Information Theory Refutation of God

[hedrick]

Just for fun, let me give you my proof for the existence of God.

We know that intelligence evolved in 14 B years.

Let's consider the state of cosmology. As I noted above, I seriously doubt that one universe popping into existence 14 B years ago is all. Maybe there's a sequence of them. The model I like is eternal inflation. But it's at least possible, and in fact I think likely, that there's some framework that's eternal.

So let's consider an eternal framework that's complex enough that universes come into existence out of it. I would think intelligence could well develop in it too. Furthermore, if it would take a finite amount of time for intelligence to evolve, no matter how long that finite time, then by the weird properties of infinity, it's always been there. Eternal intelligence existing in a framework out of which universes arise sounds a lot like God, q.e.d.

 

[Zatek]

Thinkenstein believes God can't be the origin of the Universe since nothing physical existed before the origin of the Universe, so how could God have thoughts, without a physical substrate upon which to have them?

"The only logical explanation" is a higher power?
You could say so, but 'logical', not so much.

Information is not physical. Information inside the physical universe is represented\stored by physical matter/energy, but that doesn't prove that information cant exist outside the universe. If you're going to claim things can't exist if they aren't physical, or have physical representation, then why even bother with talking about information at all?

The medium in which we exist is physical, so of course information is represented physically. Whatever medium in which things outside the universe exist would be the same medium in which that information could be represented outside the universe. Of course I can't prove anything outside the universe exists, however there is no known method for creating information inside the universe other than by intelligent life, and no intelligent life has been found that exists without information, so therefore the origin of life giving information must be outside the universe. Until you can find and observe intelligent life that does not require information, or find and observe a method that information can be created without intelligent life, you cannot scientifically object to the conclusion that something outside the universe exists and created the first life giving information in the universe.

"evidenceless faith" right, Religious Faith, by definition, can't have evidence!
See other thread.
"Nature and nurture" components of religious faith

Definition of faith
plural
faiths
loyalty lost faith in the company's presidentb (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions acted in good faith

• 2a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religionb (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return (2) : complete trust

• 3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs the Protestant faith

I'm not sure what dictionary you are using, but I just went to dictionary.com and the very first definition of the word is "confidence or trust in a person or thing" which is exactly how I used the word and encompasses the vast majority of uses in the Bible. You can trust in something or someone based on evidence, or sometimes people trust in someone or something without any evidence and just because they wish it to be so.

I agree that often times many Christians exercise evidenceless faith, and are rightfully criticized for it. For example, sometimes a Christian might say they have faith God will heal them, but the problem with that unless God appeared to you in a dream and said he was going to heal you, then God never made any promise to heal your and your faith is without and evidence. God can heal people, and sometimes he does heal people, but Christianity isn't about being healed physically and to expect God to heal you just because you want him and even though he never said he would, isn't real faith. My point was that you're guilty of the exact same kind of evidenceless faith if you're going around arguing that life doesn't have a creator when all known life requires information to exist, and all known information requires life to exist, and you have no evidence or examples to the contrary.

 

[CaDan]

For all practical purposes, the solid state of matter is the only state of matter that meets the prerequisites for memory. It can hold a pattern that stores information, and it does not travel away from the user. Some examples of memory storage vehicles would be a book, a brain, a computer CD, or DNA that encodes genetic information. All of these use the solid state of matter.

Well, no. Delay line memory isn't used much anymore, but it was around for quite a while.

Overall, anything that claims to be about "information theory" but doesn't mention Shannon or Turing is not about "information theory". Instead, it's sort of a cargo cult invocation of a cool term to freshen up some general ramblings.