Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
It's claimants say yes, but creationism's reliance upon omnipotence and omniscience make it untestable and therefore unscientific since an omnipotent and omniscient entity could hide itself perfectly from us, thereby rendering the results of any test useless.
If we can see no evidence or reason for a God, then either He does not exist or His existence is irrelevant because He does not want to be known.
Further, it's my opinion that if we assume an intelligence can exist outside time then we can assume non-intelligence can exist outside time. Since intelligence existing outside time represents an extra assumption ontop of the idea of just existing outside time (in opposition to non-intelligence existing outside time), the idea of intelligence existing outside time fails Occam's razor in this comparison. Less complexity/fewer assumptions = more likely between two ideas, everything else being equal.
Not at all. If we assume nothing exists out of time, two things are then assumed to be true:
1) Time is infinite
2) Time applies to everything.
Both of which are larger, more untestable theories than positing something sentient does indeed exist out of time. You can't really use Occam's razor in metaphysics, it's far too multi-layered. By its nature metaphysical theories are extremely complicated. They have to take everything into account, literally.
In the absence of proof, there's only the absence.
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Originally Posted by MaxP
If we can see no evidence or reason for a God, then either He does not exist or His existence is irrelevant because He does not want to be known.
Not at all. If we assume nothing exists out of time, two things are then assumed to be true:
1) Time is infinite
2) Time applies to everything.
Both of which are larger, more untestable theories than positing something sentient does indeed exist out of time. You can't really use Occam's razor in metaphysics, it's far too multi-layered. By its nature metaphysical theories are extremely complicated. They have to take everything into account, literally.
In the interpretations section, we make use of a distinction between epistemological and metaphysical interpretations of Occam's Razor. This is a reference to two of the main traditional areas of philosophical inquiry. Epistemological questions concern knowledge, how it is arrived at and justified, whereas metaphysics (as we use the term) refers to questions about reality and its fundamental properties. Clearly these are both broad areas of inquiry with substantial crossover: it is hard to make any claims about what we know without making claims about reality, and conversely we cannot say what we know about reality without making claims about how we know it.
Epistemological interpretations of Occam's Razor see it as telling us how we can conclude what to believe. Thus, what we refer to as Occam's Razor proper states that we should believe the simplest model which explains the observations. This is not a claim about reality, but about what we should believe; namely, as little as possible (but, as Einstein said, no less). Metaphysical interpretations see Occam's Razor as a general observation about reality: classification problems in the real world tend to have simple solutions. We might or might not be able to imagine worlds in which this property did not hold, but what interests the metaphysicist is that in our world it does.
The second principle (4) states that simpler classifiers are more likely to be correct. So, all else being equal, we favor a simpler classifier over a more complicated one. We even prefer simpler classifier B over classifier C despite a small decrease in agreement with the training set. This is essentially a metaphysical claim, positing a general (probabilistic) property about the world, and we will refer to it as the Rule of Simplicity to distinguish it from Ockham's more epistemological principle.
To me, Occam's Razor has always been a claim made in metaphysics. It's application goes beyond just the sciences to several aspects of knowledge and has (theoretically) general application to any situation wherein two competing ideas cannot be distinguished on the basis of anything else other than complexity.
Now, you assumed that I was attempting to prove that nothing exists outside of time, which is not at all what I was proving. I was showing that the existence of intelligence outside of time is less likely than the existence of non-intelligence outside of time. IE, naturalistic non-intelligent forces such as clashing 'branes, quantum fluctuations, or expanding n-space bubbles. Let's inverse your presumptions and look at this:
God: Stuff exists outside the boundaries of space, Time is infinite or not infinite, Time applies to everything interacting with us in some sense (even to those that it doesn't, to interact with our reality our perception of time places constraints upon those actions they take based on scale whether it be 1:n representing our entire existence being an instantaneous moment for them, but a stream of moments for us. Ergo by our perception, time applies to anything interacting with us.), Intelligence exists outside our reality
Natural forces: Stuff exists outside the boundaries of space, Time if infinite or not infinite, Time applice to everything interacting with us in some sense (see above)
As you can see, in this shortlist of assumptions (based upon your previous statement) They are nearly identical except for additional assumption: God requires intelligence. Ergo, God is less likely to be the answer than some form of n-spatial phenomena.
