'Knowledge' of Existence

2PhiloVoid · Nov 14, 2018

gaara4158 said:
It’s Hardee’s where I’m based =P

Yes, that's what they say here too, but it's not the Hardee's that I remember as a kid.

Oncedeceived · Nov 14, 2018

cvanwey said:
Well, to put it simply, for the dozens, if not hundreds, of posts I've read from your LOL argument for instance

It goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, with no resolve in sight.... Both sides end up eventually tiring, or walking away thinking they are victorious - (on both ends).

People begin to loose interest in reading them, and no side changes their stance regardless. Why? Because I already see how both sides can argue their case for or against a creator.

In my case, I don't know...

So like I stated, for (me), it becomes a vacuous/empty/meaningless proposition in the end.

No why about the giraffe?

Oncedeceived · Nov 14, 2018

gaara4158 said:
I don't think I'm going to stick with this thread much longer since neither of us has budged at all and it's been several weeks.

Just let me know when you have had enough.

Under an epistemology based on empiricism, it is true by definition that claims (specifically, synthetic propositions) must be demonstrated empirically.

I could be wrong and correct me if I am but I was under the assumption that synthetic propositions were those that the truth of which cannot be determined by linguistic meaning alone?

You are making an argument based on the assumption that empirical evidence can show us truth. Whether that's really true is an entirely different discussion. In any case, you cannot try to disprove my position on the grounds that it lacks empirical evidence when yours lacks it as well. That puts us on the same level empirically, as I have been saying.

I am saying that empirical evidence provides support for a certain hypothesis being tested by that evidence. I have never claimed that I am trying to disprove your position, I am providing argumentation that puts forth the idea that your worldview is not cohesive, coherent or aligns with reality as well as the Christian worldview.

These are improper analogies because we already know the things you're comparing life, intelligence, etc. to are things that are made by people. It's not as though we really puzzle over the origin of cakes or cars in real life. We're already very familiar with the ways by which they come about. Life, intelligence, etc. aren't quite so mapped out yet. That's why I compared it to our ignorance to the ingredients of a cake rather than the process of its preparation. That would better reflect the conundrum we're in.

Analogies rarely reflect the actual problem. We don't puzzle over the origin of cakes or cars, agreed. However, by saying that life and intelligence are "not quite so mapped out yet", is an evolution of the gaps argument. There is no evidence that provides assurance that we will ever 'map' out life or intelligence by natural means. It might happen but you have no assurance other than your own presuppositional worldview to assert that. You continually disregard the fact that without the chemicals and order that provides the action of those chemicals are not evolved processes. The order was necessary before any chemical reaction could take place.

I don't expect you to believe anything about the origin of life that isn't demonstrated, but we're comparing two worldviews that require us to take opposite sides. If you accept that we have identified all the materials required for life, identified the origins of those materials, and observed natural complex chemical reactions that display the potential to form rudimentary self-replicating molecules, it shouldn't take much work to imagine how life could flourish from there.

What you are failing to recognize is that we are not certain we have identified all the materials required for life, there could have been something at the beginning that is not present anymore of all we know, where have we identified the origins of those materials? The universe provided all those materials and we most certainly don't know what the origin of the universe in a naturalistic view. The chemical reactions rely on order and that order is not explained in the naturalistic worldview and potential is really an assertion towards the actual life forming result from non-living matter. The problem with this assertion is that we are using intelligence to form these "self-replicating molecules", they are not forming in any sense without it.

God, on the other hand, has nothing going for him.

He may beg to differ.

Intricacy is not a reliable indicator of design, especially in a universe wherein you ultimately believe everything is designed.

Where did I claim that intricacy is a reliable indicator of design? I believe it is more about a combination of elements. Information at its core, purpose and goals within a system, unlikely results by chance alone are just a few. If everything is designed, we might not be able to provide a good line of argumentation for all parts of that design; but if design is real we should see some parts of that design shows a combination of elements that we recognize as being a product of information, intelligence, with purpose or goals that has a high probability that it is likely a product of chance.

Intelligent Design proponents swallow their own tails whenever they try to argue that design can be recognized against nondesign because they don't actually believe there's anything that wasn't designed by their intelligent creator. It's kind of funny, but a little frustrating when they keep insisting on doing it.

Again, we have a way to recognize intelligence or agency that has served us well in science and that is called Archaeology. We can look back thousands of years and recognize agency amid natural occurring phenomena. We of course can't point to every element in the universe and show how it appears designed but there are elements that are earmarked with agency that we can recognize.

And they don't agree on whether that appearance, being quite subjective, is an illusion or reality. That's why it's so important to nail down precisely what features are required to indicate design, and I don't know of a reliable way to do that without requiring the identification of structures or materials with known designers or design processes. You haven't offered one. I don't think going by the subjective impressions of people who admit they don't know is a good lead.

The measurements for the fundamental constants are real, and no one denies that. That they appear designed is not disputed, what is disputed I believe comes from one's presuppositional worldview. Those who don't like an explanation like God will either claim it is an illusion or that there are other universes that explain it. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists do not buy the illusion explanation.

Well, if you can objectively demonstrate a reliable measure of design, I'll be the first to congratulate you.

It comes down to what one will accept. The evidence is objective, peer reviewed and most scientists agree it appears to be designed. That appearance couldn't be subjective if everyone that knows what the evidence is agrees that it has the appearance of design. That you refuse to accept that isn't based on the evidence but your own bias against that evidence.

I don't know. The idea of eternity isn't something my brain can properly conceptualize, but that doesn't mean it's not real. Maybe there was an absolute beginning to the universe and all reality, and maybe there wasn't. That's beyond the scope of anyone's knowledge as far as I'm aware.
Now, will you tell me how your response addresses the dilemma I have shown you you're in?

What dilemma was that again?

I don't see anything in your exchange with her that indicates Christianity is the only worldview that can coherently house a rationally intelligible universe.

And what in your worldview explains why there is one?

I'd be glad to drop them if you'd do the same with your Bible prediction arguments. For any verse there's a charitable interpretation and an uncharitable one. What's stopping you from interpreting them all charitably and claiming the Bible had foreknowledge?

Ok. But the Bible does come into all this as it is a required element to the Christian to be aware of what we should see.

What demonstrated empirical evidence do you have that shows that changing just the cosmological constant would affect the ways the other constants affect the formation of life as we know it?

https://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf

2PhiloVoid · Nov 15, 2018

Oncedeceived said:
Just let me know when you have had enough.

I could be wrong and correct me if I am but I was under the assumption that synthetic propositions were those that the truth of which cannot be determined by linguistic meaning alone?

I am saying that empirical evidence provides support for a certain hypothesis being tested by that evidence. I have never claimed that I am trying to disprove your position, I am providing argumentation that puts forth the idea that your worldview is not cohesive, coherent or aligns with reality as well as the Christian worldview.

Analogies rarely reflect the actual problem. We don't puzzle over the origin of cakes or cars, agreed. However, by saying that life and intelligence are "not quite so mapped out yet", is an evolution of the gaps argument. There is no evidence that provides assurance that we will ever 'map' out life or intelligence by natural means. It might happen but you have no assurance other than your own presuppositional worldview to assert that. You continually disregard the fact that without the chemicals and order that provides the action of those chemicals are not evolved processes. The order was necessary before any chemical reaction could take place.

What you are failing to recognize is that we are not certain we have identified all the materials required for life, there could have been something at the beginning that is not present anymore of all we know, where have we identified the origins of those materials? The universe provided all those materials and we most certainly don't know what the origin of the universe in a naturalistic view. The chemical reactions rely on order and that order is not explained in the naturalistic worldview and potential is really an assertion towards the actual life forming result from non-living matter. The problem with this assertion is that we are using intelligence to form these "self-replicating molecules", they are not forming in any sense without it.

He may beg to differ.

Where did I claim that intricacy is a reliable indicator of design? I believe it is more about a combination of elements. Information at its core, purpose and goals within a system, unlikely results by chance alone are just a few. If everything is designed, we might not be able to provide a good line of argumentation for all parts of that design; but if design is real we should see some parts of that design shows a combination of elements that we recognize as being a product of information, intelligence, with purpose or goals that has a high probability that it is likely a product of chance.

Again, we have a way to recognize intelligence or agency that has served us well in science and that is called Archaeology. We can look back thousands of years and recognize agency amid natural occurring phenomena. We of course can't point to every element in the universe and show how it appears designed but there are elements that are earmarked with agency that we can recognize.

