Goddidit Vs Naturedidit

[Baruch]

And what is wrong with masturbation???  You are anti pleasure?

Unless it is mutual (see Alan Turing), then it is just self indulgent.

[Mike Cl]

Unless it is mutual (see Alan Turing), then it is just self indulgent.

What's wrong about being self indulgent?? 

Oh, yeah!  You're a theist.  Self pleasure is never good!  Gotcha.

[Baruch]

What's wrong about being self indulgent?? 

Oh, yeah!  You're a theist.  Self pleasure is never good!  Gotcha.

Individualist = sociopath ... where is the dividing line?

[Mike Cl]

Individualist = sociopath ... where is the dividing line?

You do love to set up these false equivalents, don't you.   

[Baruch]

You do love to set up these false equivalents, don't you.

Idiotes ... ancient Greek for individual ... but it evolved into a different English word.  Every regular here is a bohemian misfit, last time I checked.  Two kinds of people, sociopaths and psychopaths.  I will take the first choice over the second.

[aitm]

Drew:

notion the universe could have been caused by a transcendent agent is a ridiculous belief on the face of it.

but any perceived  supernatural "agent" that can and has existed forever is perfectly reasonable.....to people who believe in talking snakes and donkeys.

[Baruch]

Drew:
but any perceived  supernatural "agent" that can and has existed forever is perfectly reasonable.....to people who believe in talking snakes and donkeys.

Specieist! ;-)

[Baruch]

Cartoon metaphor for how I relate to people here ;-)

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-08-06

[Drew_2017]

Hakurei Reimu,

I'm going to try to keep my response to the point and pithy one can only hope you might consider doing the same remember less is more...

There are many people who are indifferent to whether God exists or whether our existence is the result of naturalistic forces that didn't intend their existence or ours. They would be impartial, they don't have an ax to grind and they would be unbiased folks who could judge the merits of our respective arguments. Of course in this forum you can say anything and be applauded.

Hate to break it to you, but given that humans are governed by naturalistic forces, they are just as capable of "self initiating" as naturalistic forces are. That is to say, if naturalistic forces can't self intiate, then neither can humans.

So you were compelled to respond to me by forces beyond your control? Are the thoughts you have expressed are initiated by forces beyond your control? Is your conclusion God doesn't exist also occur do to circumstances beyond your control? If so why should we believe you? After all you didn't have any choice in the matter.

Well, you are. I provide you with a concrete example of something that shouldn't happen if naturalism is true (life existing in laws that don't allow for them), and yet you continue to claim that I portray naturalism as unfalsifiable.

Of course you'd seek a naturalistic explanation to account for it which is exactly what is done for any other inexplicable phenomena such as how the universe came into existence in the first place.

Excuses. You tried your darndest to convince me that your view had a point, only I demolished every one of your arguments, and there was no rebuttal from you showing how my rebuttals were wrong. Not one figure. Not one equation.

I can quote all manner of equations that describe the universe I'll quote Einstein first...

How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of reality?
â€"Albert Einstein

Lets take this thought further. What expectation would we have from forces that have no intelligence, no plan, no blueprint was caused by mindless irrational forces produce a universe that is explicable in mathematical terms? Since this is a rhetorical question I'll answer it. There is no expectation we should be able to extract what scientists call 'elegant' equations from the by product of mindless irrational forces. Again we have to attribute the existence mathematical equations to the laws of nature. If there were no rhyme or reason to nature, if logic didn't apply or the rules of deduction and induction we'd have no hope to be able to figure out how nature works (as if nature is supposed to make itself knowable).

Let me ask you about this familiar equation below...did we invent this equation or did we discover it? If we didn't invent it then we have to attribute it to that genius mindless irrational forces that operate in this fashion by happenstance. Not by plan or blue print right? Let me ask you this...if we received a message from deep space that expressed this equation in a manner any language could decipher would that lead you to believe it came from an intelligent source?

F =   Gm1m2
            r2


Of course you will say this is natural as if anything could happen or be observed that isn't 'natural'.   

[Cavebear]

All equations are created by humans.  Unless you are proposing they drop out of the sky on stone tablets occasionally...

[Hakurei Reimu]

Hakurei Reimu,

I'm going to try to keep my response to the point and pithy one can only hope you might consider doing the same remember less is more...

There are many people who are indifferent to whether God exists or whether our existence is the result of naturalistic forces that didn't intend their existence or ours. They would be impartial, they don't have an ax to grind and they would be unbiased folks who could judge the merits of our respective arguments. Of course in this forum you can say anything and be applauded.