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We all know there is a theory of evolution, whether we all understand it or not, but if by some miracle evolution was proven false, does creation have its own theory to take evolution's place if the need arise?
Evolution becomes a "theory" because there is a need to string things together by interpretations. Without the interpretations, evolution simply collapses as a pan of sand. So evolution is a theory, not an answer. It looks backward and can not look forward.
Creation gives the ultimate answer (yes, God did it). It answers the origin of things beyond the fact of existence (this gives more). It has a system to explain when create, why create, how create, what happened after creation, and what will the created things become.
As you can see, Creationism is far broader, and far more complicate. The "God did it" fact is only the first sentence in chapter 1.
In this case, angels would be highly radioactive and would decay after mere milliseconds. Beats having no angels at all, I guess.
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Evolution becomes a "theory" because there is a need to string things together by interpretations. Without the interpretations, evolution simply collapses as a pan of sand. So evolution is a theory, not an answer. It looks backward and can not look forward.
Creation gives the ultimate answer (yes, God did it). It answers the origin of things beyond the fact of existence (this gives more). It has a system to explain when create, why create, how create, what happened after creation, and what will the created things become.
As you can see, Creationism is far broader, and far more complicate. The "God did it" fact is only the first sentence in chapter 1.
Problem with your creation theory, for those who dont have their head up their ideology, is that the facts dont fit the theory.
Your bit about "interpretations" sounds grand but its meaningless. If you didnt look at the dark marks on the pages of your book and interpret them, you wouldnt have anything there, would you?
All of the evidence all of the data to be found in earth history shows the same thing. Great age, and a sequence of organisms changing from simpler to more complex over time.
Zero evidence for 'creation" other than your interpretation of dark marks on some pages.
In the absence of proof, there's only the absence.
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Originally Posted by juvenissun
Evolution becomes a "theory" because there is a need to string things together by interpretations. Without the interpretations, evolution simply collapses as a pan of sand. So evolution is a theory, not an answer. It looks backward and can not look forward.
We take data, we find a hypothesis to explain said data, we use hypothesis to make predictions, we test predictions. If enough predictions prove true then we upgrade the hypothesis to a theory. Let's break down your argument:
A Evolution relies on data, data must be interpreted, if we do not interpret data then evolution cannot be proven.
B Evolution is a theory, Evolution is not an answer, Evolution looks backwards but not forwards, therefore a theory is not an answer and does not look forwards.
The A statement is true in so far as it's true in all things. If we refuse to interpret the data for any premise then that premise cannot be proven. This has no meaning in this discussion since it fails to set evolution apart from any other premise.
The statement B makes no sense, a theory is an answer, since it attempts explain natural phenomena, and an explanation is a valid answer. Further, a scientific theory MUST make predictions, therefore it must 'look forwards' as you put it. We can hence conclude that statement B is absolutely unsound.
Creation gives the ultimate answer (yes, God did it). It answers the origin of things beyond the fact of existence (this gives more). It has a system to explain when create, why create, how create, what happened after creation, and what will the created things become.
As you can see, Creationism is far broader, and far more complicate. The "God did it" fact is only the first sentence in chapter 1.
The ultimate answer is 'n' because it answers everything. 1+1 = n; 3x^2+2x+5 = n; Where does the planet reside? coordinates (n,n). So I can take any question and answer it with an arbitrary variable. This makes 'n' the ultimate answer, it can answer the origin of things 'What is the coordinate for the origin?' '(n,n)' 'when did the universe begin?' 'n' 'How did the universe begin?' 'n+/-n=n' So there is a method by which I can answer any question using the undefined variable 'n'. Does this mean it I can extract any value, any meaning, or prove that 'n' is the actual answer? No. While it is an answer, it's void of any value. Goddidit is equal to n, it answers all questions, makes no predictions, cannot be falsified, and provides no new insight into the question asked.
1+1 = n, but 1+1=2 as well. 2 gives valuable insight, n is just a variable, a place holder. If we accept n without looking beyond it and call n the end of our exploration into 1+1 then we have learned nothing. We only learn something about 1+1 when we arrive at 2. Creationism is n, it's value is undefined, and if taken as a valid answer it serves only to block us from arriving at the real answers, the 2's.
One of the elements first seen on earth, at Los Alamos, was produced in the course of something called Project Panda. The people there wanted to name the element Pandamonium but alas, others had other ideas.
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