The measurements for the fundamental constants are real, and no one denies that. That they appear designed is not disputed, what is disputed I believe comes from one's presuppositional worldview. Those who don't like an explanation like God will either claim it is an illusion or that there are other universes that explain it. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists do not buy the illusion explanation.

It comes down to what one will accept. The evidence is objective, peer reviewed and most scientists agree it appears to be designed. That appearance couldn't be subjective if everyone that knows what the evidence is agrees that it has the appearance of design. That you refuse to accept that isn't based on the evidence but your own bias against that evidence.

What dilemma was that again?

And what in your worldview explains why there is one?

Ok. But the Bible does come into all this as it is a required element to the Christian to be aware of what we should see.

https://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf

......ooooohhhhh! A "critique of Stenger's book....." I see. So, that's how you're going to play it, ay? ^_^

Oncedeceived · Nov 15, 2018

2PhiloVoid said:
......ooooohhhhh! A "critique of Stenger's book....." I see. So, that's how you're going to play it, ay?

Oncedeceived · Nov 15, 2018

2PhiloVoid said:
Yes, that's what they say here too, but it's not the Hardee's that I remember as a kid.

We just got one in our neighborhood and I was excited because I remembered it being so good but it was a little bit of a disappointment. Not as good as I remembered either.

2PhiloVoid · Nov 15, 2018

Oncedeceived said:
We just got one in our neighborhood and I was excited because I remembered it being so good but it was a little bit of a disappointment. Not as good as I remembered either.

Nope. It's not.

gaara4158 · Nov 17, 2018

Oncedeceived said:
I could be wrong and correct me if I am but I was under the assumption that synthetic propositions were those that the truth of which cannot be determined by linguistic meaning alone?

That's correct. Under empiricism, we confirm synthetic propositions with empirical evidence. You're wanting to know if empiricism itself is demonstrated to be "true" empirically. Yes and no. Empiricism is based on the concept of incorrigibility, meaning that any honest description of one's sensory experience is automatically "true." For example, I see a screen in front of me. That's true. There may or may not actually be a screen in reality, but it's true that I see one. Empiricism, then, serves more as an axiom within a complete epistemology than as an empirically-testable claim.

This stuff is good to know, but no matter what kind of proposition empiricism is, you're using it inconsistently. When you claim naturalism/materialism/physicalism doesn't comport with reality because we don't see life coming from anything but other life, but Christianity does comport with reality even though we don't see God, you're committing the fallacy of special pleading.

Oncedeceived said:
I am saying that empirical evidence provides support for a certain hypothesis being tested by that evidence. I have never claimed that I am trying to disprove your position, I am providing argumentation that puts forth the idea that your worldview is not cohesive, coherent or aligns with reality as well as the Christian worldview.

You should be careful with the words "cohesive" and "coherent." If my worldview is incoherent, that means it either invokes a logical contradiction or makes a claim that is meaningless. Could you point me to either one of those problems in my worldview? As for being cohesive, we haven't even begun to discuss the other aspects of my worldview that make it cohesive. We've specifically been pitting nontheistic materialism, which is really only one position on a specific question, against Christianity, which is an entire worldview. Of course Christianity is going to look more cohesive. That doesn't mean it's true.

Oncedeceived said:
Analogies rarely reflect the actual problem. We don't puzzle over the origin of cakes or cars, agreed. However, by saying that life and intelligence are "not quite so mapped out yet", is an evolution of the gaps argument. There is no evidence that provides assurance that we will ever 'map' out life or intelligence by natural means. It might happen but you have no assurance other than your own presuppositional worldview to assert that. You continually disregard the fact that without the chemicals and order that provides the action of those chemicals are not evolved processes. The order was necessary before any chemical reaction could take place.

Don't get hung up on the word "yet." I am confident that one day they will be mapped out, but that doesn't add or take away from my point. Your analogy had your conclusions already baked-in.
I'm not ignoring the "order" of the universe. I'm taking it for granted until such time as it can be explained. I could try to explain it for explanation's sake with extradimensional garden gnomes, an army of pixies, or something defined as an orderly universe-maker, but without evidence for either of these things, why do that? I think it's best to wait for a well-evidenced explanation, whether that's actually forthcoming or not, rather than pick an explanation that's aesthetically pleasing.

Oncedeceived said:
What you are failing to recognize is that we are not certain we have identified all the materials required for life, there could have been something at the beginning that is not present anymore of all we know, where have we identified the origins of those materials? The universe provided all those materials and we most certainly don't know what the origin of the universe in a naturalistic view. The chemical reactions rely on order and that order is not explained in the naturalistic worldview and potential is really an assertion towards the actual life forming result from non-living matter. The problem with this assertion is that we are using intelligence to form these "self-replicating molecules", they are not forming in any sense without it.

Well, you did say "My position is not that we don't know the exact ingredients of the cake, but that we know what they are and they are not sufficient in themselves to give rise to the cake." It seemed you thought that we had identified all the materials required for life, but maybe your meaning was lost in the analogy? In any case, that's why I answered if you can accept that, then it shouldn't be hard to accept a naturalistic abiogenesis.
Beyond that, your objection is problematic in more ways than one. First, it is always the case that there could have been some hidden element at work behind any given phenomenon. We shave those possibilities away with Occam's Razor. For the materials we are fairly confident were involved in abiogenesis, Wikipedia has this to say:
"The elements, except for hydrogen and helium, ultimately derive from stellar nucleosynthesis. On 12 October 2016, astronomers reported that the very basic chemical ingredients of life — the carbon-hydrogen molecule (CH, or methylidyne radical), the carbon-hydrogen positive ion (CH+) and the carbon ion (C+) — are largely the result of ultraviolet light from stars, rather than other forms of radiation from supernovae and young stars, as thought earlier.[121] Complex molecules, including organic molecules, form naturally both in space and on planets.[20]"
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia

No, we don't know the origin of the universe, period. Your worldview may come with an explanation, but it fails on the same standards you're holding my worldview to. It's as simple as that.

Oncedeceived said:
He may beg to differ.

He's welcome to butt in. I'm sure we'd all love to hear from him.

Oncedeceived said:
Where did I claim that intricacy is a reliable indicator of design? I believe it is more about a combination of elements. Information at its core, purpose and goals within a system, unlikely results by chance alone are just a few. If everything is designed, we might not be able to provide a good line of argumentation for all parts of that design; but if design is real we should see some parts of that design shows a combination of elements that we recognize as being a product of information, intelligence, with purpose or goals that has a high probability that it is likely a product of chance.

You implied it when you said "Life and intelligence is far more intricate than a cake but you expect me to believe that even without any evidence of life arising from non-life that life just appears on the surface of this planet and that it is a "natural" occurrence."
Don't get me wrong, I do think design is detectable. I just don't think it's detectable in a vacuum. That is to say, I don't think we can detect design in things that don't have any elements in them that we already know are designed. I think we detect design by identifying some element whose design process we already know. Of course, any trip to a modern art museum will demonstrate that this isn't 100% reliable, but it's the best we've got.
I'm going to try and hone in on what you mean with your explanation of how we detect design. Firstly, "information" has many definitions. What do you mean by information? Purpose and goals within a system, sure, that's inherent to design, but how are purpose and goals identified? Unlikely results by chance is a weak indicator of design since unlikely things happen all the time.

Oncedeceived said:
The measurements for the fundamental constants are real, and no one denies that. That they appear designed is not disputed, what is disputed I believe comes from one's presuppositional worldview. Those who don't like an explanation like God will either claim it is an illusion or that there are other universes that explain it. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists do not buy the illusion explanation.

Oh, it's not just that they don't like the God explanation. It's that they don't find God to be a good explanation, because God as an explanation has no explanatory power, no evidence, etc. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists do not buy any particular explanation because none of them has been demonstrated. Most have their own pet theories or favorite explanations, but few will actually claim that any particular one is correct.

Oncedeceived said:
It comes down to what one will accept. The evidence is objective, peer reviewed and most scientists agree it appears to be designed. That appearance couldn't be subjective if everyone that knows what the evidence is agrees that it has the appearance of design. That you refuse to accept that isn't based on the evidence but your own bias against that evidence.

