well, moreso even because science does not extrapolate beyond empirical knowledge into the realm of intent, purpose, and/or reason.

The opposition to intelligent design accepts the limits to what can be established through what is known. Intelligent design attempts to apply empirical knowledge to ontological happenings. That is equal to wrongfully applying observation to that which cannot be observed, and then calling that knowledge.



It is your syllogism, not Einstein's, nevertheless...

Ah! Your agreeing that this is an accurate representation of your claim? Beautiful! Now we can assess it.

The primary premise is that "logic is meaningless without an intelligent designer."



That is presupposing the conclusion in the premise. Begging the question.

Fallacy.

Abracadabra wrote:



Uh...

And exactly how are you doing anything different than that?

It's kind of surreal watching you talk about that while you basically spit in the faces of people working on string theory. Is it just that you understand the future application better or do you just see genetics as figuring out how it works while viewing the string theory stuff as figuring out if it's right or wrong?

Right now we're learning to read (and seeing how things change when we mix parts of two books, so to speak,) but once we start composing that stuff will be important. For now modifying humans is rather lofty and distant.

Well with as much as I've been using the term naturalism I think there could be some dangerous confusion in bringing this up but...
well "natural" doesn't mean "good." People argue against things as "unnatural" far too often when that doesn't really have anything to do with the qualities of it.

You'd never eat any of the things we do "naturally..." Most of them didn't exist like they do now before we altered them, and I don't mean with genetic engineering. We've already done so much more.

Well when we know the sequence we can "remove" things from the genepool without "losing" them. It's kind of troublesome to build custom sequences of DNA right now but once you've got one strand of it it's easy to make lots.

I think as we get to growing organs we'd be safe and able to undo any mistakes that allowed people to grow mostly normal but with some big problem that came along. In the hard statistics of genetics that could still mean millions dieing but as far as humanity sticking around we could cling on long enough to get over anything we could have "naturally" survived.

You could still advocate the cause. I'd really suggest learning the formal debate stuff (visit that http://www.goodart.org/fallazoo.htm site for starters,) before you go trying to sway opinion one way or the other in public topics. People are quick to label the side that looks like it uses more fallacies as, well, basically a bunch of deceptive liars who are just fighting for their personal interests.

Well the viral DNA that "breaks" it's sequence and just sits around as junk is handy some of the time as you've now got the code for several molecules that already have functions sitting in the DNA. If you alter the promoter or similar parts you can throw them into different contexts where they might be immediately useful and if not small alterations can likely get other types that could be useful in some cellular process and you didn't have to wait for them to pop up from scratch.

Well, that doesn't really happen. The thousand year timescale for that is no good for individuals trying to compete against their neighbors. It's more like you don't have to duplicate one of your genes and risk it recombining later and chopping out parts.

Was it you or sky that was asking for some evidence of "failed universes"?

Basically because we can go ahead and complicate up an idea endlessly to explain anything. We used to say that you got sick because of demons and even today there are some people that think prayer will make you better. Turns out if the sincerely pray to a jar of pickles you have your prayers answered just as often so that either makes the jar of pickles a god, the act of prayer have no impact, the act of prayer not matter where it is aimed, or you've got some kind of wizard confusing the whole business. (I think with a broad interpretation I actually covered all the possibilities there.)

For anyone not already inclined to believe the default of those is that prayer doesn't do anything, or if you've got some information showing otherwise the default switches to prayer's effect not being impacted by what is being prayed to. This is how we think now and it's led us to much better behaviors than what we used to do to try and get the demons out.

Now if you mix the modern "we're going to check to see if things actually work" with belief that it's really demons behind it fine. There's no real travesty that will come from that but it's philosophically weak because you're taking someone else's work and using some white out to stick your source of the phenomenon into the mix without really adding anything. The real strength of these things are saying "I think this is the source and if it is that would mean it works like this and this and this" and then having someone come along and actually show that it works that way; the act of predicting things we didn't know is immensely powerful.

If you went to making predictions you'd definitely be at risk of having them shown to be wrong and you would then have to abandon the idea but if you were right...

Well, taking the current and saying it could only come from a creator is safe (especially the way you've got the creator laying out in the undetermined area where as we discover new places it isn't you can just say it's still further out,) so if safe is what you want so be it.

