Debating a theist: What am I doing wrong?

[Interesting Ian]

I don't imagine that, which is why absolutely nothing in my argument requires this presupposition. Why are you pretending otherwise?

Your inability to argue with any statement which I have actually made is noted.

I said previously

II
Let's assume that you mean the fundamental metaphysical principle responsible for the orderly nature of the Universe might well be wholly lacking in any consciousness. This is atheism.

So you confirm your atheism by what you said. Thus you said:

Dr A
No. We know of lots of things in nature which create order without consciousness. Hence, order is not prima facie indicative of conscious understanding

Which amounts to you saying that you know "God" (at least the "God" as I define it) doesn't exist.

But of course simply restating that you know my "God" doesn't exist does not in the remotest degree address my argument!

Sheesh. God give me strength!

 

[Dr Adequate]

Which amounts to you saying that you know "God" (at least the "God" as I define it) doesn't exist.

No. This in not what it amounts to. Why can't you argue with what I have actually said? What is the point of this pretence?

 

[hammegk]

I don't get to define what "God" means any more than Interesting Ian does.

Who does?

No. This in not what it amounts to. Why can't you argue with what I have actually said?

What do you think you said? I read your comment same as II did.

What is the point of this pretence?

Demonstrating you don't understand this topic as well as you think you do?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Who does?

It's established by a consensus of users of the language.

What do you think you said?

I think I said that "We know of lots of things in nature which create order without consciousness. Hence, order is not prima facie indicative of conscious understanding."

Which part of that did you confuse with "God doesn't exist"?

I read your comment same as II did.

It's contagious, hey?

How did you read my comment the same as Interesting Ian did, given that it contains no word or concept in common with his reading?

Demonstrating you don't understand this topic as well as you think you do?

When the topic is what I mean, believe me, I'm the world's leading authority.

 

[Z]

Ian, Hammy, I really don't see where you get that from, either.

Certainly, he's talking about any system that creates order without consciousness - and in no way has nullified the possible existence of a God.

Look at crystallization of carbon, for example: what consciousness guides the process of carbon crystallizing into a diamond? None.

Or are you simply pre-insisting that any pattern of order must emerge as a result of conscious will? If that's the case, you are as guilty of pre-assuming God exists as you are claiming that he is concerning God's non-existence.

Perhaps he should have modified his statement to read, "We know of lots of things in nature which create order without consciousness. Hence, order is not prima facie indicative of known examples of conscious understanding." Then you'd be free to make empty assertions like, "The universe is conscious" or "Consciousness is everywhere at all times"...

 

[thaiboxerken]

I'll define god. God is the imaginary being that insane people talk to.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I'll define god. God is the imaginary being that insane people talk to.

Hello, troll.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I think that zaayrdragon might understand what II and hammy think. Maybe not, but if they will not say what they think themselves, can they be offended if someone else should speak for them?

If they think what he thinks they think, then they are easily answered. As follows:


(1) I have cited as an example of a non-concious process which produces order "the action of the sea grading and sorting the pebbles on the beach".

(2) The sea is not intelligent.

(3) Statement (2) does not depend in any way upon some imaginary non-claim which I have not made to the effect that the sea, water, or the laws of hydrodynamics cannot be a consequence of intelligent design.

(4) Duh.


But, II, hammmy, you have not even bothered to sketch out any argument. You have not argued for what zaayrdragon says you think. But you have not argued against my actual statements. You have merely repeatedly lied to me about what I mean when I have said that this is not what I mean.

We are sitting here trying to guess what false statement you might wish to make. COULD YOU NOT JUST HAVE THE COURAGE TO MAKE IT?

 

[Interesting Ian]

These following statements by Dr A are inconsistent.

(1) I have cited as an example of a non-concious process which produces order "the action of the sea grading and sorting the pebbles on the beach".

(2) The sea is not intelligent.

(3) Statement (2) does not depend in any way upon some imaginary non-claim which I have not made to the effect that the sea, water, or the laws of hydrodynamics cannot be a consequence of intelligent design.

(4) Duh.

&

Dr A
No. We know of lots of things in nature which create order without consciousness. Hence, order is not prima facie indicative of conscious understanding

We don't need to talk about the sea sorting out pebbles and yet not being intelligent. Instead we can change it to:

1) An example of a non-conscious process which produces order is the action of my arms and hands in sorting the pebbles on the beach and putting them into pretty patterns.