It's fine to say that the universe "appears" designed, but to go on and say that requires a designer is incorrect. We had said the same thing about biodiversity, but evolution served as a sufficient explanation to the apparent "design" of all lifeforms. So the appearance of design isn't necessarily evidence of a designer.

Oncedeceived said:
Again, we have a way to recognize intelligence or agency that has served us well in science and that is called Archaeology. We can look back thousands of years and recognize agency amid natural occurring phenomena. We of course can't point to every element in the universe and show how it appears designed but there are elements that are earmarked with agency that we can recognize.

Yes, and archaeology detects design based on the principles I laid out, not yours.

Oncedeceived said:
What dilemma was that again?

If God is alive and intelligent, but was not himself created, then you believe that in at least one instance, life and intelligence did not originate from other life and intelligence. If God is not alive and intelligent, but merely the source of life and intelligence, then again life and intelligence did not originate from life and intelligence. Life and intelligence coming from life and intelligence has an exception in each of our worldviews, so you cannot use the fact that life comes from life and intelligence from intelligence as evidence against my worldview without also doing the same to yours.

Oncedeceived said:
And what in your worldview explains why there is one?

Again, I am not of the sort that takes any old explanation over none if none is available via evidence. In my worldview, I only believe things that are supported by evidence. There is no evidence-based explanation for the order and rational intelligibility of the universe, so I don't have one. The lack of an explanation does not a contradiction make. It just means I don't claim to know everything. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Oncedeceived said:
Ok. But the Bible does come into all this as it is a required element to the Christian to be aware of what we should see.

And yet, it is not useful for that purpose for the reasons we both just acknowledged. We may be at an impasse if you insist on using the Bible as evidence when I do not recognize any "proper" interpretation of it.

Oncedeceived said:
https://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf

That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer my question.

cvanwey · Nov 17, 2018

I left this thread for a while, and now came back. I find this last response thread exchange fascinating.... One factor I would also like to add, which has been added in the past; but I would like to yet drive home once again...

If the universe, and by 'universe' I mean 'all existing matter and space'; was always in existence, in one form or another, then the term 'creator' becomes specious or untenable.

I'm not arguing for or against such a positive claim, in --> 'the universe is eternal'. I'm just saying, it's a working idea

I'm going to try and reiterate one of my original points....

If all humans had mere 'knowledge' of existence to Yahweh specifically, then everyone would still have the ability to accept or reject His proposition for salvation all-the-same. In such a case, the term 'atheist' would be just as incoherent to express as my proposed proposition above, in expressing a 'creator' to an eternal 'universe.'

One of the main rejections or push-back received from such an observation, was (paraphrased) that 'full revelation somehow brings condemnation'. But like I stated in rebuttal, if such were the case, then this either means that all whom claim revelation are actually condemned, or the claim of 'condemnation' is not logical.

So getting back to occam's razor, one might ask:

Is it more likely that God hides from most, leaving the topic of God an easily debatable conclusion, and that most are just in denial to the obvious reality to Yahweh specifically, or, does there instead exist severe lack in evidence to such an asserted proposition, and all such assertions are fallacious in one manor or another? ---- Sorry to present this apparent dichotomy, but if one wants to assert Yahweh as the conclusion, one appears to have no choice.

Oncedeceived · Nov 19, 2018

gaara4158 said:
That's correct. Under empiricism, we confirm synthetic propositions with empirical evidence. You're wanting to know if empiricism itself is demonstrated to be "true" empirically. Yes and no. Empiricism is based on the concept of incorrigibility, meaning that any honest description of one's sensory experience is automatically "true." For example, I see a screen in front of me. That's true. There may or may not actually be a screen in reality, but it's true that I see one. Empiricism, then, serves more as an axiom within a complete epistemology than as an empirically-testable claim.

This stuff is good to know, but no matter what kind of proposition empiricism is, you're using it inconsistently. When you claim naturalism/materialism/physicalism doesn't comport with reality because we don't see life coming from anything but other life, but Christianity does comport with reality even though we don't see God, you're committing the fallacy of special pleading.

We don't see Abiogenesis either? We see in reality, life coming into being from life, intelligence coming into being from intelligence. That is the reality. God is an eternal Being that is alive and intelligent. If what we claim is true, God brought into being the universe and life within it.

You should be careful with the words "cohesive" and "coherent." If my worldview is incoherent, that means it either invokes a logical contradiction or makes a claim that is meaningless. Could you point me to either one of those problems in my worldview? As for being cohesive, we haven't even begun to discuss the other aspects of my worldview that make it cohesive. We've specifically been pitting nontheistic materialism, which is really only one position on a specific question, against Christianity, which is an entire worldview. Of course Christianity is going to look more cohesive. That doesn't mean it's true.

The nontheistic materialistic worldview must adhere to only material elements. The one claim it makes that to me proves it incoherent is that we know that there are a priori judgements that are not proven by sensory experience alone. The LOL are universal and true and in a nontheisitic materialistic view, truth is not a survival necessity. There is no reason to believe that every person on the face of the earth would universally adhere to the same LOL by evolution alone.

Don't get hung up on the word "yet." I am confident that one day they will be mapped out, but that doesn't add or take away from my point. Your analogy had your conclusions already baked-in.
I'm not ignoring the "order" of the universe. I'm taking it for granted until such time as it can be explained. I could try to explain it for explanation's sake with extradimensional garden gnomes, an army of pixies, or something defined as an orderly universe-maker, but without evidence for either of these things, why do that? I think it's best to wait for a well-evidenced explanation, whether that's actually forthcoming or not, rather than pick an explanation that's aesthetically pleasing.

You first assume that my Christian worldview was one I was already entrenched in. Conclusions as you call them are set forth by the long history of Judaism and Christianity which were not already baked-in but were new and went against current thought.

Taking for granted isn't reason for belief. The belief that there will be a time it can be explained is using evolution of the gaps or materialism of the gaps. Your whole worldview is based on the fact that the material world exists and so it is explained by the material world. The fact that the material world exists doesn't make it true that the material world can be explained by the material world itself.

Well, you did say "My position is not that we don't know the exact ingredients of the cake, but that we know what they are and they are not sufficient in themselves to give rise to the cake." It seemed you thought that we had identified all the materials required for life, but maybe your meaning was lost in the analogy? In any case, that's why I answered if you can accept that, then it shouldn't be hard to accept a naturalistic abiogenesis.

In a material world it is not unusual to find that life is made from components of the material world. It doesn't follow however, that only the material world is necessary for life.

Beyond that, your objection is problematic in more ways than one. First, it is always the case that there could have been some hidden element at work behind any given phenomenon. We shave those possibilities away with Occam's Razor. For the materials we are fairly confident were involved in abiogenesis, Wikipedia has this to say:
"The elements, except for hydrogen and helium, ultimately derive from stellar nucleosynthesis. On 12 October 2016, astronomers reported that the very basic chemical ingredients of life — the carbon-hydrogen molecule (CH, or methylidyne radical), the carbon-hydrogen positive ion (CH+) and the carbon ion (C+) — are largely the result of ultraviolet light from stars, rather than other forms of radiation from supernovae and young stars, as thought earlier.[121] Complex molecules, including organic molecules, form naturally both in space and on planets.[20]"
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia

Which goes to the understanding that life was dependent upon the fine tuning of the universe.

No, we don't know the origin of the universe, period. Your worldview may come with an explanation, but it fails on the same standards you're holding my worldview to. It's as simple as that.

You've made your own standards. What you are missing is that I am not comparing yours against mine in the sense that you continue to think. I am comparing worldviews, what in each worldview provides in regard to what we actually see in reality. Your worldview rests on nontheistic empirical materialism. Mine rests on Christian theology. I believe that my worldview best fits with reality. There is a reason for the universe and why it appears to be designed There is a reason for the purpose and design in life and the universe. There is a reason for the laws of nature and the LOL. It is all cohesive within the worldview I hold.

In yours, there is no real reason for the universe, there is no reason the universe or life itself should appear designed, show purpose or goals, or that universal truth would be necessary for every living thing on the planet.

He's welcome to butt in. I'm sure we'd all love to hear from him.

He did before but no one wanted to hear from Him.

