• @F_alk:

    Well, that’s if you allow one try, and do not allow evolution.
    To get to the sonnet humankind needed some time, it wasn’t like the first thing we did or said was such a sonnet. No, we had some “worse” poetry first, and it evolved… We had lesser version, before we got to these sonnets.

    Just as we had some very simple molecules in the beginning. All we need is a molecule that is a catalyst to create more molecules of its kind! That’s not that difficult.

    It’s not like putting lots of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, some calcium into a box, shake it, and hope that a mammal hops out… but that would be your example of the sonnet: you mix the letters and hope that a highly organized thing hops out.

    The more complex and original the item you are trying to get, the less of a chance you have of getting that item when it is being created at random. By saying that the universe was simply created out of nothing, you are saying that there had to be a perfect sequence to the molecules coming together and forming the world. For that to happen, these theories such as the big bang would most likely have had to happen millions and millions of times over in order for them to have reached the current stage they are in. I have trouble beleiving that things just happened out of nowhere and that random guesswork created everything. If that is true, then what is the whole point of having rules and regulations? Why bother with everythign we do? If there is not central body of rules or something above us to govern us, then everything as we know it does not matter and there is no meaning to anything. What makes something ethical or moral? Nothing, because there is nothing to guide us to do things.

    You claim you believe in nature? Well, what is nature to you? Why is there this nature of things? If everything is from a random sequence of events, then anything is possible then nature is merely a tendency of certain things to happen over other possibilites. If this is your definition of nature, which you consider to be the strongest force around, then there is still nothing binding us to anything.

    I dispute such a theory. To me, nature is nothing more than a framework set out by something larger than us that we must live in. Only G-d can break the framework and dothings beyond the framework. We can learn as much as we want about everything, but we will never fully understand this framework and why thigns are the way there are. Why are leaves green? We might say because of chlorophyll and because green light is reflected in chloroplasts, but why specifically green? I say it is because the framework of the universe forces it to behave in a certain way and we cannot understand why. The ancient Greeks beleived that if we learned how things work, we would eventually learn why they work, but modern science has grown somewhat smarter. It no longer answers why but only how. We can never udnerstand why thigns are the way they are completely, and that is because we are part of this framework. Only what controls the framework can truly know how it works and why everything occurs the way it does. I hope you understand how I’ve come to all this and how it is all related. If you do, great. If not, I guess I’ll have to think of a different way to explain things.


  • Just to add to my previous post, the only way for me to understand your explanation of how the universe was created due to a set of random probabilities is if you say that universes were created and destroyed until this one was created. This would work with the laws of probability, as I will illustrate through an example. If I roll a die over and voer until I roll a 6, then mathematically I must roll a 6 because I will keep on rolling until I roll a 6. You can apply this sort of theory to the universe as I mentioend above. If this universe was the goal and was created through random events such as Big Bangs, then universes would have been created until this one would have formed. However, this theory would mean that nature is merely the tendency to “roll” certain results over others. We could easily apply this to every day life. Because nature is merely a tendency, we could achieve anything we want. If we were to breed rabbits until we got one that could naturally fly, mathematically that rabbit would have to exist (I picked this example randomly) along with anything else we want. Nature would not be a binding force as any constant attempt to achieve something would have to occur. I simply do not understand how you could believe in such things. This belief leaves nothing as certain, not only with no explanation to why things work, but an infinite set of ways as to how everything works.

    I would also like to remind you that science does not have all the answers. Even some of the fundamental scientific principles we use can be broken. For example, one of the fundamental mathematical principles is that if on a graph I have a point and a line at any distant from that point (the line does not touch the point), there can only be one line that can pass through the point without touching the other line. Gauss and another mathemitician tried to prove that it was not possible to have that rule be broken, however they were unsuccessful. They had two to try and ways to disprove this principle: 1) If there is a point and a line that does not touch the point, no other lines could go through the point without touching the other line or 2) If there is a point and a line that does not touch the point, many otehr lines could go through that point without touching the other line. #1 does not work on a circular plane of graphs. If a straight line on this sort of graph is any line that goes around the circle at a maximum length (like the equator on the Earth) then any other lines coming through the point will have to touch that line. Option #2 yields a hyperbolic graph in a cone shape, where a straight line is a line that goes around the cone in a circular path. Any line drawn that goes through the point will touch not touch the other line. Why have I brought this up? Just to show that science and math are not as simple and straight forward as they seem. Imagine having to change your entire pereception fo the world to accomodate a world based on the circular or one the hyperbolic coordinate axes. Science is no simpler than any rational religion. Both are limited in how much they can answer, but at least religion (I know at least my religion) does not claim it can address everything we as humans do not understand.