"Impartial" and "indifferent" are not synonyms. Sometimes, the only impartial answer is to come down on the side of one position. The flat earth is an example of this. The flat earth hypothesis is soundly defeated by any rational measure, and any impartial assessment, the round earth wins. Insisting on false equivalency is intellectually dishonest, and should not be applauded.

I am defending my position, same as you. Why are you surprised that we are at each other's intellectual throats?

So you were compelled to respond to me by forces beyond your control? Are the thoughts you have expressed are initiated by forces beyond your control? Is your conclusion God doesn't exist also occur do to circumstances beyond your control? If so why should we believe you? After all you didn't have any choice in the matter.

Well, yes. I'm under no illusion that my words are certain to convince you. But I may be able to get you thinking. After all, it's not as if I can't be compelled to believe something; I can't self-initiate a refusal to believe a position any more than I can self-initiate such a belief. You just need the right argument to set me thinking.

But what's the right argument? Ah, there's the rub. I'm not going to be convinced by a probability argument that somehow doesn't contain a single probability assessment of the terms under dispute. Yet this bizarre argument is exactly what you have presented: I've seen nowhere in your spiel about impobabilities where you have attempted to characterize how improbable they are. This is basically what I've been hinting at for two months now, but you haven't given me anything. On the other hand, I have no idea what kind of thing I can say to set you thinking, which is partially why your custom title is quite truthful. One of us has been honest what kind of evidence and argument might compell us to reconsider our position.

The brain sets up this convicing illusion of being self-initiated. It's a good one, and I'm fine with it. It makes no operational difference. Hell, I would say that "self-initiation" is not really a carefully conceived notion in the first place.

Of course you'd seek a naturalistic explanation to account for it which is exactly what is done for any other inexplicable phenomena such as how the universe came into existence in the first place.

Well, of course we'll try to find some naturalistic explanation at first, because we've encountered situations before where the universe doesn't seem to follow naturalistic laws when in fact it is following them to the letter. Anomallies are how we discover new laws and refine old laws, after all. However, if the anomally persists long enough without naturalistic explanation at all, then there would be a point where science will have to admit that the phenomenon doesn't follow natural laws as we know them, and perhaps, maybe is beyond any natural explanation.

But it's going to take a long time, precisely because naturalism has been vindicated so many times in the past. The naturalistic approach has waxed all comers, and taken all of the past bouts against alternatives. It has claimed such vast swaths of human knowledge that the only place for supernaturalism to hide is in the very edges of human speculation. Our universe has shown that it is naturalistic in character, overwhelmingly if not completely. There's not a smidgen of evidence that it operates in any other mode. Theists also haven't demonstrated that the origin of the universe is a place where their approach has the advantage. Or, for that matter, any chance at all.

This is why I don't take you seriously, and think that nobody should take you seriously. All you offer is speculation and assertions. You don't seem to have anything to offer in terms of food for thought, cogent arguments, or data to prove your case, or contributing to the knowledge of mankind, or even of the people here. You don't give, so you don't get.

I can quote all manner of equations that describe the universe I'll quote Einstein first...

How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of reality?
â€"Albert Einstein

Well, I think I see you're problem: the above is not an equation. I can see why you're having so much trouble. :D

Lets take this thought further. What expectation would we have from forces that have no intelligence, no plan, no blueprint was caused by mindless irrational forces produce a universe that is explicable in mathematical terms?

We develop math in response to needing to solve problems that we're faced with. The mathematics of sets is quite sophisticated, yet it's all just about grouping. All you need is the notion that an object can be part of some class, and the mathematics of sets drops out pretty naturally. The complications arise when you try to understand what that simple relationship entails.

Similarly, derivatives were invented to understand continuous motion and change. Arithmetic and algebra were developed to help understand quantities of various types, like descrete pieces of fruit and more continuous amounts of rice. Probability theory was developed because Gerolamo Cardano wanted to understand the behavior of dice and bets on same. Geometry literally means "measuring the earth" â€" it was developed to measure and manipulate parcels of land.

Mathematics were developed specifically to solve problems connected to reality â€" even the more abstract mathematics bear some connection to reality, however tenuous. Therefore, the expectation that those mathematics would be suitable to describing that reality is actually pretty damn high â€" it's what they were developed to do.

Since this is a rhetorical question I'll answer it. There is no expectation we should be able to extract what scientists call 'elegant' equations from the by product of mindless irrational forces. Again we have to attribute the existence mathematical equations to the laws of nature. If there were no rhyme or reason to nature, if logic didn't apply or the rules of deduction and induction we'd have no hope to be able to figure out how nature works (as if nature is supposed to make itself knowable).

That's the intuition. But remember that a single relationship generates the entire field of set theory. The entire mathematical theory of fields is characterized with under ten aximoms (depending on how the author chooses the axioms). A system with the field properties, the order properties, and the least upper bound property generates a structure that is completely isomorphic to the real number line.