Something that doesn't explain anything. Of course, that's a moot point because strings actually explain quite a bit. At a high school level of detail you'll never know what it explains or why but the professionals aren't putting all their energy into a meaningless smooge. If we work it all out a decade or two later the common high school stuff will give you some vague details on it but it will probably mislead people just as much as high school big bang explanations (if you hadn't been on forums and/or taught it yourself but actually knew the details of big bang you'd never believe how many people think it says some kind of atom exploded."

That's really only because you haven't said what a pink elephantic smooge is. All words are meaningless if undefined. Point to a hypothetical thing that it is and describe why you'd want to use that as an explanation and you'll be off to a decent start.

btw, I'm probably going to borrow "pink elephantic smooge" if I find that you actually made it up on the spot here like I think.

Our design seems rather unintelligent. Even the oxygen we breath constantly poisons us as our lives march on. For almost 3 billion years it was nothing but a poison but then life harnessed it to also make energy.

No, there are infinitely many. Radioactivity limits the variety we actually come into contact with to 92 significant groups. Each of those is actually several different types.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_nuclides_%28complete%29
shows all of them in close-enough-to full detail.

That doesn't follow at all.

And each of those three things are constructed of smaller parts that can be combined to make other particles that are all involved all over our universe but that are harder to pluck out and look at individually. The way that works is kind of what paricle physics is all about and why we're so interested in finding that Higgs Boson. We know that you can convert these into other types of particles and if strings are that next step down in size we've got a lot of ideas about how the smallest pieces work. With strings we would having simplified things all down to one single unit everywhere.

Oh, for the last few sentences you've been talking like calculus and the atoms we see divided by the potential atoms approaches 0, right?

Sorry but calculus doesn't work like that. Right here I'm only going to focus on the random chance bit though. Look at that graph.
Here it is again in case you've scrolled past it already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_nuclides_%28complete%29
That's not random. Look at all of the patterns there. The chances of several hundred atoms that already have patterns of behavior organizing into life?
Well I actually can't say. We've just got the case of that happening on Earth to go by and that's too small a sample for statistical probability. The margin of error is so huge any number given would be meaningless.
But if we're right at the middle of the margin or to the one side of it then the chances are high enough that it should happen thousands or millions of times per galaxy.

However, with these foggy probabilities who's to say that you can't get at least life from almost any combination of atoms if you give them a wide enough variety of situations to sit in? If the observable universe is any indication the rest of the universe just goes on infinitely so surely we'd have every possible circumstance happening somewhere at some time.

For us life has come from Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. We throw in some other molecules for certain things but it's those four that do basically everything. They're also light molecules meaning that they're quite abundant. If we came from rare molecules that should have never otherwise met each other you would think a creator was involved but instead we came from some of the molecules that meet each other most often. Carbon forms chains easily which is critical for our mode of life. Oxygen breaks strong molecular bonds. Nitrogen is kind of a toned down oxygen with the opposite electrical charge in complex molecules. And hydrogen works as a way to dead end chains and control the direction the chain goes. With any four different atoms that did things like that I don't see why you couldn't make life (and life like ours so long as things had a polar liquid at temperatures at least as high as liquid water but not so hot that they broke the molecules up.)

So no. One type of atom is very different from 100. Viewed in infinity the difference seems minuscule but single atoms can only hope to form crystals while having several with different properties allows controlled interactions.

That if you jump into a frame of reference where the numbers aren't meaningful you can't tell what's really happening?

Calculus isn't about comparing discrete numbers. It's about comparing variables. Variables that increase slowly are nothing compared to variables that increase quickly after just a short while.

With our universe being all random chance and happenstance these things would be variables but the only reason to call it chance comes from you saying that it is the only alternative to a creator. You've been asked why the origin of the creator shouldn't also be chance and I've been insisting that there is an option that has neither an intelligent creator or just blind luck as the origin of all that is around us but you don't want to hear either of those things.

Why shouldn't any number of atoms organize into grand complexity?

Me either.

Herein lies the difference in our thinking. While you deny the need for certainty, I hold that it is necessarily a part of all belief systems, whether or not it is recognized as such. The existence of doubt proves certainty. For one cannot doubt something unless one is reasonably certain of the contrary. Certainty in belief predates and causes doubt in contradictory information. As an example, if I held an absolutely certain belief that spirit was the source of my mind, then I would reject all evidence to the contrary, thereby bolstering that belief while possibly ignoring contradictory facts.