  • Do you have any more questions, Janus? I’d like to try to answer them for you if I can.


  • Emugod, thats all well and good, but the inability to prove things does not mean that they are not able to be proven, nor does it mean that there must be a god. (if i understand it correctly, the religions do claim to have all the answers, but not necessarily good ones (i.e. if something cant be understood or proven, it is god’s will, and not for us to know)) naturally, there are problems with scientific and mathematical theories. they are developed and tested to understand the world the way we know it. as our knowledge expands, we learn new things, and old theories may be disproven. also, as we learn new things, we are able to prove new things that we were previously unable to. science does not pretend to have all the answers, that would be ridiculous. rather, it says that there is a scientific explanation for everything, which we may or may not have yet obtained


  • @Janus:

    Emugod, thats all well and good, but the inability to prove things does not mean that they are not able to be proven, nor does it mean that there must be a god. (if i understand it correctly, the religions do claim to have all the answers, but not necessarily good ones (i.e. if something cant be understood or proven, it is god’s will, and not for us to know)) naturally, there are problems with scientific and mathematical theories. they are developed and tested to understand the world the way we know it. as our knowledge expands, we learn new things, and old theories may be disproven. also, as we learn new things, we are able to prove new things that we were previously unable to. science does not pretend to have all the answers, that would be ridiculous. rather, it says that there is a scientific explanation for everything, which we may or may not have yet obtained

    You didn’t understand me correctly. I was saying that science claims we can find the answers to all our questions, while religion (at least my religion) does not claim that. My religion recognizes that there are limits to human knowledge. Judaism tries to answer whatever it can, but if there is no answer, we feel free to admit it. I cannot speak for Xianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or any major religion like that as I am not well versed enough in them, though if I recall correctly, Xianity focuses on belief over thought. In xianity you are not suppose to question anything, evreything is built on faith. Judaism is the opposite. First come the rational laws before the laws between people and G-d, and we are encouraged to ask any question we like. The point I was trying to make is that there is no one single right answer in science either. It has the same gray areas as religion. I also would like to stress that science only addresses the “how” and not the “why” which is important, but the “why” is what drives us as people to find answers to all of life’s mysteries. I hope I have been clearer.


  • @EmuGod:

    @Janus:

    Emugod, thats all well and good, but the inability to prove things does not mean that they are not able to be proven, nor does it mean that there must be a god. (if i understand it correctly, the religions do claim to have all the answers, but not necessarily good ones (i.e. if something cant be understood or proven, it is god’s will, and not for us to know)) naturally, there are problems with scientific and mathematical theories. they are developed and tested to understand the world the way we know it. as our knowledge expands, we learn new things, and old theories may be disproven. also, as we learn new things, we are able to prove new things that we were previously unable to. science does not pretend to have all the answers, that would be ridiculous. rather, it says that there is a scientific explanation for everything, which we may or may not have yet obtained

    You didn’t understand me correctly. I was saying that science claims we can find the answers to all our questions, while religion (at least my religion) does not claim that. My religion recognizes that there are limits to human knowledge. Judaism tries to answer whatever it can, but if there is no answer, we feel free to admit it. I cannot speak for Xianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or any major religion like that as I am not well versed enough in them, though if I recall correctly, Xianity focuses on belief over thought. In xianity you are not suppose to question anything, evreything is built on faith. Judaism is the opposite. First come the rational laws before the laws between people and G-d, and we are encouraged to ask any question we like. The point I was trying to make is that there is no one single right answer in science either. It has the same gray areas as religion. I also would like to stress that science only addresses the “how” and not the “why” which is important, but the “why” is what drives us as people to find answers to all of life’s mysteries. I hope I have been clearer.