2) My arms and hands are not conscious.

3) Nevertheless the sorting is a direct consequence of intelligent design.

So I absolutely agree with these set of statements. But they are inconsistent with:

Dr A
No. We know of lots of things in nature which create order without consciousness. Hence, order is not prima facie indicative of conscious understanding.

But of course we know nothing of the sort. We can consider the entirety of physical reality to be in an appropriate sense God's "body". In this case the sea is analogous to my arms and hands, and of course the sea sorting out pebbles would indeed be indicative of conscious understanding.

So let us look at the situation again. There is order created by human agency i.e consciousness directed towards an end. And there is order created by physical laws. But as I've already pointed out, saying the order is created by physical laws is not an explanation of that order since physical laws simply describe reality.

The order then is:

a) simply a brute fact about the world without further explanation. Thus for example the reason why all electrons have precisely the same electric charge is for absolutely no reason at all. It is just a gratuitous brute fact about the Universe that order exists without absolutely any reason whatsoever.

or

b) it is a result of something else. If we're talking about the fundamental physical laws eg the electric charge of an electron, then this cannot be explained by yet further physical laws. Thus it is for some reason going beyond explanation in terms of physical laws -- thus it is for some metaphysical reason.

This metaphysical reason can be non-conscious or conscious. But as I have already argued, saying this metaphysical reason is non-conscious takes us into an infinite regress. Saying it is consciousness however certainly doesn't since conscious intent, coupled with the power to act, fulfils a complete explanation.

So we have 2 types of order in the world. One of which we know is brought about by causal agency, the other (all the physical laws creating order) we have no idea how it is brought about. But we know it can only either be by some sort of consciousness with the power to act, or the order is simply a brute fact about the world.

But given that we know that one type of order is brought about by conscious agency, then by induction it might seem reasonable to suppose that the other type of order is brought about by conscious agency too. The alternative is to suppose that all the "natural" order in the Universe has no reason whatsoever.

So I have not proved that an appropriate "God" exists (interpreted as a universal consciousness where physical laws describe its behaviour). Nevertheless I have certainly provided a reason to suppose why such a "God" might exist. Nothing you have said addresses my argument in the remotest.

 

[stamenflicker]

With this he conflates the idea that this invisible inexplicable cause should be God. Why not call it "X" until we have verified that it has a personality, is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and all the other qualities we ascribe to God?

Some of us do call God, X. And some Christians interpret that God in fact calls Himself X.

Take intelligence, for example. We know of a zillion different processes that create order.

This assumes that the Christian believes order was the end. Most theists would see order as the means.

One of these is intelligent human activity, but it is only one. Is there, then, any reason besides dogma or vanity to suppose that the "X" responsible for the order of the universe resembles a human? Instead of a metaphysical object which resembles a human engineer, why not a metaphysical object which resembles the action of the sea grading and sorting the pebbles on the beach?

Why not both? Why not all of them?

As to why there are "laws of phsyics", there is a partial answer to that within physics, and that is that there are only so many different kinds of things.

And the most convincing reason to me is the anthropic principle.

Do we need a God, or a factor "X", then, to explain why there aren't infinitely many kinds of things? To put it another way, do we have to postulate an extra kind of thing in order to explain why there aren't more kinds of things?

If only it were that simple. Consider the three umpire analogy:

Umpire #1: "There's balls and there's strikes, and I call them like they is."

Umpire #2: "There's balls and there's strikes, and I call them like I see them."

Umpire #3: "There's balls and there's strikes, and they aint nothin' till I call them."

The problem is that all of these umpires are right, and that if you put them in the same room, they're probably going to fight a little bit. Complicate the argument by substituting:

Umpire #1: "There's GOOD and there's EVIL, and I call them like they is."

Umpire #2: "There's GOOD and there's EVIL, and I call them like I see them."

Umpire #3: "There's GOOD and there's EVIL, and they aint nothin' till I call them."

OR

Umpire #1: "There's ORDER and there's DISORDER, and I call them like they is."

Umpire #2: "There's ORDER and there's DISORDER, and I call them like I see them."

Umpire #3: "There's ORDER and there's DISORDER, and they aint nothin' till I call them."

So back to

To put it another way, do we have to postulate an extra kind of thing in order to explain why there aren't more kinds of things?

Everyone is postulating. And the more we try to subject God to Umpire #1 's postulating of balls and strikes, the more ridiculous the theistic arguments get. Until you get the category of something like "good" into the same category as something like "hydrogen" then the fight will always rage on.