In this case your doubting the need to be certain as a result of that certainty possibly negatively affecting the workability of your belief system. Are you claiming that a consistent belief system is more workable than an accurate one, and that even if it is illogical, the workability factor is more important? If so, what exactly determines that. I am saying that in order to determine whether or not a belief system is consistent, one must assess the relationships between the different elements contained within it.

Workability does not necessarily equate to logical consistency. I would much rather have a workable and logical belief system than just a workable one. A logical one is by it's very nature consistent and as close to truth as one can possibly hope to be. There can be many consistently illogical belief systems which may be deemed workable to those who believe, simply through the emotional comfort provided in them, despite the fact that they contradict logical knowns.

I do not have a complete idea of what your belief system is, therefore, I am not in a position to assess the consistency of it, nor would I necessarily do so if I had such a thing. However, should an entire belief system revolve around the idea that we are spirit and spirit is somehow not dependant upon the body, wouldn't it be nice to able to know that that is or can be proven with some amount of certainty?

Where does the idea of spirit come from? If it is a remnant of a previously held religious belief system, why is it all that is left? If there was reason to dismiss the rest of that belief system, why are those same reasons not grounds for dismissing all of it?

That applies to the idea of a designed universe as well.

I don't.

You're the one who started this thread, not me.

I don't go around proselytizing that science supports intelligent design. I only came into this thread to blow a hole in your atheistic crusades to the contrary.

So don't try to brush your mud off on me.

I approach these questions from an entirely different point of view. I simply show how things that have been observed and experimentally verified via the scientific method can indeed be used to explain various concepts that many people seem to think are 'paranormal'. They aren't any more 'paranormal' than the scientific notions of quantum mechanics. They fit right into what we actually observed.

So, no, I don't go around proselytizing that science or logic support design except when I see someone else doing precisely the opposite, then I step in to expose the folly of their ways.

Like I did in this thread.

Wow!

Your responses throughout this thread show otherwise.

Interesting how you can claim to come into a thread for the purpose of 'blowing a hole' into an idea that exists entirely in your head. I suppose the forum rules do not apply to you either? There are ones which specifically express that what you are admitting to doing is against the rules.

The extremes that some will evidently go through in order to make themselves feel important. The imaginary saviour archetype. Do you not care that your expressed purpose is based upon purely imagined things?



First it is MY? 'mud'? Then you go on to contradict yourself? The above directly opposes your words below, which I have copied from the top of this post and pasted to show the inherent contradiction in your claims...



That is EXACTLY what you just did.



You exposed some folly alright.

And so may I ask what you feel this will have accomplished with respect to the question of whether or not there is a designer?

Would we not then be faced with the continued question of whether or not strings are happenstance or design?

I beg your pardon sir, but you were the one who stated in this very thread that the "Burden of Proof" is on a conclusion of design, whilst there is no "Burden of Proof" for a conclusion of no-design.

So what "rules" did I break?

All I did was address the very topic and positions that you personally brought up.

How can you claim to take a position, make assertions, and then scream for a breaking of the rules, just because someone addresses the very things that you have posted. Then you pretend like you never even took the position in the first place.

That's utter nonsense.

Besides, I gave you my answer in my very first post to this thread on page one! You rejected that answer as not being evidence in your opinion.

Maybe I should just accept that this is your truth and leave it at that.

It's certainly not my truth. When I look in the mirror I'm totally convinced of intellient design.

So I guess Sky is the only one who's truth genuinely holds.

Sky's position is that all reality is nothing more than viewpoint.

From my viewpoint, I recoginze that I'm an intelligent being and therefore must live in an intelligent universe. I AM that I AM.

Your personal viewpoint obviously differs. But why try to push that onto eveyone else by claiming that logic and science supports your conclusion? That's no better than proselytizing religious faiths.

I see evidence for intelligent design, you don't.

Any "burder of proof" is blow'in in the wind.

Abracadabra wrote:



1.) I said earlier the burden of proof is on s/he who makes a positive assertion. The least you could do is quote one correctly before addressing your imagination rather than the actual claim which that imagination replaces on a regular basis.

2.)

You have explicitly described what you think my agenda is. That is off topic and discussing what you think about me on a personal level.