    This is ridiculous. I have been questioning Christianity all of my life. True faith is important, but not a blind faith based on what our mommys and daddys tell us. Faith is something to be tested and questioned. The Bible has to be (and has been) examined from every angle - particularly from a historical perspective.
    We too are able and free to ask any question we like. The apostles repeatedly asked questions of Jesus.
    At the same time, i am with you on the “how not why” argument. I used this myself in a post on a similar topic. Science is fun - its interesting and fun to find out how. The “why” is the rub - the ache - the thing keeping us up at night. All science tells us is “to reproduce” or “because random chance dictated this long ago”.


  • @EmuGod:

    The more complex and original the item you are trying to get, the less of a chance you have of getting that item when it is being created at random.

    True, but you might have noticed that each and every of my previous posts was about showing you that it is not random.

    By saying that the universe was simply created out of nothing, you are saying that there had to be a perfect sequence to the molecules coming together and forming the world.

    Well, i didn’t and don’t say so, and i must admit, i don’t understand your sentence or better: the meaning of it.
    Considering the age of the universe, it took some time before the first molecules were created. Second, i think i didn’t use the term perfect in regard to them. Third: the world consists of more than molecules, although for living beings molecules are most important.
    Fourth: I dislike the term created out of nothing. There was no creator IMHO, thus “emerge” or “begin” or something like that would fit better.

    For that to happen, these theories such as the big bang would most likely have had to happen millions and millions of times over in order for them to have reached the current stage they are in. I have trouble beleiving that things just happened out of nowhere and that random guesswork created everything.

    Random would be: I hold a ball im hand, release it, and it goes up, left, right, forward, backward or down. But it doesn’t. It drops down. Everytime. No random thing in there.
    Nature has some random parts, true, but there are more processes not allowed than allowed.

    If that is true, then what is the whole point of having rules and regulations? Why bother with everythign we do? If there is not central body of rules or something above us to govern us, then everything as we know it does not matter and there is no meaning to anything. What makes something ethical or moral? Nothing, because there is nothing to guide us to do things.

    You are skipping topics.
    Your logic now sounds like:
    There must be a god, as otherwise there would be no meaning in life.
    You assume that there is a meaning in life, without proving that. Thus your conclusion has no basis.

    You claim you believe in nature? Well, what is nature to you? Why is there this nature of things? If everything is from a random sequence of events, then anything is possible then nature is merely a tendency of certain things to happen over other possibilites. If this is your definition of nature, which you consider to be the strongest force around, then there is still nothing binding us to anything.

    This tendency part of nature is called Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics. That’s only one part, and as the name says it’s mainly statistics, with underlying laws of nature that have to be obeyed by the single particles although these single particles are out of reach for our observation.
    For your conclusion: You are right, but “everything from a random sequence of events” is an invalid basis, thus your conclusion is wrong.

    For the first three questions: Yes, i “believe” in nature. Nature is everything around me that i can see, feel, hear, taste, smell personally and those things where i need (calibrated, to be correct) tools to detect them. The “nature of things” i call natural laws. They are there. I cannot tell why, but i can tell that if they were not (or as it seems: even slightly different from what they are) , then our universe would not be stable. Thus, i can argue that we live in a universe, because this is one of the few stable configurations of physics.

    I dispute such a theory. To me, nature is nothing more than a framework set out by something larger than us that we must live in. Only G-d can break the framework and dothings beyond the framework.

    Fine to me, but then don’t say that there is a mathematical prove for “god”. If god is larger than the framework, and does not obey the rules he has set in that framework, why did god keep one part of that framework useful to prove him? He must (choose to) obey to that then, correct? Why should that happen? Or is that one of the parts we can’t understand? Then i must admit that your proof is extremely weak to me, from a philosophical point of view.

    We can learn as much as we want about everything, but we will never fully understand this framework and why thigns are the way there are. Why are leaves green? We might say because of chlorophyll and because green light is reflected in chloroplasts, but why specifically green?

    (1) it’s abosrbed
    (2) If you look at the suns spectrum, you will see that there is a high power emitted into the green range. Thus, trying to use this can allow a higher efficiency of the chloroplasts.

