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Philosophical arguments against the existence of God
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Colter
Member
Material mind is to consciousness and spirit perception what a cell phone is to the downlink of cell signals. Our growing soul can be likened to the data backup in the iCloud, upon the resurrection of our lives on the mansion world this data backup and personality will be downloaded in the new form provided for us. Sort of like when we get an upgrade phone. The old material phone is left behind but all our stuff is still there, videos, pictures, contacts etc......but we do have some new apps. In my theology this process continues as we grow inward through experience towards a rondavue with the cell phone maker.
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Breckmin
Junior Member
Information, programming, code, micro factories, machines, these are not just merely complex structures as though we can generalize them away. They always come from Intelligence and we make inferences to intelligence based on the identification of such features.
Intelligent design can become a hasty generalization without understanding the specific features which we know come from Intelligence.
"Biological complexity" can also become a useless generalization. We are not just pointing to complexity...we are pointing to features which based on our repeated uniform experience always come from Intelligence.
Not just complexity...but specific programming (IF-THEN algorithmic programming in some gene regulation) specific code... specific information...specific micro factories which are involved in production, etc.
No.
Depends on what the Designer is. IF the Designer was infinite then it would take forever to design an infinite Creator. This is Richard Dawkins basic ignorance regarding theism. If the Intelligence is infinite, then the Intelligence could not have ever been created.
Question everything!
Always.
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Colter
Member
No, a cave is not a mind with volition. A cave does not conceive of and create anything. But in a created universe the cave is a consequence of creative mind. You are saying that just because the mind of man may first conceive of and then create artificial intelligence that doesn't mean that the mind of man was created.
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That's false. Things with high information content can come from non-intelligent processes. Look at the timing of the decay of individual radioactive atoms for an example of such a process.
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The Cadet
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Please demonstrate that this is the case.
As pointed out previously, you, like most Creationists, do not seem to have a very good understanding of information - if you think it is an actual thing, rather than an abstract mathematical construct we impose onto things, you're failed right out of the gates. I wrote a rather long post on this a while back; I strongly recommend you read it. Let me just quote the most relevant bits:
Exactly. This is really important to understand. When we talk about a gene in terms of its "information", we're generally not talking about the molecules involved. The "gene" is not referred to as an object of chemistry, and a genotype or a gene pool almost cannot be boiled down to an object of chemistry. We're talking about mathematical abstractions that take the intricate interactions involved and abstracts it down to a far more basic issue of "what does this sequence of molecules do". That's a significant misunderstanding some people have. Some people, including many of our resident creationists, don't seem to understand this. They mistake the object of the information (the molecules themselves) for the information (which is an abstraction we read into the molecules!) and see a kind of purpose there that simply is not present.
[...]
What's important to recognize with regards to this quote is that we necessarily read information into things. Any semi-random physical manifestation can be considered to have evidence. From Shannon's 1948 paper that essentially defined the field of information theory: (page 5)
So in other words, we could read out a code of atom type and location in a particular rock, and that code would tell us what atoms to put where to make that rock. We could read out a code of where on a line raindrops fall during a storm. We could read out a code of photons hitting the earth's surface. This information is, of course, predicated on the existence of the physical mechanism it is read from (although we can just as easily make an abstract pseudorandom model that gives us similar codes).
[...]
And here's the big flaw, which I'm tempted to call "Informational Platonism". For those unclear on the terminology, Platonism is the concept that numbers actually exist in some "third realm". That they aren't merely logical constructs, but that they are real things that we appeal to. It's a metaphysically extravagant concept that set theory makes completely unnecessary. Mathematics is an abstract construct. Information, as used by scientists is part of mathematics. Saying that "information came into existence" is like saying "2 came into existence". It doesn't make much sense. It's an abstract construct that is defined. It doesn't actually exist in any meaningful sense.
I agree that information can only come from a mind, but by that definition of information, DNA doesn't contain information. Similarly, there's a definition of "code" based on the definition of information by which codes can only come from minds... But by that definition, DNA does not contain a code, either. [...]
What's important to recognize with regards to this quote is that we necessarily read information into things. Any semi-random physical manifestation can be considered to have evidence. From Shannon's 1948 paper that essentially defined the field of information theory: (page 5)
A physical system, or a mathematical model of a system which produces such a sequence of symbols governed by a set of probabilities, is known as a stochastic process. We may consider a discrete source, therefore, to be represented by a stochastic process. Conversely, any stochastic process which produces a discrete sequence of symbols chosen from a finite set may be considered a discrete source.
So in other words, we could read out a code of atom type and location in a particular rock, and that code would tell us what atoms to put where to make that rock. We could read out a code of where on a line raindrops fall during a storm. We could read out a code of photons hitting the earth's surface. This information is, of course, predicated on the existence of the physical mechanism it is read from (although we can just as easily make an abstract pseudorandom model that gives us similar codes).
[...]
And here's the big flaw, which I'm tempted to call "Informational Platonism". For those unclear on the terminology, Platonism is the concept that numbers actually exist in some "third realm". That they aren't merely logical constructs, but that they are real things that we appeal to. It's a metaphysically extravagant concept that set theory makes completely unnecessary. Mathematics is an abstract construct. Information, as used by scientists is part of mathematics. Saying that "information came into existence" is like saying "2 came into existence". It doesn't make much sense. It's an abstract construct that is defined. It doesn't actually exist in any meaningful sense.
The other two objects you cite actually aren't mere abstractions, but again, how do you demonstrate that they aren't produced by natural causes? By saying "they always come from intelligence", you're assuming your conclusion from the outset. You can't just say, "We know every object in set X has property Y except for this object (which we cannot evaluate), therefore this object must also have property Y". That's a fallacy of generalization. Particularly given that most kinds of "mini factories" and "machines" as you define them are natural! You're trying to generalize from one tiny set of objects to a much, much larger set of objects that may or may not be in any way related. And that's fallacious.
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Archaeopteryx
Wanderer
Ummm... you do understand that this analogy serves the point I'm making? Data backed up onto iCloud exists on a server.Material mind is to consciousness and spirit perception what a cell phone is to the downlink of cell signals. Our growing soul can be likened to the data backup in the iCloud, upon the resurrection of our lives on the mansion world this data backup and personality will be downloaded in the new form provided for us. Sort of like when we get an upgrade phone. The old material phone is left behind but all our stuff is still there, videos, pictures, contacts etc......but we do have some new apps. In my theology this process continues as we grow inward through experience towards a rondavue with the cell phone maker.
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Colter
Member
Yes, I do, for us the server is the evolving, immortal soul in man. That's what survives death of the material body. Upon death the soul becomes the possession of the indwelling Thought Adjuster, the impersonal fragment of the Father.
Technically speaking the material body of Jesus was dead, gone, returned to the elements. It was the new form that man will be effectively downloaded into on the mansion worlds that the apostles saw.
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Archaeopteryx
Wanderer
Thought Adjuster? Is that like the Cosmic Chiropractor for people who do their thinking with their spine?
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