You implied it when you said "Life and intelligence is far more intricate than a cake but you expect me to believe that even without any evidence of life arising from non-life that life just appears on the surface of this planet and that it is a "natural" occurrence."
Don't get me wrong, I do think design is detectable. I just don't think it's detectable in a vacuum. That is to say, I don't think we can detect design in things that don't have any elements in them that we already know are designed. I think we detect design by identifying some element whose design process we already know. Of course, any trip to a modern art museum will demonstrate that this isn't 100% reliable, but it's the best we've got.
I'm going to try and hone in on what you mean with your explanation of how we detect design. Firstly, "information" has many definitions. What do you mean by information? Purpose and goals within a system, sure, that's inherent to design, but how are purpose and goals identified? Unlikely results by chance is a weak indicator of design since unlikely things happen all the time.

First information must have contingency. Also information is a pattern corresponding to a possibility that eliminates other possibilities. I think we can both agree that DNA holds "information". If something is highly improbable and has a corresponding pattern that serves a specific purpose by way of choosing one over another possibility is inherent in design.

Oh, it's not just that they don't like the God explanation. It's that they don't find God to be a good explanation, because God as an explanation has no explanatory power, no evidence, etc. Most astrophysicists and cosmologists do not buy any particular explanation because none of them has been demonstrated. Most have their own pet theories or favorite explanations, but few will actually claim that any particular one is correct.

Now this is interesting, God as an explanation has no explanatory power, no evidence...but it is the evidence due to the appearance of design that they themselves observe which they then claim it is not REALLY due to design without giving any justification for that denial. So they deny the evidence because they feel God isn't a good answer. Many, no all but many, scientists have a personal bias that won't allow them to even allow God as an answer and that is due to the materialistic worldview that now permeates the scientific field.

It's fine to say that the universe "appears" designed, but to go on and say that requires a designer is incorrect. We had said the same thing about biodiversity, but evolution served as a sufficient explanation to the apparent "design" of all lifeforms. So the appearance of design isn't necessarily evidence of a designer.

Has it? Do you know that evolution can explain the apparent design in all lifeforms? What about the order that makes evolution possible?

Yes, and archaeology detects design based on the principles I laid out, not yours.

Take alien research, they are looking for intelligent patterns in their research.

If God is alive and intelligent, but was not himself created, then you believe that in at least one instance, life and intelligence did not originate from other life and intelligence. If God is not alive and intelligent, but merely the source of life and intelligence, then again life and intelligence did not originate from life and intelligence. Life and intelligence coming from life and intelligence has an exception in each of our worldviews, so you cannot use the fact that life comes from life and intelligence from intelligence as evidence against my worldview without also doing the same to yours.

In the material world, everything that begins to exists has a cause. God did not begin, he has always existed. So in my worldview it is not an exception, it is a tenet of the worldview I hold. Whereas yours is an exception to reality and your own worldview.

Again, I am not of the sort that takes any old explanation over none if none is available via evidence. In my worldview, I only believe things that are supported by evidence. There is no evidence-based explanation for the order and rational intelligibility of the universe, so I don't have one. The lack of an explanation does not a contradiction make. It just means I don't claim to know everything. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Yet, in your worldview you have to take for granted that there might be a reason for a universe, there might be a reason for that universe to be intelligible to life on earth, there might be a way that life arose from non-life and intelligence from non-intelligent matter, and that logic and reason themselves have no reason for truth or rationality. You can believe what you want but if you adhere to materialism, the evidence contradicts what we find in reality.

And yet, it is not useful for that purpose for the reasons we both just acknowledged. We may be at an impasse if you insist on using the Bible as evidence when I do not recognize any "proper" interpretation of it.

It doesn't matter whether or not you recognize it as proper or that you interpret it in a certain way. We are looking at the two worldviews and it would be remiss if me to claim certain elements in your worldview that you hold are not consistent with that worldview. For instance if I claimed that evolution meant that there should be no monkeys in existence today if evolution were true. That is not an actual belief that the theory entails, same is true then if you claim that God needed a cause. That is not what the actual theology entails, do you see how that works?

That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer my question.[/QUOTE]Yes, it does. How does it not?

gaara4158 · Nov 20, 2018

Oncedeceived said:
We don't see Abiogenesis either? We see in reality, life coming into being from life, intelligence coming into being from intelligence. That is the reality. God is an eternal Being that is alive and intelligent. If what we claim is true, God brought into being the universe and life within it.

When you claim naturalism/materialism/physicalism doesn't comport with reality because we don't see life coming from anything but other life, but Christianity does comport with reality even though we don't see God, you're committing the fallacy of special pleading.

Oncedeceived said:
The nontheistic materialistic worldview must adhere to only material elements. The one claim it makes that to me proves it incoherent is that we know that there are a priori judgements that are not proven by sensory experience alone. The LOL are universal and true and in a nontheisitic materialistic view, truth is not a survival necessity. There is no reason to believe that every person on the face of the earth would universally adhere to the same LOL by evolution alone.

The nontheistic materialistic worldview makes absolutely no claims about a priori judgments whatsoever, so that objection is incorrect.

Oncedeceived said:
You first assume that my Christian worldview was one I was already entrenched in. Conclusions as you call them are set forth by the long history of Judaism and Christianity which were not already baked-in but were new and went against current thought.

I make no such assumption. The baked-in conclusion in your analogy was in the fact that cars and cakes have specific design processes and intelligent creators. Drawing analogy between them and life would be automatically suggesting that life was also intelligently designed.

Oncedeceived said:
Taking for granted isn't reason for belief. The belief that there will be a time it can be explained is using evolution of the gaps or materialism of the gaps. Your whole worldview is based on the fact that the material world exists and so it is explained by the material world. The fact that the material world exists doesn't make it true that the material world can be explained by the material world itself.

Taking for granted is the belief. Materialism of the gaps isn't the mere belief that one day all things will be explained materialistically. That's just what materialism entails. Materialism of the gaps would be an argument from ignorance pointing to gaps in our current knowledge of the universe and arguing that because we don't know what's going on there, it must be material. I have never once made such an argument.
No, my argument has been that no one knows what's going on in those gaps, but if I had to bet whether it was a material process or a process involving some brand new, never-before seen, non-material substance - let alone a specific non-material substance - I'm going with material. And I'm going with material because material has sufficiently explained previously unknown processes before, and this mystical, non-material stuff hasn't. It's simply more logical.

Observe the two bold statements. The former states that because we don't know, we therefore know. The latter states that because we've solved the problem this way before, it is wise to try it again. There's a difference.

Oncedeceived said:
In a material world it is not unusual to find that life is made from components of the material world. It doesn't follow however, that only the material world is necessary for life.

Maybe not, but it also doesn't follow that because we don't know, there is something nonmaterial required for life.

Oncedeceived said:
Which goes to the understanding that life was dependent upon the fine tuning of the universe.

That's neither here nor there. If we agree to call the universe finely tuned, then what? That doesn't get us to an intelligent designer.

Oncedeceived said:
You've made your own standards. What you are missing is that I am not comparing yours against mine in the sense that you continue to think. I am comparing worldviews, what in each worldview provides in regard to what we actually see in reality. Your worldview rests on nontheistic empirical materialism. Mine rests on Christian theology. I believe that my worldview best fits with reality. There is a reason for the universe and why it appears to be designed There is a reason for the purpose and design in life and the universe. There is a reason for the laws of nature and the LOL. It is all cohesive within the worldview I hold.

In yours, there is no real reason for the universe, there is no reason the universe or life itself should appear designed, show purpose or goals, or that universal truth would be necessary for every living thing on the planet.

Unfortunately, far from missing it, I've been acutely aware of what kind of comparison you've been drawing all this time and I've been trying to show you why it's completely misguided. You're comparing our worldviews for the mere presence of explanations for things, and you think if yours has more explanations for more things, your view automatically wins. That's not good enough. I could easily make up some farcical religion with answers to absolutely everything and we would be stuck. But I don't like to play farcical games, and you shouldn't either. If you believe that your worldview best fits with what we see in reality, show me God, show me the Devil, show me angels. These are the agents you propose that are working behind the mechanisms we don't understand naturalistically. You must have some reason to believe it's them, and not some mundane process like many other things have been shown to be, not aliens, not a simulation, and not an elaborate dream you're having. Well, where's your empirical evidence?

Oncedeceived said:
He did before but no one wanted to hear from Him.

Excuses, excuses. Pretty sad for a god.

