Godlessness and choice

[anonymous person]

What, in your mind, separates "natural" from "supernatural"?

The first thing that comes to mind is their essence.

Well...with paintings, we know that a person can paint them. With regards to ID...the "paintbrush" is unknown, the method of applying the "paint" is unknown (if there even is such a method), as well as the painter.

Once again, you don't have to have an explanation of an explanation in order to recognize it is the best explanation for something.

If we received a signal broadcast from Alpha Centauri and we were able to convert it to an image and there appeared what looked like elaborate symbols and shapes and patterns and some sort of otherworldly language, we wouldn't have to know the method of transmission or even who transmitted it to explain such a signal as having been made by some intelligent efficient cause.

Exhaustive knowledge of a thing is not a criteria anyone uses when assessing the merits of a hypothesis to offer an explanation of that thing.

Frankly, it leaves more questions than answers...as far as answers go, any random guess would be just as successful.

The notion that life on earth, with its attending diverseness, is the result of an intelligent agent back of it all does raise a lot of questions. The notion also provides answers to questions.

No hypothesis if adopted, will answer all the questions we may have.

Efficient? In what capacity?

Creative

 

[Ana the Ist]

The first thing that comes to mind is their essence.

Oh well, lol thanks for clearing that right up. Seriously though, could you just explain what the difference is? When you give a really vague and non-definitive answer like "essence" you must know the next thing I'll be asking is "what do you mean by their essence?" That explanation adds nothing to my understanding of what you're talking about when you say "supernatural"...and it's pretty important to understand what you mean if I'm ever going to be able to understand what makes this answer so "efficient".

Or are you deliberately being vague at this point?

Once again, you don't have to have an explanation of an explanation in order to recognize it is the best explanation for something.

The best explanation for something is the one that correctly answers the question. There's really no other criteria.

When it comes to explanations like ID or creationism...I really have no idea if they could even be correct, because they leave so much of the question unanswered. Sadly, the people who trot those explanations out the most seem to care little for the questions they leave unanswered...and that should be a clue as to why those people are using those explanations in the first place. They aren't concerned about truth, accuracy, and being correct...they simply want people to agree so that others aren't challenging their deeply held religious beliefs.

If we received a signal broadcast from Alpha Centauri and we were able to convert it to an image and there appeared what looked like elaborate symbols and shapes and patterns and some sort of otherworldly language, we wouldn't have to know the method of transmission or even who transmitted it to explain such a signal as having been made by some intelligent efficient cause.

I'm sorry...what are you suggesting within this scenario? That we're receiving a "signal broadcast" from somewhere...and we don't know the method of transmission? Yet, in spite of this, we're converting the signal into symbols and shapes/patterns?

I'm not sure how you imagine this going down...but is that what you're suggesting? Or did you perhaps word it incorrectly?

Exhaustive knowledge of a thing is not a criteria anyone uses when assessing the merits of a hypothesis to offer an explanation of that thing.

You're correct...but ID doesn't offer any knowledge of a "thing" other than the mere guess that it's "intelligent". It's not even enough of an explanation for me to be able to determine if it has any merits with regard to reality.

A spider web, for example, can display all sorts of complexity...from the design, to the incredibly efficient material, and even from a mathematical standpoint...it's geometric patterns...yet I don't know anyone who would argue that spiders have any intelligence.

So even the "intelligent" part of "intelligent design" is nothing more than mere speculation. The entire hypothesis amounts to nothing more than "something did it"...and that's not a hypothesis that explains anything.

The notion that life on earth, with its attending diverseness, is the result of an intelligent agent back of it all does raise a lot of questions. The notion also provides answers to questions.

Well let's quit beating around the bush then...let's hear the "answers" it provides.

No hypothesis if adopted, will answer all the questions we may have.

No? I've always looked at explanations like "photosynthesis" as a pretty tidy answer to what was once a very difficult question.

Honestly, I thought I was being pretty generous above...because not only is the "intelligent" side of ID unclear...but so is the "design" side of it as well. You can call it an answer if you like...but it certainly isn't an explanation. It doesn't explain anything.