We are born into a world composed of untold shittons of mutually interacting atoms, and ourselves are composed of a few handfuls of shittons of those atoms. We live our lives in the midst of those untold shittons of atoms, interacting in ways that seem complicated because they're are so damn many atoms interacting. Yet, when we strip down the universe and examine it at its most basic details, not only does it turn out ot be mathematically governed, but also really, really simple in its workings. "Spacetime bends in response to mass and energy" is the complete description of general relativity; all the complicated math is in service to satisfying that principle. Quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics is more complicated, but the rules are easily written down in a paragraph. All interactions in the universe are just GR + QED + QCD.

It may be that our intuition is exactly backwards. It's structure that is the natural order, not chaos, only this structure tends to get hidden when large numbers of entities are involved (like atoms in bulk matter). I think it's time to question this basic intuition that has been so long been taken for granted. The universe may be at its basic too simple to not be knowable.

Let me ask you about this familiar equation below...did we invent this equation or did we discover it? If we didn't invent it then we have to attribute it to that genius mindless irrational forces that operate in this fashion by happenstance. Not by plan or blue print right? Let me ask you this...if we received a message from deep space that expressed this equation in a manner any language could decipher would that lead you to believe it came from an intelligent source?

F =   Gm1m2
            r2


Of course you will say this is natural as if anything could happen or be observed that isn't 'natural'.   

I think you are conflating the operation of this law with the expression of this law in symbols. In order to be sent as a message, it must be expressed in string of symbols of some sort. Those do have to be purposefully arranged, because the association between symbols and meaning is completely arbitrary (indeed, your characterization that this message would be expressed "in a manner any language could decipher" is dodgey to say the least). The observation of the law in action is just the summary of three concurrent salient properties of gravitation: that how hard a man gets squished by a multitonne weight is proportional to the number of tonnes in that weight (force is proportional to mass), that more or less stable orbits about a single body have a period of a³=kP², and that this k is proportional to the mass of the body. Even then, it's not really incumbant on any understanding on the part of the bodies in question; they're just following trajectories in bent spacetime, and the spacetime is bending in response to how mass is distributed in spacetime.

So, yeah. The law in operation is a natural thing, but the expression of the law as a message is not. Gravitating bodies do not need any understanding of gravitation to gravitate, any more than a mechanism needs understanding of gear ratios to operate. Expression of a law requires understanding and therefore intelligence. That is the key difference.

Now, I notice again that you have not deigned to characterize the probabilities that are the main thrust of your arguments for the existence of god, so let me start you out:

Suppose we had a state of affairs that may include a god and may include a universe, or not. Let's call this the "exoverse" to give it a name. What is the probability that this exoverse would contain any god at all, and what is the probability that this exoverse would contain any universe at all, regardless of how and 'when'? You may choose to express this as a ratio between these two probabilities. As a follow up, please explain why you chose these numbers or this ratio.

[Baruch]

All equations are created by humans.  Unless you are proposing they drop out of the sky on stone tablets occasionally...

For some folks they drop from the Platonic world of forms ... into the minds of Pythagoreans.  We know that some animals can count, to a degree.  So it isn't completely man-made ... but it is completely animal made.  Since we are the only seriously developed species, math is mostly man-made.  And mostly by men.

Originally all math problems were word problems.  In fact, in many cultures they didn't have numerals ... just letters (which were used for numerals, not for unknown quantities).  Real equations didn't become important until Descartes invented algebraic geometry.  He didn't invent them, but he improved geometry so much they became indispensable, and word problems receded.

[sdelsolray]

...
Suppose we had a state of affairs that may include a god and may include a universe, or not. Let's call this the "exoverse" to give it a name. What is the probability that this exoverse would contain any god at all, and what is the probability that this exoverse would contain any universe at all, regardless of how and 'when'? You may choose to express this as a ratio between these two probabilities. As a follow up, please explain why you chose these numbers or this ratio.

Yes, it's an appropriate time to go Bayesian on Drew.  That should keep things entertaining.  Good move.

[Baruch]

Yes, it's an appropriate time to go Bayesian on Drew.  That should keep things entertaining.  Good move.

Bayesian probability is ... mumbo jumbo, sorry.  Frequency probability is the one true religion ;-)  This is also why the Schroedinger's Cat is BS ... objectively, you can't include any observer or bettor or poll of belief.  It is or it isn't heads or tails.  Do it 1000 times for real, I don't care what observers think (provided they know heads from tails).  Then give me the percentage of the two results (and per HR ... we can't include edge results, even though they do happen).

[Hakurei Reimu]

Whatevs, Baruch.