Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[cladking]

Except when dreaming, it goes where the light goes when we switch it off.

It expands according to the inverse square law. I used to get ready for bed and jump in before it got dark.

Your definition of "consciousness" probably has no utility in the real world.

 

[wellwisher]

Not all science is fully rational. Statistical science works in a black box, which adds and allows subjectivity; margin of error.

Schrödinger's Cat, as a thought experiment, states that if you seal a cat in a box with something that can eventually kill it, you won't know if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box. So, until you open the box and observe the cat, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive.

The black box of statistics is a closed box with a Schrödinger's Cat theory inside. As long as we do not open the box the theory is both alive and dead. Since in statistical models we cannot open the box, we cannot confirm if the theory is dead or alive but rather we still have hope and the benefit of doubt it is alive. If all science had to be rational and could not use the black box, that subjective hope and benefit of doubt of Schrödinger's Cat would not be allowed.

If I ran a single experience that contradicted Einstein's theory of relativity, the theory would need to be revise and changed. But with statistical models half the data can miss the curve, but the theory gets to remain; black box and Schrödinger's Cat. Why is that called science and not science lite? I like rational science but fail to see why black box Schrödinger's Cat science is not called science lite.

Say we placed God in a sealed black box. We cannot open the box to see so forget about visual proof. Instead we will do statistical studies only on effects outside the box, that one may attribute to the theory of God. Would Schrödinger's Cat now apply if there was even one miracle; outside data connected to the Schrödinger's Cat (God) inside the box we cannot open?

The faithful apply a type of black box approach that uses effects attributed to God with a closed box. They do have open the box and have a direct conversation with God. This is a form of casino science. Atheism will apply rational science standards to God; open the black box, but use black box science for climate change. Let us use one standard for both. You can pick.

Politics also use statistical models and we all know how politics can divide a country in half; Schrödinger's Cat; dead or alive with hope and the benefit of doubt both ways.

I have a good analogy for casino science or science lite. Statistical science approaches reality like a child does using a computer, remaining at the GUT; graphic user (tech) interface; mouse, keyboard, monitor, speaker, etc. One does not need to know how the hardware and software inside work to do all types of things with the computer at the level of GUT. One can treat the inside of the computer like a black box. If you open the computer to see, you void the warranty. It has to stay shut or your parent will take away the computer.

What is inside is all based on logic; software logic and hardware logic, yet what you can do on the surface may appears to have endless variety that you learn to do through trial and error or via the experiences of others. Even surfing the web, hyperlinks allow you to go in endless directions. It seems so overwhelming and random. This is more empirical.

Computer games from the POV of the GUT may seem spontaneous and whimsical, like life, and could be modeled with Casio math, but behind this, in the black box, it is based on computer software logic that is rational; do loops. Staying at the GUT of reality; empirical science lite, can create irrational Schrödinger's Cat theory. The random universe of GUT, could be dead or alive, since it seems alive at the GUT interface.

We should adopted two standards of science; rational, and science lite; black box and Schrödinger's Cat theory. Evolution is science lite until we can open the black box and not need Schrödinger's Cat to give us hope. A rational person can see this.

 

[cladking]

Except when dreaming, it goes where the light goes when we switch it off.

It expands according to the inverse square law. I used to get ready for bed and jump in before it got dark.

Your definition of "consciousness" probably has no utility in the real world.

Not all of us. I think you overgeneralize too much. I'm wary of your sentences that contain the word we.

So if you were alive in Nazi Germany and assigned to a concentration camp you would be the only conscientious objector? You alone would see it as murder and stand against it.

We are all the same and we all can operate in many different modes. A soldier must think differently than a social worker or a baker and history has shown virtually anybody can be turned into a soldier or a monster. They can be turned into Pepsi chugging automatons or even Stepford wives.

How about a little more on disambiguating words? Are you aware of a difference between continual and continuous? Continuous means never stopping, whereas continual means occurring intermittently and repeatedly. If it rains every evening for a month, that was a continual rain. If during that month, it rains nonstop for several of those day, that's continuous rain.