Creative

I don't know what you mean by "creative"...if you mean it's a creative answer, it really isn't. If you mean it's efficient with regards to "creation"...it isn't that either...it doesn't explain a single thing about the creative process, the creator, or how we can even tell that something is a "creation".

We could just as easily answer any of the questions that ID attempts to answer with the word "magic" and be on equal footing with this "hypothesis". How did the universe come to be? Magic. How did life first form? Magic.

Sure, that doesn't tell us anything about what magic is, how it works, or why we know it was magic...but hey, it sure is an efficient answer!

 

[pitabread]

If we received a signal broadcast from Alpha Centauri and we were able to convert it to an image and there appeared what looked like elaborate symbols and shapes and patterns and some sort of otherworldly language, we wouldn't have to know the method of transmission or even who transmitted it to explain such a signal as having been made by some intelligent efficient cause.

You would still be needing to make assumptions about detecting such transmissions in order to even receive it in the first place. There is an initial assumption about both intent and technology used in sending such a transmission. Those assumptions shape the detection process.

Consequently, if a transmission was encrypted, compressed, etc, it may not be detectable based on those initial assumptions. Or even in the event it was detected, it wouldn't necessarily be decipherable as an intelligent source.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You would still be needing to make assumptions about detecting such transmissions in order to even receive it in the first place. There is an initial assumption about both intent and technology used in sending such a transmission. Those assumptions shape the detection process.

Consequently, if a transmission was encrypted, compressed, etc, it may not be detectable based on those initial assumptions. Or even in the event it was detected, it wouldn't necessarily be decipherable as an intelligent source.

Honestly, I didn't really understand the scenario he was getting at...receiving a signal without knowing how it's transmitted? That's like saying that you got mail without a mailing address...or a radio signal without an antenna. It would seem that if we aren't aware of the transmission method, we wouldn't likely receive the signal...let alone be able to recognize that it's some kind of message.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Could you explain why the mind being a result of brain processes (natural processes) would somehow mean we aren't capable of "reason"?

I looked for your post "above" and didn't see any.

According to naturalists the brain is just pure chemistry. We know that the product of chemical reactions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents, therefore your thoughts and conclusions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents in your brain, ie the laws of chemistry, not the laws of logic or reasoning.

 

[Ed1wolf]

That´s not what I said. Try again.

I am not sure what you are saying then. Unless maybe you mean if there really is no God then I would not be able to reason either, and yes that would be correct, we would both be in the same boat. Is that what you were saying?

 

[Dave Ellis]

According to naturalists the brain is just pure chemistry. We know that the product of chemical reactions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents, therefore your thoughts and conclusions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents in your brain, ie the laws of chemistry, not the laws of logic or reasoning.

That answer is not even wrong.

 

[pitabread]

Honestly, I didn't really understand the scenario he was getting at...receiving a signal without knowing how it's transmitted? That's like saying that you got mail without a mailing address...or a radio signal without an antenna. It would seem that if we aren't aware of the transmission method, we wouldn't likely receive the signal...let alone be able to recognize that it's some kind of message.

SETI is scanning for narrow-band broadcasts similar to radio transmission. So the underlying assumption is that the aliens sending the signal would have invented radio transmission similar to what we have.

The problem is if they opt to send out a signal that isn't a narrow-band signal. SETI likely wouldn't detect it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

According to naturalists the brain is just pure chemistry. We know that the product of chemical reactions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents, therefore your thoughts and conclusions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents in your brain, ie the laws of chemistry, not the laws of logic or reasoning.

I'm gonna level with you...I've never heard anyone, naturalist or otherwise, who says that the brain is "pure chemistry" and that thought processes are the result of chemicals in the brain and nothing more.

If this is something that you've genuinely heard though, just give me a quote or link and I'll gladly address it.

I'll tell you this though, it sounds like a rather significant oversimplification of the brain and it's processes compared to the scientific explanations of the thought process I've read.

 

[Dave Ellis]

I'm gonna level with you...I've never heard anyone, naturalist or otherwise, who says that the brain is "pure chemistry" and that thought processes are the result of chemicals in the brain and nothing more.