You just admitted to coming into this thread for the sole purpose of blowing a hole into an idea which has - at it's very root - it's entire justification in your imagination. You came into it, according to your own admittance, to expose the folly of an athiestic crusade which only exists in your head, but you are attributing it to me as though it is a true claim.

It is about me, and it is false. Clearly breaking both 1.) and 2.).



Holy sheeeought! This is getting ridiculous. Are you not reading my responses to these claims you make about my positions/stance or what?The position which you are repeatedly attempting to force upon me is not the position I hold. If you believe that your thoughts regarding my position are accurate, then by all means...

Quote my words in context, and show how you have logically arrived at the conclusion that I am on an atheistic crusade! If you cannot do such a thing, then why not allow me to make my own claims, so you will have something other than yourself to argue with?





Then you are satisfied with far less a stringent process than I.



Exactly what conclusion would you be referring to? I would not call one's logical assessment of another's claim as pushing that onto everyone else. No one is forcing you to make claims here. Your not being held down against your will in front of your computer with toothpicks propping your eyelids, open are you?

I am addressing exactly what has been written, I wish you would do the same.

I have to agree with Creative in this matter because he has not claimed that science supports "his position" nor has he even stated what "his position" is.

His position has been presumed or assumed by others, but was never actually stated (by him.)

He has merely set forth the challenge for anyone claiming the universe is the result of intelligent design to present their evidence.

Then, he has made a judgment that the evidence presented is not sufficient or valid (enough for him) for consideration or proof.

+1

JB wrote:



Evidence, in my view, should be weighed according to it's relevance, accuracy, and adequacy. So, although all evidence may or may not be regarded as sufficient 'proof', that alone does not mean that it is unworthy of consideration. Without due consideration, those things cannot be logically assessed.

That's nothing more than your own personal opinion.

I feel horribly insulted and terribly degraded by that personal accusation about me. How dare you make such a personal evaluation of how stringent my processes are.

I'm deeply emotionally injured.

I think I'm going to cry.

It is what grounds that opinion which is important to assessing it's value.



I am thinking that this is meant to be satire. That evaluation was based entirely upon the claim that the mirror satisfied you enough to 'totally' convince you of intelligent design. Those two things have not been logically connected, therefore, my claim regarding your evidence stands.



Based upon what you are claiming has hurt your feelings, I would suggest not arguing your personal beliefs on a public forum. Though I somehow question the authenticity of this claim. It seems like a joke, of sorts.

Har, har, har.

har har har... yep it most probably is a joke.

Yes, it was satire.

However, you say that those two things have not logically been connected. But they have.

First, off when I say, "look in the mirror", I mean that metaphorically. Let's take a look at the contents of this universe and see what it contains.

It contains intelligent life.

One argument against a "designer" is the argument that it makes no sense for an "intelligent being" to merely 'pop' into existence from nothing.

But here we are!

Didn't we just do just that?

We have the proof right in front of us. We are the living proof.

If we now take this observation and meld it in with what JB and Sky are saying, we have the entire complete picture.

We are the intelligent being that just 'pops' into existence from seemingly 'nothing'.

The only single step to realize now is that there is no such thing as 'nothing' and never was. We are always the 'being' that pops into existence. There's nothing else to be.

We are the being that 'designs itself' just as JB and Sky suggest.

What more evidence do we need other than to recognize that this is precisely what we are?

Like Jeannie points out. Don't look at the universe and try to figure out what you are from that "objective" observation. Instead realize that you ARE, and that the universe follows from your very own "subjective" experience of it not the other way around.

What more evidence do we need?

What else could we be?

A conglomeration of stupid strings?

How could a conglomeration of stupid strings even know they exist?

What would a string need to be in order to be able to recognize that it exists as an ensemble of strings?

An ensemble of unconscious entities is still an unconscious entity. What is it that would "experience" consciousness if there is nothing capable of "experiencing" conscious to begin with?

The ability to experience consciousness must come FIRST, IMHO.

There is a lot of wisdom in the words, "I AM that I AM". Too bad those particular words come from dogma that has been so abused over the ages. Wise words, caught up in a bad situation, unfortunately.

Fortunately the essence of that same viewpoint is at the heart of Eastern Mysticism as well as other mystical folklore.

So there's a lot to the idea of looking in a mirror.

It's only a shallow idea if you fail to think of the mirror in terms of all humanity.