The second definition of "continual" is the same as the first definition of "continuous". As I said there is a oneness to language that doesn't exist in reality. All words mean the same thing and must be parsed. It is context and intent that provide formatting for this parsing.

Every single definition of every single word is legitimate. Ancient language had a fixed concrete meaning for every word and language acquisition was to approximate this meaning as closely as possible as a model.

People think they are communicating much more than they actually do. Every 9individual takes a different meaning from every utterance which is why I keep saying there are 8 billion mutually unintelligible languages today where there was a single language everyone understood before the "tower of babel".

 

[Ostronomos]

You've paraphrased me inaccurately. Consciousness is not a brain. It is the result of brain activity. It the aware, wakeful state of some animals. My words were, 'a wakeful state that confers awareness of one's surroundings and possibly of oneself."

Consciousness is much more than mere brain activity. You are fallaciously reducing it to materialism. As I have said before it is consciousness that is reality and the material world the illusion. Quantum theory freely allows this. Consciousness can literally expand beyond the brain into the surrounding environment. This is the result of the non-separation that higher dimensional Physics allows.

Your conviction is based on a false understanding of consciousness that is slowly being rendered obsolete.

A holistic definition of consciousness would make it equivalent to reality, since it is the very creator of reality itself. Whenever we observe something, we are creating reality. Hence the term "creative consciousness".

 

[ratiocinator]

Been away for a while (real life and all that) so catching up.

You are making the absurd claim that an archer hitting the center of a bull's eye wouldn't be evidence for intent.......(Because he could have done anything, ether intentionally hitting or missing the spot)

In the case of the universe, there is no hitting something that's an obvious target. The universe is what it is. Zero evidence of intent.

First admit that your claim is nonsense.....and the we can move to an other topic

This is just childish.

 

[ratiocinator]

All I am sayings that the argument “the archer with intent could have done anything” is not a good argument against intent ……….you can still conclude “intent” even if he “could have done anything”…………………as you can see I am not making any rare nor controversial statement……….I am simply saying something that is obviously true

My argument is actually that we can't infer intent from the result alone. If we know nothing of an archer or a target, or somebody picking balls from a bowl, then we can't infer intent from where some arrow lands or the resulting pile of balls.

This is really simple.

 

[ratiocinator]

Consciousness is much more than mere brain activity. You are fallaciously reducing it to materialism. As I have said before it is consciousness that is reality and the material world the illusion. Quantum theory freely allows this. Consciousness can literally expand beyond the brain into the surrounding environment. This is the result of the non-separation that higher dimensional Physics allows.

Scientifically illiterate and full of baseless assumptions/assertions.

No currently accepted scientific theory supports any of this.

 

[PureX]

In the case of the universe, there is no hitting something that's an obvious target. The universe is what it is. Zero evidence of intent.

The fact that the universe exists at all when non-existence would be the overwhelmingly logically unintended expectation, and the fact that to exist as it does requires great complexity and maintained equilibrium are both very strong indications of some form of intent. Simply because the odds of this happening "by accident" are virtually nil.

 

[ratiocinator]

The fact that the universe exists at all when non-existence would be the overwhelmingly logical unintended expectation, and the fact that to exist as it does requires great of complexity and maintained equilibrium are both very strong indications of some form of intent.

Baseless assertion. Why the universe exists and is as it is, is simply unknown.

That's your mystery that you seemed to be looking for before with your nonsense argument with three options. It's a mystery that I'll happily grant you, but just guessing at an answer and trying to suggest it's more than a blind guess, is a fool's game.

Simply because the odds of this happening "by accident" are virtually nil.

How, exactly did you calculate that and how do you define "an accident" in this context?

In the context of probability, adding some unevidenced 'explanation', like 'intent' must make it less likely. To think otherwise is called the conjunction fallacy.