 

[hammegk]

Too bad that's not the topic Dr adequate is prepared to discuss; he prefers to keep discussing things he believes he understands.

 

[rocketdodger]

What?? If you're saying the probability is one that the world has the order that it has, then the answer is quite obviously no. How can it possibly be one?

But it is one, because it does have the order that it has. I think you might be getting the question confused. If you asked, "given all possible universes, what is the probability that a randomly choosen universe would be ours," then that answer is of course some infinitessimal. But if you ask "what is the probability that our universe is our universe?" then the answer HAS to be one, because we live in our universe.

The probability of any event jumps to one if that event occurs. This doesn't mean the probability of it occuring before it occured was one, or the probability of it occuring again, just the probability that it occured.

Yes of course it is! Why on earth shouldn't it be?


I have no idea why you think that consciousness couldn't exist in a wholly lawless, completely unpredictable, random Universe.

I don't think it couldn't exist, I just wanted to know if you thought it could. In my opinion we can't conceive of such a universe because even the abstract realm exhibits some level of order. You can try to imagine a system that lacks any order, but even doing that attributes the order of "lacking order" to it -- in other words I think it is impossible for us to imagine such a place.

It seems to me that if there is no order at all, then our definition of consciousness sort of doesn't apply. And I don't mean in the way like our consciousness would be a subset of some higher consciousness, I mean in the way like the two would be completely disjoint, but in that case how can we use the same term? Furthermore if we can't imagine such a place then surely we couldn't think of a consciousness existing there.

 

[rocketdodger]

This metaphysical reason can be non-conscious or conscious. But as I have already argued, saying this metaphysical reason is non-conscious takes us into an infinite regress. Saying it is consciousness however certainly doesn't since conscious intent, coupled with the power to act, fulfils a complete explanation.

I don't understand why consciousness and the power to act is a complete explanation -- where did those two states come from? There seems to be the same infinite regress here...

But given that we know that one type of order is brought about by conscious agency, then by induction it might seem reasonable to suppose that the other type of order is brought about by conscious agency too. The alternative is to suppose that all the "natural" order in the Universe has no reason whatsoever.

This does not hold because the myriad of cases used for the inductive proof are all contingent upon an ordered universe already in place for us to exist in -- there would be no conscious agency ("humans") to bring about order if the universe wasn't ordered in the first place.

This is why I consider my question regarding consciousness outside of an ordered system so important -- we can't make any progress until it is something that makes sense.

 

[Interesting Ian]

But it is one, because it does have the order that it has. I think you might be getting the question confused. If you asked, "given all possible universes, what is the probability that a randomly choosen universe would be ours," then that answer is of course some infinitessimal. But if you ask "what is the probability that our universe is our universe?" then the answer HAS to be one, because we live in our universe.

The probability of any event jumps to one if that event occurs. This doesn't mean the probability of it occuring before it occured was one, or the probability of it occuring again, just the probability that it occured.

Asking about the probability of something which has already occurred is clearly unity unless you believe in being able to change the past. However, what this has to do with anything whatsoever is quite beyond me. We're purely interested in what the probability is prior to finding ourselves here. If that probability is extremely low, but nevertheless we find ourselves in such a low probability Universe, then we know that something has gone wrong with our reasoning.

BTW you're simply repeating the same error everyone else on this board was making when I was discussing the probability of myself being born. In practical terms it cannot be an incredibly small chance before my birth that I should be born, and yet for me to be born. I'm absolutely astounded that people on here cannot understand the most elementary things imaginable.

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian :
Yes of course it is! Why on earth shouldn't it be?


I have no idea why you think that consciousness couldn't exist in a wholly lawless, completely unpredictable, random Universe.

rocketdodger
I don't think it couldn't exist, I just wanted to know if you thought it could. In my opinion we can't conceive of such a universe because even the abstract realm exhibits some level of order. You can try to imagine a system that lacks any order, but even doing that attributes the order of "lacking order" to it -- in other words I think it is impossible for us to imagine such a place.

I can do so perfectly easily. Just imagine experinece qualia which exhibits no patterns.

rocketdodger
It seems to me that if there is no order at all, then our definition of consciousness sort of doesn't apply.

What definition? Consciousness is impossible to define.