Oncedeceived said:
First information must have contingency. Also information is a pattern corresponding to a possibility that eliminates other possibilities. I think we can both agree that DNA holds "information". If something is highly improbable and has a corresponding pattern that serves a specific purpose by way of choosing one over another possibility is inherent in design.

Again you're trying to smuggle "purpose" and "choice" in without explaining how it is identified. DNA holds amino acid chains in a particular order, sure. This is often present in design, but is it really indicative?

Oncedeceived said:
Now this is interesting, God as an explanation has no explanatory power, no evidence...but it is the evidence due to the appearance of design that they themselves observe which they then claim it is not REALLY due to design without giving any justification for that denial. So they deny the evidence because they feel God isn't a good answer. Many, no all but many, scientists have a personal bias that won't allow them to even allow God as an answer and that is due to the materialistic worldview that now permeates the scientific field.

No, they don't deny any evidence. There is no evidence of God. Appearance of design is not evidence of God. Fine tuning is not evidence of God. These are observations that do not have well-evidenced explanations. It is not a personal bias stopping scientists from concluding "God did it," it is their scientific integrity, and this is borne out in the disproportionately high rate of atheism in scientists as compared to the general population. Scientists and Belief

Oncedeceived said:
Has it? Do you know that evolution can explain the apparent design in all lifeforms? What about the order that makes evolution possible?

All known lifeforms, yes. There has not yet been one single lifeform discovered that confounds evolutionary explanation. Again, no well-evidenced explanation for the order of the universe is available to us at this time.

Oncedeceived said:
Take alien research, they are looking for intelligent patterns in their research.

They're looking for radio signals, something for which we already have a frame of reference.

Oncedeceived said:
In the material world, everything that begins to exists has a cause. God did not begin, he has always existed. So in my worldview it is not an exception, it is a tenet of the worldview I hold. Whereas yours is an exception to reality and your own worldview.

It doesn't matter why God wasn't created. The fact is he wasn't, so he's the exception. The tenet of your worldview is that God is the exception.
My worldview doesn't have any exception to reality or itself, what are you even talking about?

Oncedeceived said:
Yet, in your worldview you have to take for granted that there might be a reason for a universe, there might be a reason for that universe to be intelligible to life on earth, there might be a way that life arose from non-life and intelligence from non-intelligent matter, and that logic and reason themselves have no reason for truth or rationality. You can believe what you want but if you adhere to materialism, the evidence contradicts what we find in reality.

The evidence contradicts what we find in reality? Lol what? Evidence is what we find in reality. What are you trying to say here?

Oncedeceived said:
It doesn't matter whether or not you recognize it as proper or that you interpret it in a certain way. We are looking at the two worldviews and it would be remiss if me to claim certain elements in your worldview that you hold are not consistent with that worldview. For instance if I claimed that evolution meant that there should be no monkeys in existence today if evolution were true. That is not an actual belief that the theory entails, same is true then if you claim that God needed a cause. That is not what the actual theology entails, do you see how that works?

You can use your interpretation of the Bible to inform your view of the Christian worldview, but you cannot use your interpretation of the Bible as evidence for the truth of the Christian worldview on grounds of inerrancy. Surely you understand why.

Oncedeceived said:
Yes, it does. How does it not?

No, it doesn't. My question was very specific. What objective empirical evidence do you have that demonstrates that changing the CC would affect the ways the other fundamental constants affect the formation of life as we know it? You posted a full paper on the Fine Tuning argument. I didn't see any objective empirical evidence for that claim there, even on the page specifically discussing the CC.

Silmarien · Nov 20, 2018

gaara4158 said:
Taking for granted is the belief. Materialism of the gaps isn't the mere belief that one day all things will be explained materialistically. That's just what materialism entails. Materialism of the gaps would be an argument from ignorance pointing to gaps in our current knowledge of the universe and arguing that because we don't know what's going on there, it must be material. I have never once made such an argument.
No, my argument has been that no one knows what's going on in those gaps, but if I had to bet whether it was a material process or a process involving some brand new, never-before seen, non-material substance - let alone a specific non-material substance - I'm going with material. And I'm going with material because material has sufficiently explained previously unknown processes before, and this mystical, non-material stuff hasn't. It's simply more logical.

I have a couple questions for you here, since philosophy of mind is one of my major focuses.

1) What is it you like about non-theistic materialism? (There are plenty of alternatives out there. You could at least theoretically get around the problems with materialism by grounding it in theism, or you could adopt a non-theistic form of dualism, idealism, or panpsychism. The third is becoming a bit popular these days.)

2) How would you define "material" at all? I think you're underestimating just how strange existence is if you think that matter isn't mystical enough in its own right.

3) Could you give a science fiction style explanation of how material processes might in theory be able to explain the reality of sensory experience? A chemical reaction or firing of neurons might be associated with a certain sensation, but can you conceive of a purely materialistic explanation for why that sensation feels one way instead of another? For example, fire burns, but why would the sensation of heat feel the way it does? It seems that either matter is truly magical and can randomly produce consistent sensations, or that experiential qualities must already exist as a property of matter. The first option puts us in miracle territory, and the second has some serious dualistic implications.

4) You accept Necessary Existence. Do you think that the underlying nature of reality is fully material, mechanical, etc.?

I'm mostly a non-reductive materialist about the mind, but I take that non-reductive part very seriously, since for sensation and awareness to be possible at all, even physical reality has to have dimensions to it that can't be measured scientifically. There are just immense logical problems in trying to conceptualize a materialistic explanation for why a specific material process is identified with a particular mental process. So I'm wondering just what materialism means to you and how you'd go about untangling some of the actual issues that arise with it.

gaara4158 · Nov 20, 2018

Silmarien said:
1) What is it you like about non-theistic materialism? (There are plenty of alternatives out there. You could at least theoretically get around the problems with materialism by grounding it in theism, or you could adopt a non-theistic form of dualism, idealism, or panpsychism. The third is becoming a bit popular these days.)

It's not that I particularly like it, or even think it's true, but I've chosen it to contrast with her form of dualism because that's more interesting than defending a null, skeptical position that better reflects my worldview. I've mentioned earlier that I don't mind neutral monism either.

Silmarien said:
2) How would you define "material" at all? I think you're underestimating just how strange existence is if you think that matter isn't mystical enough in its own right.

I'm talking about material as matter and energy. I do think matter is mystical enough in its own right, and that's precisely why I think it's capable of producing consciousness.

Silmarien said:
3) Could you give a science fiction style explanation of how material processes might in theory be able to explain the reality of sensory experience? A chemical reaction or firing of neurons might be associated with a certain sensation, but can you conceive of a purely materialistic explanation for why that sensation feels one way instead of another? For example, fire burns, but why would the sensation of heat feel the way it does? It seems that either matter is truly magical and can randomly produce consistent sensations, or that experiential qualities must already exist as a property of matter. The first option puts us in miracle territory, and the second has some serious dualistic implications.

How do you distinguish magic or miracles from sufficiently advanced technology? That's not to suggest that intelligence is literally a form of technology, but similar to hyperadvanced technology in its complexity.

Silmarien said:
4) You accept Necessary Existence. Do you think that the underlying nature of reality is fully material, mechanical, etc.?

I don't know if I accept necessary existence. I've agreed with it in the past, but I'm wondering if it's not just a quirk of language that we can't coherently say "nothing exists." I do think the underlying nature of reality is likely material, mechanical, etc. but it could always be otherwise. I don't know how we'd ever find out.

Silmarien said:
I'm mostly a non-reductive materialist about the mind, but I take that non-reductive part very seriously, since for sensation and awareness to be possible at all, even physical reality has to have dimensions to it that can't be measured scientifically. There are just immense logical problems in trying to conceptualize a materialistic explanation for why a specific material process is identified with a particular mental process. So I'm wondering just what materialism means to you and how you'd go about untangling some of the actual issues that arise with it.

That's fair enough, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you in saying that I'm taking all of materialism's problems in stride while I do this exercise simply because I find them to be less severe than the problems found in Christianity.

Silmarien · Nov 20, 2018

gaara4158 said:
It's not that I particularly like it, or even think it's true, but I've chosen it to contrast with her form of dualism because that's more interesting than defending a null, skeptical position that better reflects my worldview. I've mentioned earlier that I don't mind neutral monism either.

Oh, genuine skepticism is one of the most interesting positions to defend. I don't think you're quite there, though, unless you're picking fights with atheistic materialists in other parts of the forum and I just haven't seen it. ^_^

gaara4158 said:
I'm talking about material as matter and energy. I do think matter is mystical enough in its own right, and that's precisely why I think it's capable of producing consciousness.