Prob(Universe exits) ≥Prob(universe exist and it was intentional)

This is simply a universal mathematical fact of probability. Prob(A) ≥ Prob(A and B), regardless of what A and B represent.

 

[cladking]

This was the first sentence in your response to my words, "Man has" when you wrote, "No "species" evolve over millions of years."

I have presented extensive and exhaustive evidence that man just like dogs, goats, and every other species evolved suddenly and ours arose at the collapse of the tower of babel. You simply interpret the evidence otherwise. My theory is consistent with experiment while your belief in survival of the fittest is not and appears to be a circular argument.

Homo sapiens were created by a mutation in an individual known only as "S3h" and homo omnisciencis was created by an anatomical change that affected the operation of the brain. I can be wrong but, hold onto your hat, so can you.

 

[cladking]

There's an interesting cognitive bias called false consensus, which causes one to project his own mental states onto the majority. It comes from the idea that despite superficial differences like our favorite foods or people, we all are the same beneath the surface. The last few years have been an eyeopener for me as I learned just how different about half of Americans are from the other half. I've become more familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, which emphasizes just how different the mental states of those afflicted with this condition are from other kinds of people. The vaccine and mask tantrumming came as a surprise. Who knew that there were so many selfish people and so many willing to take advice from the uninformed? Or the MAGA phenomenon. I could never have predicted that so many people were so different from me.

There are actually 8 billion kinds of people and the only trait we all share is that we know everything and all reason in circles.

Regarding brain anatomy, it has evolved over those millions and billions of years as well. Human brain anatomy when the myth of the tower was created is likely very similar to modern human brain anatomy.

This is supposition based on pondering fossils. Poor Yorick. You are guessing based on your belief in Darwin.

Other than Otzi there exists no brain older than 3800 years. not only has Otzi's brain not been studied in such detail yet but there is hardly any certainty that the subtle anatomical difference can be detected in a brain that isn't alive. Neuroscience is in its infancy and still lacks even a definition for consciousness so wouldn't know consciousness if it bit them on the nose.

 

[gnostic]

Consciousness is much more than mere brain activity. You are fallaciously reducing it to materialism. As I have said before it is consciousness that is reality and the material world the illusion. Quantum theory freely allows this. Consciousness can literally expand beyond the brain into the surrounding environment. This is the result of the non-separation that higher dimensional Physics allows.

Sorry, Ostronomos.

I do recall that another member (don’t remember who, nor which thread it was posted up) brought up this same subject, that a physicist or 2 (also don’t remember the name of that physicist), some years ago, advocating the link between consciousness and the quantum realm.

What I do remember is that this was only untested hypothesis back then, and it is still untested, today.

That you are treating as if it is a fact, when it is not a fact.

Facts require sufficient evidence or reproducible experiments, TO VERIFY this hypothesis as being “probable“…in which no one has done, YET.

it is still a hypothesis, not a valid scientific theory. It is speculative, but you are treating as if it is science, when it is not.

You are jumping the gun, Ostronomos.

 

[PureX]

Baseless assertion. Why the universe exists and is as it is, is simply unknown.

A great many things are unknown. And yet we still have the capacity to imagine possibikities, and to speculate about them, and to apply reason to them.

That's your mystery that you seemed to be looking for before with your nonsense argument with three options. It's a mystery that I'll happily grant you, but just guessing at an answer and trying to suggest it's more than a blind guess, is a fool's game.

The possibility that there is intention, and the possibility that there is no intention, are both speculative possibilities. But we can apply logical reasoning to them both to see if one hold up better within the context. And when we do this, we find that an intended universe is far more logical than an unintended one. So it's not a "blind guess", it actually a reasoned guess.

How, exactly did you calculate that and how do you define "an accident" in this context?

We are all able to observe for ourselves the incredible degree of complexity and equilibrium all around us. It requires no "calculation" or proof because it is self-evident to anyone willing to look.