    I say it is because the framework of the universe forces it to behave in a certain way and we cannot understand why. The ancient Greeks beleived that if we learned how things work, we would eventually learn why they work, but modern science has grown somewhat smarter. It no longer answers why but only how. We can never udnerstand why thigns are the way they are completely, and that is because we are part of this framework. Only what controls the framework can truly know how it works and why everything occurs the way it does. I hope you understand how I’ve come to all this and how it is all related. If you do, great. If not, I guess I’ll have to think of a different way to explain things.

    I see your point. I agree there is some kind of “framework”. My point now is: if the framework was slightly different, then we would not be here (as our universe would not be stable) to ask about the “why”. So the answer to the “why” for me is: It is so, because if it was different, it wouldn’t “work”.


  • @EmuGod:

    Just to add to my previous post, the only way for me to understand your explanation of how the universe was created due to a set of random probabilities is if you say that universes were created and destroyed until this one was created.

    This is not what i said (up to the last post), and you come close to a “correct” conclusion.
    We have to differ between things inside our universe (that’s how life sprang up etc.) and outside our universe (that would include the question of how it came into being).
    Questions for the second we can by no means answer. So, i cannot tell wether there have been “more tries”, i can only tell that if there have been more, then most likely these universes have collapsed quickly.

    This would work with the laws of probability,

    I agree, though from the philosophical point of view i have to ask:
    Why are laws of probability valid outside our universe? Maybe mathematics is god? Why could a differnt universe not have 1+1=0, with a total different math and statistics to follow? Why is math “universal” for all possible universes and outside those universes?

    If this universe was the goal and was created through random events such as Big Bangs, then universes would have been created until this one would have formed.

    There need not be a goal. This implies that there is a meaning in the universe (and life).

    However, this theory would mean that nature is merely the tendency to “roll” certain results over others.

    Whenever i talk of “nature” i talk of things inside our universe. You mix that up again. There can be some kind of natural laws “outside” our universe, but i can’t tell too much what they are like. I can say that they probably are very different should they exist at all.
    How can something without dimensions exist? How many dimensions are outside our universe? I say “it can’t” for the first, and “no idea” for the second.

    I would also like to remind you that science does not have all the answers. Even some of the fundamental scientific principles we use can be broken. For example, … Why have I brought this up? Just to show that science and math are not as simple and straight forward as they seem.

    Agreed, and it is even worse: Gödel proved that there are sentences and therorems in maths that are correct but cannot be proven correct.

    Imagine having to change your entire pereception fo the world to accomodate a world based on the circular or one the hyperbolic coordinate axes. Science is no simpler than any rational religion. Both are limited in how much they can answer, but at least religion (I know at least my religion) does not claim it can address everything we as humans do not understand.

    Your “imagine”-advice is already happening, since Einstein. It has become more and more complex. True.
    But then, science naver claimed to be “simple”. They sure try to find the most “simple”, “elegant” solutions. And to be honest: science does not claim to address everything we don’t understand, but it takes some effort to understand more each day. Thinking science “knows all” is a misperception. There are limits, there are limits we know of, there are limits we know to be unbreakable.

    One question that i always like to raise, EmuGod, and that you might like to answer:
    Is god allmighty? If yes (and as i understand you god obeys to logic), then can this entity create something that would then be out of his might?
    The classical paradox: Can god create a stone that is too heavy for god to lift it?


  • @cystic:

    The “why” is the rub - the ache - the thing keeping us up at night. All science tells us is “to reproduce” or “because random chance dictated this long ago”.

    I think that many people confuse the “how” and the “why”… Is “why does the sun go upevery morning” a valid “why”, or just a “how”? Is “why is the sun yellow” a valid “why”? …

    And the “reproduce thing” … wasn’t that the bible ? Something like “go forth and multiply?” ;) … How mean especially to some snakes, they must cry, being adders :)

    btw… don’t drink and derive ;)


  • is the Universe really THAT complicated? ???

    i mean the thing is Vaster then i can imagine but the law of Gravity Covers alot and almost 50% of why things work the way they do. just because something is Vast doenst mean its Complicated.

    and yes 50% may be a an exageration but what we dont understand now we understand through time and Research. look how far we came in 50 years eh ;) this is Mike btw


  • The next question of course would be “why does the law of gravity work?”