But what is matter and energy? Science can tell us how it acts under certain circumstances, but it provides no insight into what it actually is. What do you mean when you say that it's mystical, and why does this entail that it can produce consciousness?

gaara4158 said:
How do you distinguish magic or miracles from sufficiently advanced technology? That's not to suggest that intelligence is literally a form of technology, but similar to hyperadvanced technology in its complexity.

I'm not talking about intelligence, though. I think intelligence is actually less problematic than simple sensation. What I'm asking is more along the lines of why the color red is experienced as red instead of a different color. In a purely material universe that can be full captured by the objective and physical, what is it about a specific physical process, such as a neuron firing in a brain, that would lead to one sensory experience instead of a different one?

The sort of magic I'm talking about is more along the lines of a three sided rectangle than sufficiently advanced technology. (You'd be better off with neutral monism, though. Probably not entirely in the clear, but better off. Might make for a more interesting target for Oncedeceived's presuppositional apologetics, also, since people are less used to tackling the alternatives to materialism.)

gaara4158 said:
I don't know if I accept necessary existence. I've agreed with it in the past, but I'm wondering if it's not just a quirk of language that we can't coherently say "nothing exists." I do think the underlying nature of reality is likely material, mechanical, etc. but it could always be otherwise. I don't know how we'd ever find out.

Why would it be a quirk of language?

I see no contradiction in the idea that nothing exists, at least when conceived of correctly. The problem is that it is not true that nothing exists, so if the state of reality was at one point nothingness (no quantum vacuums, no virtual particles--nothing), then for that to have changed was basically an act of magic. There would be no mechanical process to explain this change from nothing to something, since mechanical processes are not nothing.

gaara4158 said:
That's fair enough, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you in saying that I'm taking all of materialism's problems in stride while I do this exercise simply because I find them to be less severe than the problems found in Christianity.

Which problems are those? I find Christianity pretty maddening, since I think it offers a pretty coherent and compelling vision of reality. The only problem is that you have to accept it on faith, with no possibility of objectively assessing its radical claims. But that's more a feature than a flaw.

Also, weren't you leaving this thread? What happened?

gaara4158 · Nov 21, 2018

Silmarien said:
Oh, genuine skepticism is one of the most interesting positions to defend. I don't think you're quite there, though, unless you're picking fights with atheistic materialists in other parts of the forum and I just haven't seen it.

Yeah, I'm not an absolute skeptic, but if I were I wouldn't need to bother defending it. Skepticism is the opposite of defense, is it not? All a skeptic has to do is keep asking "are you sure about that?" That doesn't sound very interesting to me. My actual worldview is an agnostic one where I remain undecided (perhaps permanently) as to what I think actually is the case, and I have a list of pros and cons for each proposed solution.

Silmarien said:
But what is matter and energy? Science can tell us how it acts under certain circumstances, but it provides no insight into what it actually is. What do you mean when you say that it's mystical, and why does this entail that it can produce consciousness?

Is there a difference between something's physical properties and behaviors and what it actually is? If so, what is that difference?
I was responding to your use of the word mystical, which I took to mean mysterious, which it is in the sense that we haven't conclusively mapped out all of its properties or its true origin.

Silmarien said:
I'm not talking about intelligence, though. I think intelligence is actually less problematic than simple sensation. What I'm asking is more along the lines of why the color red is experienced as red instead of a different color. In a purely material universe that can be full captured by the objective and physical, what is it about a specific physical process, such as a neuron firing in a brain, that would lead to one sensory experience instead of a different one?

I'm sure that's an excellent question, but it strikes me as a question better suited for a neuroscientist than for a philosopher. Presumably neither has a definitive answer as of right now, but I would expect between the two of them that the neuroscientist would be the one to discover an answer in the future.

Silmarien said:
The sort of magic I'm talking about is more along the lines of a three sided rectangle than sufficiently advanced technology. (You'd be better off with neutral monism, though. Probably not entirely in the clear, but better off. Might make for a more interesting target for Oncedeceived's presuppositional apologetics, also, since people are less used to tackling the alternatives to materialism.)

Well, to say it's the sort of magic that creates three-sided rectangles is to assume from the beginning that matter producing sensations is logically impossible, and I'm not so sure we can do that yet. I would definitely be having an easier time with neutral monism, but it's late in the game to change horses and I like a challenge anyway.

Silmarien said:
Why would it be a quirk of language?

I see no contradiction in the idea that nothing exists, at least when conceived of correctly. The problem is that it is not true that nothing exists, so if the state of reality was at one point nothingness (no quantum vacuums, no virtual particles--nothing), then for that to have changed was basically an act of magic. There would be no mechanical process to explain this change from nothing to something, since mechanical processes are not nothing.

The only reason I accepted necessary existence is because I went through a phase where I couldn't properly conceptualize nothing existing. For nothing to exist, I thought, nothing must be something, because it had to exist. But nothing isn't something, that would be a contradiction, so it couldn't exist. If nothing couldn't exist, then something must exist. This got me to necessary existence, but to me that sounds like a bit of sophistry now.
Getting past my own linguistic tricks, I can conceptualize what we really mean when we say "nothing existing," and it's true that that's not our current state of affairs. I don't see how it follows that it ever was a state of affairs, or if it was that any rules would prevent that state of affairs from changing.

Silmarien said:
Which problems are those? I find Christianity pretty maddening, since I think it offers a pretty coherent and compelling vision of reality. The only problem is that you have to accept it on faith, with no possibility of objectively assessing its radical claims. But that's more a feature than a flaw.

Well, I've been outlining them throughout this thread, haven't I? The plasticity of biblical interpretation, the requirement of faith, the lack of explanatory power to name three.
I'd love to leave this thread as I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with one interlocutor on the same argument but half of me is too proud to let her have the last word and the other half of me is impressed that she's stuck with me all this time. Poor Cvanwey keeps trying to reel the thread back into its original subject but no one's engaging. Maybe my next reply will be some closing remarks and we can all move on =P

Silmarien · Nov 21, 2018

gaara4158 said:
Yeah, I'm not an absolute skeptic, but if I were I wouldn't need to bother defending it. Skepticism is the opposite of defense, is it not? All a skeptic has to do is keep asking "are you sure about that?" That doesn't sound very interesting to me. My actual worldview is an agnostic one where I remain undecided (perhaps permanently) as to what I think actually is the case, and I have a list of pros and cons for each proposed solution.

No, a genuine skeptic tends to think that a variety of different approaches are equally possible, and that it's impossible to adjudicate between them. That requires having a pretty comprehensive understanding of a lot of different options, though, and you need to be able to defend the view that one in particular isn't any better than a second.

gaara4158 said:
Is there a difference between something's physical properties and behaviors and what it actually is? If so, what is that difference?

What is a physical property? If you want to describe an atom, you can only really do so by talking about its parts and the way they interact. If you want to talk about subatomic particles, you end up in a realm of virtual entities that seem to only be explicable in terms of how they behave. So the more we know about matter, the more it appears that the only thing we know about matter is how it behaves. We can model it, but we don't seem to know anything about it that isn't abstract. It's like the difference between a three dimensional house plan and an actual house. You wouldn't confuse the two.

gaara4158 said:
I'm sure that's an excellent question, but it strikes me as a question better suited for a neuroscientist than for a philosopher. Presumably neither has a definitive answer as of right now, but I would expect between the two of them that the neuroscientist would be the one to discover an answer in the future.

Quite the opposite, actually. Philosophy of mind and neuroscience are not really distinct realms--more and more often, a professional philosopher of mind is going to be a trained cognitive scientist as well. The opposite is not necessarily true, though--a neuroscientist can get by without knowledge of the underlying philosophical issues, and as a result, when they step beyond the bounds of the scientific empiricism and into theoretical territory, they end up knowing less than they think they do. Physicists are notorious for this also. It's the people who have mastered both that are really worth paying attention to.

gaara4158 said:
Well, to say it's the sort of magic that creates three-sided rectangles is to assume from the beginning that matter producing sensations is logically impossible, and I'm not so sure we can do that yet. I would definitely be having an easier time with neutral monism, but it's late in the game to change horses and I like a challenge anyway.