If this is something that you've genuinely heard though, just give me a quote or link and I'll gladly address it.

I'll tell you this though, it sounds like a rather significant oversimplification of the brain and it's processes compared to the scientific explanations of the thought process I've read.

Bingo

 

[Ana the Ist]

SETI is scanning for narrow-band broadcasts similar to radio transmission. So the underlying assumption is that the aliens sending the signal would have invented radio transmission similar to what we have.

The problem is if they opt to send out a signal that isn't a narrow-band signal. SETI likely wouldn't detect it.

Lol right...that's what I didn't understand about his scenario. It's as if he imagined that we'd somehow manage to pick up a signal in some form that we don't know or understand. I couldn't even think of a historical example of this happening.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
According to naturalists the brain is just pure chemistry. We know that the product of chemical reactions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents, therefore your thoughts and conclusions are determined by the ratio of the chemical reagents in your brain, ie the laws of chemistry, not the laws of logic or reasoning.

de: That answer is not even wrong.

Thank you, we finally agree on something.

 

[Ed1wolf]

I'm gonna level with you...I've never heard anyone, naturalist or otherwise, who says that the brain is "pure chemistry" and that thought processes are the result of chemicals in the brain and nothing more.

If this is something that you've genuinely heard though, just give me a quote or link and I'll gladly address it.

I'll tell you this though, it sounds like a rather significant oversimplification of the brain and it's processes compared to the scientific explanations of the thought process I've read.

If your brain is made up cells then it is operating by chemistry. So do you believe it is made up of something else? From humanillnesses.com: "The brain communicates with itself by sending out chemical information from one neuron, or nerve cell to another. Brain chemistry is the sum of all the chemical messaging that takes place in the brain, which allows it to carry out its daily functions, such as generating movement, speaking, thinking, listening, regulating the systems of the body, and countless others."

Read more: http://www.humanillnesses.com/Behavioral-Health-A-Br/Brain-Chemistry-Neurochemistry.html#ixzz4phKJ6KqP

 

[Ana the Ist]

If your brain is made up cells then it is operating by chemistry. So do you believe it is made up of something else? From humanillnesses.com: "The brain communicates with itself by sending out chemical information from one neuron, or nerve cell to another. Brain chemistry is the sum of all the chemical messaging that takes place in the brain, which allows it to carry out its daily functions, such as generating movement, speaking, thinking, listening, regulating the systems of the body, and countless others."

Read more: http://www.humanillnesses.com/Behavioral-Health-A-Br/Brain-Chemistry-Neurochemistry.html#ixzz4phKJ6KqP

We weren't talking about the regulation of bodily functions though...we were talking about thought processes, right?

 

[Dave Ellis]

Thank you, we finally agree on something.

I take it you've never heard of the saying... Not even wrong - RationalWiki

 

[Ed1wolf]

We weren't talking about the regulation of bodily functions though...we were talking about thought processes, right?

Right. According to naturalists, thought is a bodily function. You don't consider it a bodily/brain function?

 

[Ed1wolf]

I take it you've never heard of the saying... Not even wrong - RationalWiki

No, but it fits the typical atheist ad hominem. Especially when they are unable to refute something they hear.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Right. According to naturalists, thought is a bodily function. You don't consider it a bodily/brain function?

According to scientists, it's a function of the brain...but most people don't think about taking every breath, or regulating their metabolism, nor listening. We aren't really talking about unconscious acts here...do you see the difference?

 

[Dave Ellis]

No, but it fits the typical atheist ad hominem. Especially when they are unable to refute something they hear.

How is that an ad hominem? It's basically dismissing your argument as complete gibberish, because that's what it is. How in any way does that attack you as a person?

 

[Ed1wolf]

According to scientists, it's a function of the brain...but most people don't think about taking every breath, or regulating their metabolism, nor listening. We aren't really talking about unconscious acts here...do you see the difference?

That is only Naturalist scientists. And they think that both conscious AND unconscious acts are the function of brain cells which are made up of chemicals and as I stated earlier chemicals behave according to the laws of physics, not logic. Now do you understand?