    If you follow this path, you will come to more and more "why"s, just like the little child that ask this kind of questions. And of course, at some stage, you will end up with a “we don’t know (yet)”…
    This can be critized as “science doesn’t have all answers”, but have a look how far we have gone: How good we have become at reducing these questions to some axioms or underlying principles…
    Just ask “why does one side of a magnet attract one side and repulses the other side of a magnet?”… and i will answer: Because of the principle of conservation of charge and a minkowski-metric in our 4-dimensional universe…
    This probably does not help you without further explanation, but it is close to most underlying principles.


  • @F_alk:

    @cystic:

    The “why” is the rub - the ache - the thing keeping us up at night. All science tells us is “to reproduce” or “because random chance dictated this long ago”.

    I think that many people confuse the “how” and the “why”… Is “why does the sun go upevery morning” a valid “why”, or just a “how”? Is “why is the sun yellow” a valid “why”? …

    And the “reproduce thing” … wasn’t that the bible ? Something like “go forth and multiply?” ;) … How mean especially to some snakes, they must cry, being adders :)

    btw… don’t drink and derive ;)

    ironically enough i’d had a couple beers, the last of my port and some wine before writing that . . . :D


  • has anyone read the series “The Animorphs”? its actually pretty good, even though it is aimed at young teens, and even though it fell off a cliff at the end. but anyway, it is quite unrelated to the topic, except in one aspect, and in one book, where im going to take an idea and apply it. There was a creature that often appeared in the book called the Ellimist. It was a seemingly divine being as it seemed to have limitless power. but in one book in the series, an explanation was given that i think has an application here. Someone asked about the Ellimist, and someone else gave a brief but excellent description. he said (not an exact quote) “I draw a person on a piece of paper, he has 2 dimensions, so we will call him a “flatty”. if i draw a box around him, he would be trapped forever, because he only knows 2 dimensions. if someone came along that existed in 3 dimensions, they could get him out of the box. but he only knows two, so he would not know what was going on. the 3d person would be able to do things the flatty would never understand, and had never dreamed of. so if the ellimist exists in 4 dimensions, he is able to do things we cannot comprehend, because we only know 3.” i think that if there is a being “god”, that it is more like this than some all powerful creature. like falk was saying earlier, there was no creator of the universe, it emerged or began. “god” would have been created afterwards, or emerged with the universe, and would only exist in more dimensions then we, and so is not divine or all mighty, but simply a more complex being that exists in ways we cannot understand. it is therefore concievable that if there is a god, then there is some being that exists in more ways even than the god we know, and is like a “god” to our god. if any of that made any sense at all.

    Emugod, your points have some validity to them, but i reject the concept of mathematical impossibility. true, some things have so low a probability that it is logically impossible. but no matter how low the probability of something, there still exists a possibilty for it, and therefore could happen. your raindrops example is a good one. the likelihood of a shaekesperian sonnet being written on a typewriter by rain is so low, it seems impossible, but the randomness of the rain means that it could happen, even if it was never recorded in your lifetime.


  • over an infinite amount of time, given an infinite amount of rain and an infinite amount of paper, it is a mathematical certainty that eventually all the great works would be typed out an infinite number of times with precision . . . (not to shoot down a creationist theory but . . . i think it’s a cute idea).


  • CC, i like that…
    would you accept the proof that god does not exists, because you can find the sentence “god does not exist” in every language, in ASCII and binary code, in the numbers pi, sqrt(2), sqrt(3), e and all sums and differences of these numbers? … that just must mean something :)…
    It also says “CC is wrong in some things” in there ;)


  • u might be able to get those great works in about a year of Rain, i mean u can get it in 3 seconds but like infinite is not that necissary


  • It’s necessary for unity probability.


  • k


  • @F_alk:

    CC, i like that…
    would you accept the proof that god does not exists, because you can find the sentence “god does not exist” in every language, in ASCII and binary code, in the numbers pi, sqrt(2), sqrt(3), e and all sums and differences of these numbers? … that just must mean something :)…
    It also says “CC is wrong in some things” in there ;)

    I’m pretty sure that you could prolly find stuff like “God is alive and waiting to meet with F_alk and have a discussion with him/her regarding the error of his/her ways” too . . . :)


  • Absolutely, but you will also find the same sentence with the addition that god agrees wholeheartedly with me :)

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