 

[rocketdodger]

However, what this has to do with anything whatsoever is quite beyond me. We're purely interested in what the probability is prior to finding ourselves here. If that probability is extremely low, but nevertheless we find ourselves in such a low probability Universe, then we know that something has gone wrong with our reasoning.

I think this has everything to do with what we are talking about. If the probability was extremely low, but nevertheless we are here, then we can simply say thats the way the dice rolled. A being in some other universe could look at us and say "holy cow, they got really lucky to even be existing" but from our point of view there is no luck -- we already exist.

I stand by my claim that the probability of our universe existing is unity, and therefore theological arguments based on that probability hold no water. If we had the data on all other universes, and on all other possible universes, then maybe the argument would be stronger, but we don't.

I can do so perfectly easily. Just imagine experinece qualia which exhibits no patterns.

You can't imagine such a thing, because the attribute of "no patterns" is a pattern.

What definition? Consciousness is impossible to define.

You mean define completely. Certainly we can define it in part. "what I am," for instance. My claim is that what we think of as consciousness could not exist in an unordered system.

 

[nescafe]

But of course we know nothing of the sort. We can consider the entirety of physical reality to be in an appropriate sense God's "body". In this case the sea is analogous to my arms and hands, and of course the sea sorting out pebbles would indeed be indicative of conscious understanding.

Well, I would classify your reformulation of Dr Adequate's argument as pure philosophical wankery. Does it make any difference whatsoever if:

• you consider the laws of physics as we know them as "brute facts", or
• that some metaphysic (which may or may not involve consciousness) which is responsible for the apparent regularity of the laws of physics, or
• there is some sort of regress (infinite or not) of the last point?

So let us look at the situation again. There is order created by human agency i.e consciousness directed towards an end. And there is order created by physical laws. But as I've already pointed out, saying the order is created by physical laws is not an explanation of that order since physical laws simply describe reality.

The order then is:

a) simply a brute fact about the world without further explanation. Thus for example the reason why all electrons have precisely the same electric charge is for absolutely no reason at all. It is just a gratuitous brute fact about the Universe that order exists without absolutely any reason whatsoever.

or

b) it is a result of something else. If we're talking about the fundamental physical laws eg the electric charge of an electron, then this cannot be explained by yet further physical laws. Thus it is for some reason going beyond explanation in terms of physical laws -- thus it is for some metaphysical reason.

And how is adding a metaphysical layer of explanation behind the physical law not a needless multiplication of entities?

This metaphysical reason can be non-conscious or conscious. But as I have already argued, saying this metaphysical reason is non-conscious takes us into an infinite regress. Saying it is consciousness however certainly doesn't since conscious intent, coupled with the power to act, fulfils a complete explanation.

A completly redundant explanation, in my arrogant opinion.

So we have 2 types of order in the world. One of which we know is brought about by causal agency, the other (all the physical laws creating order) we have no idea how it is brought about. But we know it can only either be by some sort of consciousness with the power to act, or the order is simply a brute fact about the world.

But given that we know that one type of order is brought about by conscious agency, then by induction it might seem reasonable to suppose that the other type of order is brought about by conscious agency too. The alternative is to suppose that all the "natural" order in the Universe has no reason whatsoever.

So I have not proved that an appropriate "God" exists (interpreted as a universal consciousness where physical laws describe its behaviour). Nevertheless I have certainly provided a reason to suppose why such a "God" might exist. Nothing you have said addresses my argument in the remotest.

Well, from the viewpoint of this philosophical materialist, your order "brought about by causal agency" is an extension of your order brought about by physical law. I think that as chordates whose brains have been shaped by hundreds of millions of years of evolution to find patterns in what we sense we will keep on making explainations for the patterns and regularities we see, and that occasionally those explanations will actually be useful.

(edited for speling)

 

[thaiboxerken]

Hello, troll.

I'm hardly a troll. It looks like I'm the only one that has defined what a god is. No one else has even tried in this thread, right?

 

[rocketdodger]

I'm hardly a troll. It looks like I'm the only one that has defined what a god is. No one else has even tried in this thread, right?

This thread isn't really about that (anymore). What we are discussing now is whether or not the entity known as "that which we cannot know" might have a consciousness or not.

But I urge you to argue with Dr. Adequate anyway. You are like the ultimate disproportionate retaliation utility.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Discussing the traits of undefined imaginary beings is silly.

 

[rocketdodger]

Discussing the traits of undefined imaginary beings is silly.

I agree, but a mind once stretched ...