For my part...
And hopefully you don't think that since humans have been relegated to the realm of abstract thought when it comes to God that does not have an effect upon God as having a possible reality?
I've not seen enough verifiable evidence that would convince me that the gods named in an of the religious traditions in this world have an effect on this reality.
God may be a true idea in relation to reality. Or a false one. The only question is, what initiates our ideas?
That's the only question? I think what's important is that we have a method of determining what we call true (not to be confused with what
is True).
What observations? I can't give possible counterpoints unless you clarify somewhat.
I think what he might be trying to say is something akin to the question, did god/s create humans or did humans create god/s? I think there is good evidence for the latter and much less for the former.
Millions of people would disagree...including some prominent scientists.
You seem an intelligent and articulate person, your not going to commit the Argumentum ad Populum fallacy?
So what correlations would you think acceptable? What criteria do you use to determine such things?
As you know, no one can prove something doesn't exist, anyone who claims to
know that god/s don't exist has all their work ahead of them. All any reasonable person can say is that the evidence they've seen is lacking. For myself, I've pondered this question for a very long time and have been asked to defend my position against countless propositions for the existence of a god, a topic I think I could hold my own.
Yes...we may suppose it exists independently - or does it
- but what we are seeing is our brains interpretation of reality. It isn't the reality of the thing itself. Actually the reality of the thing is in a subatomic superposition until we translate it macroscopically...wha!
That's all true, but, again, are we really appealing to a nihilistic point-of-view? I think it's safe to say that reality objectively exists, my interpretation of it is subjective, but the important thing is that it is, as best we can tell, reality is consistent enough to allow us to create a system to explain what we see, even if what we see isn't objective reality.
What science has come to find out is that fundamental reality is such a thing as to be incapable of meaningful description. There is no description of an atom. There are no words to describe Einstein's space/time, or quantum fields, or particle wave duality, beyond mathematical abstractions.
I'd argue that describing fundamental reality presents a unique challenge that pushes the boundaries of language, models, and our cognitive abilities. Science continues to strive towards increasingly refined and accessible descriptions, even if a 'perfect' description may always remain elusive.
I agree but only if you believe in some form of moral absolute.
Or a person could measure them against the prevailing accepted moral standard. no?
Debatable. Is quantity a real part of the universe or did we invent it?
Set theory describes something we can demonstrate via evidence. I don't think "quantity" was invented, merely the system (set theory) to put quantities into a system.
But how are they representing what is true?
Again, we need to be careful using the term "true". Colloquially, most of us know what we mean when we say "true", and it's not in a philosophical sense. For those of us who've spent a decent amount of time trying to understand these sorts of questions, when we say "true" we mean that we believe that the consensus of people who are qualified to opine on topics in their field have concluded based on the preponderance of the evidence of the evidence that something is true. Of course, when we move out to the cutting edge of science, in places like the quantum realm, or deep cosmology, we're going to find the "experts" are often wrong. I just read a few days ago that the universe is expanding 9% faster than thought. And while that number seems small, it's devastating to our current understanding.
The system works because it improves over time as will our understanding of the universe, some of which we describe based only an inference (e.g. dark matter and energy).
That said, Newton was right, Einstein didn't prove him wrong, up didn't become down, black didn't become white. Newton was right to the extent that he could be. His ideas made reasonable and useful predictions give the constraints on understanding at the time. Einstein improved on Newton and people have improved on Einstein.
Absolutely. Its going to get really scary in my opinion. At least for the average joe that isn't privy to and have access to the multibillions of dollars worth of potentially enslaving and deceiving technologies out there.
I would agree that LLM's and generative AI have enormous potential, some for good and some for bad. I think we can all agree it's easier and more profitable to do the bad thing. That said, AI has the potential to evaluate misinformation for the average "Joe" and give a good answer to some very complicated questions. But, I'm not sure the AI is really the problem, because even if an AI could sit on our shoulders and tell us when we are being manipulated and lied to and even if we had an AI that was virtually bulletproof and somehow wasn't being manipulated itself in the interests of any person or group, my question is, how many people, despite the evidence of it's accuracy, would
choose not to believe it?
We already have that problem. We have scientists in fields of evolution, biology and climate science who as a global body in more than 100 different nations, are accused of fabricating data for research dollars?
No, the problem isn't AI, it's us and the only hope is that the culture shift to valuing the truth and using AI as a tool to get there. There's also the very real possibility that we may see a culture shift away from technology.
I understand a lot of creationists need corralled for sure. Trump...eh, in my horrified view, unfortunately I don't see anyone currently that would make a moral, wise, and capable leader. They all at this point have agendas that seem to be mainly self serving.
How can you possibly know this? How do you know the intent, moral standing or capability of all of the people who might aspire to lead this country? And even if it's true, I think it downplays the fact that Trump is much, much worse.
Personally, I think our leaders, and even Trump are merely a refection of our culture and the people that elect our leaders. Of course, the system was intended to help the minority in the electoral college, but that system and Gerrymandering, have been exploited, so there are other contributing factors.
However, some creationists have high integrity and are pursuing truth where they think the evidence and their conscience is leading them. To imply that all creationists are irrational or not very intelligent is illogical and provably wrong.
Tell me the name of a creationist with high integrity who is pursing the evidence of creationism, specifically work on the topic they've subjected to the scrutiny of their peers and even more to the point, how many people have cited their work and confirmed it? Conscience? Please explain how "conscience" comes into play when deterring evidence for something like creationism?
To say that a creationist is irrational or not intelligent is indeed a mistake, there are indeed some very smart people who fancy themselves creationists. That said, it's pretty rare to find a creationist who is accomplished based on their research in evidence for creationism.
In fact, to my knowledge (admitted imperfect), their arguments are rarely submitted for real scientific scrutiny, rather they tend to write books, give lectures, make TV shows, podcasts and YouTube videos. One that comes to mind is Michael Behe: He's a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, the other is Francis Collins is an accomplished physician-geneticist who led the Human Genome Project and was the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over a decade. His contributions to science are highly respected. That said, science isn't a popularity contest. We don't make decisions based on a handful of people with impressive creds. They have to do the work, and to the extent that either has tried, especially Behe, his arguments have been soundly refuted by those qualified.
-Cheers