Oh, it's reductive materialism that I think is actually logically impossible. If you push it far enough, it either turns into eliminative materialism or property dualism. This doesn't necessarily mean that matter cannot produce sensation, but you need to already be conceiving of it in a way that includes rather than excludes non-physical properties.

gaara4158 said:
The only reason I accepted necessary existence is because I went through a phase where I couldn't properly conceptualize nothing existing. For nothing to exist, I thought, nothing must be something, because it had to exist. But nothing isn't something, that would be a contradiction, so it couldn't exist. If nothing couldn't exist, then something must exist. This got me to necessary existence, but to me that sounds like a bit of sophistry now.
Getting past my own linguistic tricks, I can conceptualize what we really mean when we say "nothing existing," and it's true that that's not our current state of affairs. I don't see how it follows that it ever was a state of affairs, or if it was that any rules would prevent that state of affairs from changing.

But what would cause that state of affairs to change? If you want to adopt a fully mechanistic picture of reality, then any change needs to be caused. The spontaneous, uncaused emergence of existence from nonexistence strikes me as genuine magical thinking. We might not be in an epistemic position to rule it out, but I think it's pure sophistry.

gaara4158 said:
Well, I've been outlining them throughout this thread, haven't I? The plasticity of biblical interpretation, the requirement of faith, the lack of explanatory power to name three.
I'd love to leave this thread as I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with one interlocutor on the same argument but half of me is too proud to let her have the last word and the other half of me is impressed that she's stuck with me all this time. Poor Cvanwey keeps trying to reel the thread back into its original subject but no one's engaging. Maybe my next reply will be some closing remarks and we can all move on =P

Oh, I'm not following the thread very carefully. I knew better than to do more than drop by every couple of pages.

I wasn't paying much attention to the theological side of the debate, since it seemed to only apply to specific interpretations of Christianity. I'm not sure how much of it would hold up outside of the strict presuppositionalist context, but I won't press you on it.

Oncedeceived · Nov 21, 2018

gaara4158 said:
When you claim naturalism/materialism/physicalism doesn't comport with reality because we don't see life coming from anything but other life, but Christianity does comport with reality even though we don't see God, you're committing the fallacy of special pleading.

First of all, in Christian theology, (my worldview) we have God as a necessary being. In our universe we see everything as contingent. We only have evidence of things coming into being rather than having existed eternally. We know that life came into being, so life didn't always exist so Life is not necessary. Everything in existence owes its existence to something else in the material/physical universe. What we do know about the universe is that space, time, energy and matter were not in existence but came into existence at 100th of a second after the Big Bang, so its existence is not eternal in its own existence. This fits with the Christian theology that the universe began from nothing in its own sense. If everything in existence owes its existence to something else, something must exist outside of our own universe that explains how the universe came into existence, something that explains the appearance of design in the universe, something that explains the appearance of design in life, something that exists that can bring into existence all that exists. That something has to be outside of our universe, that is intelligent enough to create such a universe and all life in it as it all appears designed. Now granted the universe and life doesn't have a signature that says created by the Christian God but that is not what I am trying to 'prove'. I am saying that the Christian worldview fits with what we see in realty. We see a universe coming into being that has the appearance of design which fits with God designing it. We see life coming into existence with the appearance of design, which fits again with God designing it. We see intelligence coming into existence which fits with an intelligent Being (God) creating us in His image. We see a fine tuned planet that appears designed to allow life, again, design by the Designer. We have laws of nature and laws of logic, we have a law maker in God. We have consciousness, we have elements that actually make more sense in a metaphysical realm rather than a purely materialist view. Now all this is not to convince you that God is the answer per se, but you must recognize that it is cohesive and coherent in accordance to reality. I then feel it is much more so than a nontheistic materialism/physicalism worldview. Now it seems that your position is not cemented into your worldview and so you have more flexibility in your position than those who claim only material elements exist. It seems you rather flow where the current takes you, and you have no strong commitment to any one worldview at this time in your life. Which is fine. However, I can't understand that you can't at least admit that the Christian worldview comports very well to what we find in reality.

The nontheistic materialistic worldview makes absolutely no claims about a priori judgments whatsoever, so that objection is incorrect.

I disagree, the majority of those who espouse the nontheistic worldview do make that claim.

I make no such assumption. The baked-in conclusion in your analogy was in the fact that cars and cakes have specific design processes and intelligent creators. Drawing analogy between them and life would be automatically suggesting that life was also intelligently designed.

Scientists themselves claim that the universe shows intelligence and appears designed, it is not a leap to the analogy of cars and cakes.

Taking for granted is the belief. Materialism of the gaps isn't the mere belief that one day all things will be explained materialistically. That's just what materialism entails. Materialism of the gaps would be an argument from ignorance pointing to gaps in our current knowledge of the universe and arguing that because we don't know what's going on there, it must be material. I have never once made such an argument.

Perhaps not, but claiming that it has sufficiently explained previously unknown processes before so to you it is "more logical" makes an argument towards that claim.

No, my argument has been that no one knows what's going on in those gaps, but if I had to bet whether it was a material process or a process involving some brand new, never-before seen, non-material substance - let alone a specific non-material substance - I'm going with material. And I'm going with material because material has sufficiently explained previously unknown processes before, and this mystical, non-material stuff hasn't. It's simply more logical.

Observe the two bold statements. The former states that because we don't know, we therefore know. The latter states that because we've solved the problem this way before, it is wise to try it again. There's a difference.

What actually has the material sufficiently explained other than behavior of certain material phenomena? It seems rather a hollow claim that the material has explained much of the material world, because we know what gravity does but we don't know what gravity is, we know what evolution does but we don't know how the order in which evolution depends exists.

Maybe not, but it also doesn't follow that because we don't know, there is something nonmaterial required for life.

It follows in the Christian worldview that if God exists as we claim, life exists because God created us in His image. See above.

That's neither here nor there. If we agree to call the universe finely tuned, then what? That doesn't get us to an intelligent designer.

Why not? What prohibits an intelligent designer?

Unfortunately, far from missing it, I've been acutely aware of what kind of comparison you've been drawing all this time and I've been trying to show you why it's completely misguided. You're comparing our worldviews for the mere presence of explanations for things, and you think if yours has more explanations for more things, your view automatically wins. That's not good enough. I could easily make up some farcical religion with answers to absolutely everything and we would be stuck. But I don't like to play farcical games, and you shouldn't either. If you believe that your worldview best fits with what we see in reality, show me God, show me the Devil, show me angels. These are the agents you propose that are working behind the mechanisms we don't understand naturalistically. You must have some reason to believe it's them, and not some mundane process like many other things have been shown to be, not aliens, not a simulation, and not an elaborate dream you're having. Well, where's your empirical evidence?

The empirical evidence is the universe came into being from nothing or at least the space, energy, matter and time of the universe came into being from nothing, the universe appears designed, the planet appears to be designed, life appears to be designed, intelligence came into existence and all this comports with Christian theology. I am not claiming that I have proof that God exists, but that God is more coherent and cohesive with the features and design we see in reality.

Excuses, excuses. Pretty sad for a god.

Excuses?

Again you're trying to smuggle "purpose" and "choice" in without explaining how it is identified. DNA holds amino acid chains in a particular order, sure. This is often present in design, but is it really indicative?

What prohibits this from being designed by intelligent design? We know how to identify purpose, purpose is why something does what it needs to do rather than having no reason for its existence.

No, they don't deny any evidence. There is no evidence of God. Appearance of design is not evidence of God. Fine tuning is not evidence of God. These are observations that do not have well-evidenced explanations. It is not a personal bias stopping scientists from concluding "God did it," it is their scientific integrity, and this is borne out in the disproportionately high rate of atheism in scientists as compared to the general population. Scientists and Belief

This seems a little off, on one hand you say that it is not their bias that brings them to their conclusions while siting there are more atheists in Science.

All known lifeforms, yes. There has not yet been one single lifeform discovered that confounds evolutionary explanation. Again, no well-evidenced explanation for the order of the universe is available to us at this time.

I don't believe that we know how design was attained in all known lifeforms. We haven't even determined how information began to be encoded in DNA. That is the beginning of the evolution of all lifeforms.

They're looking for radio signals, something for which we already have a frame of reference.

We had no frame of reference for DNA.

It doesn't matter why God wasn't created. The fact is he wasn't, so he's the exception. The tenet of your worldview is that God is the exception.
My worldview doesn't have any exception to reality or itself, what are you even talking about?

