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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

Skeptic Ginger said:
It depends on your definition of "natural". To say things I might build are unnatural while the shelter a beaver constructs is natural is an arbitrary distinction. But the point is moot because it in no way supports your argument anyway. AI if/when developed by humans will not have developed de novo.
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Yes it does depend on one's definition of natural. I see humanity as a natural phenomena and everything created by humanity as natural phenomena.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Then you should be able to logically address the rationale for considering gods might exist when there is overwhelming evidence humans invented god fiction and there is no evidence to the contrary.
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I see no necessity to involve human mythology in this discussion, as I have clearly stated that I am considering gods which may exist independently to humans.

I define god as an intelligent creator.
 
punshhh said:
I define god as an intelligent creator.
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Go on. It is certainly not the kind of intelligence that 'we' possess and that you could point to to make your definition. So, I am afraid you need to be a leeeeeettle bit more explicit. Same wrt 'creativity'.
 
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Daald said:
The quote below:



What I read into that sounded something akin to: We create stuff, so it would make sense if we were also created by something like us.
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I would suggest a slightly different view.
"We create stuff, so it would make sense if we were also created by something which creates stuff".

I am isolating the creation of stuff from what humanity is aware of, that it creates and viewing creation as a universal principle.

My evidence for this principle is the keyboard.

You call that something before us a "god". Now I assumed you stopped there. If so my criticism up there stands since my argument is basically "so what then created your god?".

If you meant an intelligent alien which was in turn created somehow, then you only added a unneeded variable since we now need to find out how that being was created. (Hopefully you don't mean turtles all the way down here)

If you say that god was always there then it has the undesired effect of existing without being created breaking your cycle of creation. If you allow this then you have to allow for non-intelligent rules to simply exist as well.
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Yes, I am familiar with these lines of thought. My position is similar to the intelligent alien scenario combined with the god that was always there, through a treatment of infinite* regression.


* where I write infinite*, I am describing an infinity which is finite while being infinitely* similar/close/approximate to a true infinity, but not actually infinite.


I use a concept in which I approach infinity through an infinite* reflection.
I visualise this as a mirror (or 2 planes), what you see in the mirror is infinitely analogous to a true infinity.

As such an intelligent alien is a god that always was there and visa versa.


Unfortunately I can not. My answer is simply this. I do not know. What we can't do though is place something in front of that knowledge boundary. That is basically god of the gaps.
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Yes, I don't know is the most appropriate answer.

My point in discussion with Piggy is that humanity cannot claim there is no God/god. Simply because there is a gap and humanity cannot decide what is in the gap, how large the gap is or how blind humanity is to the actually scenario.
 
punshhh said:
Yes, I don't know is the most appropriate answer.

My point in discussion with Piggy is that humanity cannot claim there is no God/god. Simply because there is a gap and humanity cannot decide what is in the gap, how large the gap is or how blind humanity is to the actually scenario.
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"I don't know" and "It is not X" are not mutually exclusive claims. I may not know what exactly is in a given small box, but still know that it is not an elephant for example.
 
Lord Emsworth said:
Go on. It is certainly not the kind of intelligence that 'we' possess and that you could point to to make your definition. So, I am afraid you need to be a leeeeeettle bit more explicit. Same wrt 'creativity'.
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Yes, I don't want to fall into the trap of infinitely regressing definitions;)

By intelligent I am referring to an entity which performs an action in a more complex way than two chemicals would in a chemical reaction. Indeed a complexity not seem anywhere else in its local environment.

By creativity I am thinking of the bringing into physical form a structure which would not normally occur in the local environment.
 
punshhh said:
Yes, I don't want to fall into the trap of infinitely regressing definitions;)

By intelligent I am referring to an entity which performs an action in a more complex way than two chemicals would in a chemical reaction. Indeed a complexity not seem anywhere else in its local environment.
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How do you add complexity to actions? That makes no sense.

Sure you could call some event more complex than another event if you went by how many 'ingredients' are needed. But in that case it would suffice to take three chemicals and their (re-)actions in order to best the "complex way" of two chemicals.

Next up identity. Just a matter of how closely you look at things. IOW, three chemicals that (re-)act unlike any other combination of three chemicals.

Et voilà, three chemicals make intelligence. After all, there is a more complex way than two chemicals, plus it is of a kind not seen anywhere else. No, that does just not seem right.

punshhh said:
By creativity I am thinking of the bringing into physical form a structure which would not normally occur in the local environment.
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"Not normally". Again identity.
 
punshhh said:
I would suggest a slightly different view.
"We create stuff, so it would make sense if we were also created by something which creates stuff".

I am isolating the creation of stuff from what humanity is aware of, that it creates and viewing creation as a universal principle.

My evidence for this principle is the keyboard.