In the context of probability, adding some unevidenced 'explanation', like 'intent' must make it less likely. To think otherwise is called the conjunction fallacy.

The more complex the result, the more unlikely it is to have occurred by "accident" (without some intentional influence). Anyone willing to consider the odds of any occurrence will certainly agree with this.

 

[leroy]

My argument is actually that we can't infer intent from the result alone. If we know nothing of an archer or a target, or somebody picking balls from a bowl, then we can't infer intent from where some arrow lands or the resulting pile of balls.

This is really simple.

Good to know, but that is another argument (different form your original argument)

This is your original argument

The main problem you run into with evidence for God is that god could have done anything and could do anything in the future (pretty much by definition), so specific prediction or retrodiction is impossible.

The archer and the green/red balls examples are intended to refute that specific argument.

By your logic

1 The archer with intent “could do anything” (ether hit or miss the target)

2 but even if the archer “could do anything” we both agree that an arrow hitting the target is evidence for intent

Therefore your “main problem” isn’t really a problem………


The fact that the archer with intent could have “done anything” doesn’t mean that there could be observations that would be consider evidence for “intent”

In the same way, the fact that God could do anything, doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be observations that would be consider evidence for God…………………perhaps you have 100 other objections perhaps God hypothesis fails for 1,000 other reasons……………………………but that particular objection (god could do anything) is a bad objection

Do you see why that specific objection is not a good objection?

 

[ratiocinator]

A great many things are unknown. And yet we still have the capacity to imagine possibikities, and to speculate about them...

Indeed.

...and to apply reason to them.

It's your failure to distinguish between 'reason' and 'what I'd like' that seems to be the problem.

The possibility that there is intention, and the possibility that there is no intention, are both speculative possibilities.

Yes.

But we can apply logical reasoning to them both to see if one hold up better within the context. And when we do this, we find that an intended universe is far more logical than an unintended one. So it's not a "blind guess", it actually a reasoned guess.

No. You are simply stopping at what you'd like. Let's say some 'being' with intent exists to explain all these simplistic assumptions about the universe. Logically, we should then apply the same 'reasoning' to this 'being'. So this 'being' has to have the intent to want this universe, rather than anything else, or nothing, so we are left with exactly the same supposed improbability, plus the improbability of all the other attributes you seem to want to add.

This 'being' would be even more complex and improbable than the universe itself.

The more complex the result, the more unlikely it is to have occurred by "accident" (without some intentional influence).

Apply this to whatever you think has the intent to create this universe - see above. Talk about special pleading.....

 

[ratiocinator]

1 The archer with intent “could do anything” (ether hit or miss the target)

2 but even if the archer “could do anything” we both agree that an arrow hitting the target is evidence for intent

Therefore your “main problem” isn’t really a problem………

It's your analogy that is completely nonsensical.

In the same way, the fact that God could do anything, doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be observations that would be consider evidence for God…………………perhaps you have 100 other objections perhaps God hypothesis fails for 1,000 other reasons……………………………but that particular objection (god could do anything) is a bad objection

Nonsense. A said that 'God' was not an explanation because it could explain anything. This stand because both your analogies assume that we know far, far more of the context than we could possibly know in the case of some supposed 'God'.

Both assume a human-centric context with ball picking or archer's. And the point remains that both a ball-picker and an archer could have done anything.

This is nothing about the universe that suggests anything analogous to a pile of balls with one colour or a target.

Do you see why that specific objection is not a good objection?

No. If you can't see the point by now, you probably never will, so I'm done with this line of nonsensical 'reasoning'.

 

[cladking]

The possibility that there is intention, and the possibility that there is no intention, are both speculative possibilities. But we can apply logical reasoning to them both to see if one hold up better within the context. And when we do this, we find that an intended universe is far more logical than an unintended one. So it's not a "blind guess", it actually a reasoned guess.

We are all able to observe for ourselves the incredible degree of complexity and equilibrium all around us. It requires no "calculation" or proof because it is self-evident to anyone willing to look.