It is not an exception in the Christian worldview, which flows cohesively and coherently from an Intelligent Being.

The evidence contradicts what we find in reality? Lol what? Evidence is what we find in reality. What are you trying to say here?

The evidence is that LOL are universal, that is reality but in the nontheistic materialistic worldview there is no reason to believe that truth would be selected for. Intelligence from non-intelligence is not even in evidence but intelligence is a reality. Do you see what I mean?

You can use your interpretation of the Bible to inform your view of the Christian worldview, but you cannot use your interpretation of the Bible as evidence for the truth of the Christian worldview on grounds of inerrancy. Surely you understand why.

If I were trying to prove the Christian worldview but what I am doing is showing it is a cohesive and coherent worldview that fits the best with reality.

No, it doesn't. My question was very specific. What objective empirical evidence do you have that demonstrates that changing the CC would affect the ways the other fundamental constants affect the formation of life as we know it? You posted a full paper on the Fine Tuning argument. I didn't see any objective empirical evidence for that claim there, even on the page specifically discussing the CC.

I don't have time to do this right now. I will try to get in here tomorrow after some cooking for Thanksgiving...the lull before the storm.

gaara4158 · Nov 22, 2018

Oncedeceived said:
First of all, in Christian theology, (my worldview) we have God as a necessary being. In our universe we see everything as contingent. We only have evidence of things coming into being rather than having existed eternally. We know that life came into being, so life didn't always exist so Life is not necessary. Everything in existence owes its existence to something else in the material/physical universe. What we do know about the universe is that space, time, energy and matter were not in existence but came into existence at 100th of a second after the Big Bang, so its existence is not eternal in its own existence. This fits with the Christian theology that the universe began from nothing in its own sense. If everything in existence owes its existence to something else, something must exist outside of our own universe that explains how the universe came into existence, something that explains the appearance of design in the universe, something that explains the appearance of design in life, something that exists that can bring into existence all that exists. That something has to be outside of our universe, that is intelligent enough to create such a universe and all life in it as it all appears designed. Now granted the universe and life doesn't have a signature that says created by the Christian God but that is not what I am trying to 'prove'. I am saying that the Christian worldview fits with what we see in realty. We see a universe coming into being that has the appearance of design which fits with God designing it. We see life coming into existence with the appearance of design, which fits again with God designing it. We see intelligence coming into existence which fits with an intelligent Being (God) creating us in His image. We see a fine tuned planet that appears designed to allow life, again, design by the Designer. We have laws of nature and laws of logic, we have a law maker in God. We have consciousness, we have elements that actually make more sense in a metaphysical realm rather than a purely materialist view. Now all this is not to convince you that God is the answer per se, but you must recognize that it is cohesive and coherent in accordance to reality. I then feel it is much more so than a nontheistic materialism/physicalism worldview. Now it seems that your position is not cemented into your worldview and so you have more flexibility in your position than those who claim only material elements exist. It seems you rather flow where the current takes you, and you have no strong commitment to any one worldview at this time in your life. Which is fine. However, I can't understand that you can't at least admit that the Christian worldview comports very well to what we find in reality.

I disagree, the majority of those who espouse the nontheistic worldview do make that claim.

Scientists themselves claim that the universe shows intelligence and appears designed, it is not a leap to the analogy of cars and cakes.

Perhaps not, but claiming that it has sufficiently explained previously unknown processes before so to you it is "more logical" makes an argument towards that claim.

What actually has the material sufficiently explained other than behavior of certain material phenomena? It seems rather a hollow claim that the material has explained much of the material world, because we know what gravity does but we don't know what gravity is, we know what evolution does but we don't know how the order in which evolution depends exists.

It follows in the Christian worldview that if God exists as we claim, life exists because God created us in His image. See above.

Why not? What prohibits an intelligent designer?

The empirical evidence is the universe came into being from nothing or at least the space, energy, matter and time of the universe came into being from nothing, the universe appears designed, the planet appears to be designed, life appears to be designed, intelligence came into existence and all this comports with Christian theology. I am not claiming that I have proof that God exists, but that God is more coherent and cohesive with the features and design we see in reality.

Excuses?

What prohibits this from being designed by intelligent design? We know how to identify purpose, purpose is why something does what it needs to do rather than having no reason for its existence.

This seems a little off, on one hand you say that it is not their bias that brings them to their conclusions while siting there are more atheists in Science.

I don't believe that we know how design was attained in all known lifeforms. We haven't even determined how information began to be encoded in DNA. That is the beginning of the evolution of all lifeforms.

We had no frame of reference for DNA.

It is not an exception in the Christian worldview, which flows cohesively and coherently from an Intelligent Being.

The evidence is that LOL are universal, that is reality but in the nontheistic materialistic worldview there is no reason to believe that truth would be selected for. Intelligence from non-intelligence is not even in evidence but intelligence is a reality. Do you see what I mean?

If I were trying to prove the Christian worldview but what I am doing is showing it is a cohesive and coherent worldview that fits the best with reality.

I don't have time to do this right now. I will try to get in here tomorrow after some cooking for Thanksgiving...the lull before the storm.

Alright, I’m tapping out of this. I have made too many attempts to correct your misconceptions and you just continue to make the exact same mistakes over and over and over again. There is not one objection you have made that I haven't already addressed previously. It has come time for me to admit that the mistake has been mine all along in thinking I could ever get you to see your errors the way I see them. You probably feel a similar way. Thank you for sticking it out this far, but I'm done here. Anyone following along has more than enough material to decide who's right by now.

gaara4158 · Nov 22, 2018

Silmarien said:
No, a genuine skeptic tends to think that a variety of different approaches are equally possible, and that it's impossible to adjudicate between them. That requires having a pretty comprehensive understanding of a lot of different options, though, and you need to be able to defend the view that one in particular isn't any better than a second.

Oh, so that's what you meant. Ok, yeah, I'm not there and I probably won't be any time soon. I do find some options better than others, but there are a handful of which I don't have much of a comprehensive understanding.

Silmarien said:
What is a physical property? If you want to describe an atom, you can only really do so by talking about its parts and the way they interact. If you want to talk about subatomic particles, you end up in a realm of virtual entities that seem to only be explicable in terms of how they behave. So the more we know about matter, the more it appears that the only thing we know about matter is how it behaves. We can model it, but we don't seem to know anything about it that isn't abstract. It's like the difference between a three dimensional house plan and an actual house. You wouldn't confuse the two.

A pragmatist is completely satisfied with the entirety of what something is being the sum of its parts, interactions, and behaviors. Asking for something beyond that, something more "is" than "is" doesn't make sense. What other descriptive information are you wanting to have about matter?

Silmarien said:
Quite the opposite, actually. Philosophy of mind and neuroscience are not really distinct realms--more and more often, a professional philosopher of mind is going to be a trained cognitive scientist as well. The opposite is not necessarily true, though--a neuroscientist can get by without knowledge of the underlying philosophical issues, and as a result, when they step beyond the bounds of the scientific empiricism and into theoretical territory, they end up knowing less than they think they do. Physicists are notorious for this also. It's the people who have mastered both that are really worth paying attention to.

Ok, but since you're talking to someone who is neither... what do you expect me to be able to tell you? Is there any consensus among philosopher-neuroscientists?

Silmarien said:
But what would cause that state of affairs to change? If you want to adopt a fully mechanistic picture of reality, then any change needs to be caused. The spontaneous, uncaused emergence of existence from nonexistence strikes me as genuine magical thinking. We might not be in an epistemic position to rule it out, but I think it's pure sophistry.

I don't know of any proposed explanation for a universe from absolutely nothing, mechanistic or otherwise, that doesn't sound like magical thinking. That doesn't get us to necessary existence.

Oncedeceived · Nov 22, 2018

gaara4158 said:
Alright, I’m tapping out of this. I have made too many attempts to correct your misconceptions and you just continue to make the exact same mistakes over and over and over again. There is not one objection you have made that I haven't already addressed previously. It has come time for me to admit that the mistake has been mine all along in thinking I could ever get you to see your errors the way I see them. You probably feel a similar way. Thank you for sticking it out this far, but I'm done here. Anyone following along has more than enough material to decide who's right by now.

Ok, I've enjoyed our conversation and I appreciate your honest and cordial demeanor. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

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