Yes, I am familiar with these lines of thought. My position is similar to the intelligent alien scenario combined with the god that was always there, through a treatment of infinite* regression.


* where I write infinite*, I am describing an infinity which is finite while being infinitely* similar/close/approximate to a true infinity, but not actually infinite.


I use a concept in which I approach infinity through an infinite* reflection.
I visualise this as a mirror (or 2 planes), what you see in the mirror is infinitely analogous to a true infinity.

As such an intelligent alien is a god that always was there and visa versa.


Yes, I don't know is the most appropriate answer.

My point in discussion with Piggy is that humanity cannot claim there is no God/god. Simply because there is a gap and humanity cannot decide what is in the gap, how large the gap is or how blind humanity is to the actually scenario.
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An imaginary gap for an imaginary god, I guess it makes some sort of sense.
 
punshhh said:
I see no necessity to involve human mythology in this discussion, as I have clearly stated that I am considering gods which may exist independently to humans.

I define god as an intelligent creator.
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If you can look at mankind and think there was any intelligence behind it then you do have the faith that can move mountains.
 
punshhh said:
Yes, I don't want to fall into the trap of infinitely regressing definitions;)

By intelligent I am referring to an entity which performs an action in a more complex way than two chemicals would in a chemical reaction. Indeed a complexity not seem anywhere else in its local environment.

By creativity I am thinking of the bringing into physical form a structure which would not normally occur in the local environment.
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So we're talking miracles after all. When all the talk and the shuck and jive are done you're left with godidit.
 
punshhh said:
I would suggest a slightly different view.
"We create stuff, so it would make sense if we were also created by something which creates stuff".

I am isolating the creation of stuff from what humanity is aware of, that it creates and viewing creation as a universal principle.

My evidence for this principle is the keyboard.
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So by that definition, whatever creates us needs to be more complex than us (I am more complicated than a keyboard). If you regress that thought you need more and more complex creators all the way back and you run into the irreducible complexity problem.

Yes, I am familiar with these lines of thought. My position is similar to the intelligent alien scenario combined with the god that was always there, through a treatment of infinite* regression.


* where I write infinite*, I am describing an infinity which is finite while being infinitely* similar/close/approximate to a true infinity, but not actually infinite.


I use a concept in which I approach infinity through an infinite* reflection.
I visualise this as a mirror (or 2 planes), what you see in the mirror is infinitely analogous to a true infinity.

As such an intelligent alien is a god that always was there and visa versa.
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There is a problem with the god that was always there. The first problem is that because of the complexity required you are positing a more improbable god and then willing it into existence. From our observation that god would have to be very very simple (to sidestep irreducible complexity), something that could not even be called a god by any human definition. It would simply be a set of laws that operates on some matter.

The other problem is that you redefine what it means to be infinite. The difference between finite and infinite is infinite :) You can't approach infinity and be finite. There is an infinity of difference. That concept is self contradictory.

Still another issue is that the mirror analogy creates a sort of wheel of time in which we sort of become the god of the past. The wheel has the same sort of problems with regression and the finite limit to infinity does not solve that.

Yes, I don't know is the most appropriate answer.

My point in discussion with Piggy is that humanity cannot claim there is no God/god. Simply because there is a gap and humanity cannot decide what is in the gap, how large the gap is or how blind humanity is to the actually scenario.
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While I would agree with you that we can't make the positive claim of there is no god, it would only be out of scientific honesty (intellectual fig leaf as piggy puts it) of not being able to prove a negative. For all practical purposes I would be comfortable in claiming that there is no god. The concept of god has no use in the world we live in and it doesn't seem to add any explanatory power. When invoked, it provides unfalsifiable claims that add nothing and hinder progress. We are better off pushing our boundaries of knowledge with the assumption that there is no god. If at the end we run into god, then we would all then be believers in that god since we would be dissecting it by that point :)


Edit:

Also if I may suggest a website:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Arguments_for_the_existence_of_god

They have a lot of the arguments and counters to them. It might be worth a look if only to see if you are making an argument someone else has made and what problems have been identified with it.

For example one look into it and I realized a point that I should have been making. Manipulating is not creating. We do no create keyboards. We manipulate existing matter to arrange it into a keyboard. I don't poof a keyboard into existence.

They are better addressed here anyway: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Argument_from_design
 
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punshhh said:
* where I write infinite*, I am describing an infinity which is finite while being infinitely* similar/close/approximate to a true infinity, but not actually infinite.
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In other words, where you write infinite, you mean finite. Got it. :boggled:
 
punshhh said:
My point in discussion with Piggy is that humanity cannot claim there is no God/god. Simply because there is a gap and humanity cannot decide what is in the gap, how large the gap is or how blind humanity is to the actually scenario.
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A. What gap are you talking about?

B. Why do you simply ignore all the arguments I make?
 
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