I learned something very remarkable this morning. Apparently as water falls through the earth toward the water table it sucks in air through the ground. Then when the ground gets moistened and less permeable to air when it begins to rain it creates high and lower pressures under the earth which disrupt the "normal" movement of water at and near the water tables. Massive flows start and stop with even the tiniest rainfall. It is observable.

Just when you think you know everything you learn something new. Of course no AI program or search engine will confirm this but I'd wager good money it is no less true. Water does many many very odd things in each of its states. If even one of these properties were different there would be no life on earth that is like anything that currently exists. Without the hydrologic cycle familiar to cavemen and frogs nothing would exist.

The astounding complexity of reality is simply ignored by reductionistic science and unseen even by most scientists. We shove a few probes into living brains and think we know everything about consciousness. We dismiss things unseen as nonexistent despite everything.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I just told you………..if the testimony comes from someone well informed and has no reason to lie……then the testimony is reliable (unless and until the opposite is proven)..... I gave you a specific example according to own @It Aint Necessarily So testimony he lives in Mexico (or atelast lived in Mexico a few months ago)…………..do you accept his testimony as “good evidence” for the claim that he lives in Mexico? Yes or no?

I say yes because using my criteria
1 he is well informed (he probably knows where he lives)
2 he has no reason to lie

Thanks for the vote of confidence there @leroy. I would add

3. My claim is not extraordinary
4. Like many here, I have a reputation based on an extensive amount of posting, and I'd like to think that I am considered honest, knowledgeable, and interested in accuracy.

Now compare that to biblical scripture and the claims therein of witnesses describing a resurrection. None of those things is true there. If there actually were people that claimed that and somebody wrote than down accurately, [1] which among them is well-informed enough to say that what they saw was the revivification of a body three days dead? Also, [2] the Bible writers who were promoting this religion had an incentive to manufacture magical stories about Jesus, [3] their claim is extraordinary, and [4] the alleged claimants are anonymous, and we know nothing about their intelligence or character.

Altogether, we can say that I probably live in Mexico and Jesus probably was not resurrected. That's the spectrum of possibility from one extreme to the other.

You are fallaciously reducing it to materialism. As I have said before it is consciousness that is reality and the material world the illusion.

That's you fallaciously reducing reality to idealism, one of three other ways of relating matter and mind (neutral monism and Cartesian dualism). Your intuitions might be incorrect.

The fact that the universe exists at all when non-existence would be the overwhelmingly logically unintended expectation ...

You can claim that nothingness is more likely than somethingness, but all you have to support that is intuition.

... and the fact that to exist as it does requires great complexity and maintained equilibrium are both very strong indications of some form of intent.

You're also introducing a special pleading fallacy. Your wonderment doesn't apply to the intelligence to which you refer. Its existence is not a mystery to you, just the existence of everything else.

And only the complexity of nature causes you to think an intelligence is behind it and not the complexity of the intelligence you posit to account for it.

The hypothesis of an intelligent designer explains nothing. It just kicks the mystery of existence and apparent complexity back to the intelligent designer. Whatever answers believers give for their gods existence can apply to what the god is thought to have created, and whatever reasons they can give for the universe needing a source apply to gods as well.

Simply because the odds of this happening "by accident" are virtually nil.

What are the odds of a god existing by accident?

No words have any meaning at all in modern language.

Yet here you are using them to communicate effectively. I disagree with you, but I understand what those words mean.

This intent must be parsed by each listener. EVERY single word affects the meaning of a sentence.

Yes, I understand the importance of context to semantics.

We can add to that that with spoken language, we have the meaning that the prosody adds.

"Prosody refers to the rhythm, melody and intonation used in speech and language. It encompasses the variations in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm that convey additional meaning beyond the definition of the words."

YOUR job is to seek a meaning that allows the sentence to make sense.

Agreed. There's a name for that: "Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented."

If I say galactic collisions are sudden relative the age of the universe than this is what I mean ... I try to highlight the differences between my beliefs and Darwin's beliefs by using words like "sudden" to refer to a few years instead of millions of years. What word would you prefer

I would avoid the word sudden in such contexts. It means something other than occurring over less time than something else: "sudden - occurring or done quickly and unexpectedly or without warning." As you can see, people had difficulty understanding why you would apply the word to galactic collisions.

I think "relatively briefly" is a better choice than suddenly. It indicates to your reader that you may be talking about something that takes a lot of time on another scale.

If you believe Evolution requires millions of years then my belief that they actually occur as quickly as a single generation is "sudden" in comparison.

Evolution occurs every day but has been occurring for billions of years. Isn't that a better way to express that idea?

I put a few people on my ignore list for refusing to accept my definition of "metaphysics despite defining it as "basis of science" dozens of times

They don't see a definition of metaphysics there. I don't, either.

How about going to a dictionary or a philosophy source for a definition, one others use and might understand. Or, stop using the word since there is so much confusion about what that word actually means to you. Why do you think you need a word that means "the basis of science"? What about the other words that are the basis of science: empiricism, skepticism, falsifiability, reproducibility, and induction? With these, what does the word metaphysics add to your philosophical underpinnings of science?

It is difficult sometimes to communicate even with waiters. I have a tendency to use terms like "if and only if" or "only if". I try to get too much in a brief sentence and it is very difficult for some people (especially young people indoctrinated by microsoft) to parse them correctly.

Why would you say "if and only if" to a waiter? Use plainer language. How about, "If you have apple pie, I'll take a slice" rather than "I'll have a slice of pie if and only if it's apple."

I have almost no problem communicating with most educated people in person.

Don't forget that you also posted, "People think they are communicating much more than they actually do."

Your definition of "consciousness" probably has no utility in the real world.

It works for me.

So if you were alive in Nazi Germany and assigned to a concentration camp you would be the only conscientious objector? You alone would see it as murder and stand against it.

That was a response to, "I think you overgeneralize too much. I'm wary of your sentences that contain the word we." How about a refutation if you disagree. That's not it.

I have presented extensive and exhaustive evidence that man just like dogs, goats, and every other species evolved suddenly and ours arose at the collapse of the tower of babel. You simply interpret the evidence otherwise.

OK. I don't disagree.

This is supposition based on pondering fossils. Poor Yorick. You are guessing based on your belief in Darwin.

No more than pondering at a dead body on the street with two bullet holes in the back of its head is guessing that the man was shot to death.

 

[cladking]

I think "relatively briefly" is a better choice than suddenly. It indicates to your reader that you may be talking about something that takes a lot of time on another scale.

Great!! For now on when I say galactic collisions are sudden just parse it as relatively brief.

Evolution occurs every day but has been occurring for billions of years. Isn't that a better way to express that idea?

And when I say all observed change is sudden parse it as it does not occur every day but rather over brief periods of time. Like rain it comes and goes whether you call it continual or continuous it stull comes and goes. Even Noah's rain lasted only 40 days. It's gone.

They don't see a definition of metaphysics there. I don't, either.

There is none so blind...

empiricism, skepticism, falsifiability, reproducibility, and induction

NO!!! None of these words even approaches a meaning of "basis of science". You believe they do because you process evidence in terms of your beliefs and then call it "empiricism". You mistake evidence for reality. Your beliefs are irrelevant to reality; only theory based on experiment is relevant and when you say that is wrong it's because you don't understand metaphysics. You think you do because you are awake and intelligent.

 

[YoursTrue]

To recap, you said that scientists say that telomeres kind of popped up a long time after abiogenesis. So what's to stop them from descending into the earth and "popping up" again? Maybe yours...or maybe these telomeres just can belong to anybody and transfer from dirt to dirt. Take care...

To @hififish maybe you think telomeres can go to soil when the body dies. Might be good for you to come on out...