Does the universe need intelligence to order it?

[metis]

But sometimes we may think we know but really don't. Us humans have a tremendous ability to be able to fool ourselves, and one of those techniques is confirmation bias.

 

[Robert.Evans]

But sometimes we may think we know but really don't. Us humans have a tremendous ability to be able to fool ourselves, and one of those techniques is confirmation bias.

But that can work both ways.
And sometimes we can rely on science too much, and not believe in God enough. Science is limited after all. It can't even answer child like questions like Why are we here.

 

[metis]

But that can work both ways.
And sometimes we can rely on science too much, and not believe in God enough. Science is limited after all. It can't even answer child like questions like Why are we here.

All knowledge in all areas is limited, and why should one believe in God if they don't believe in God? How about maybe they should believe in Gods? Or how about maybe they shouldn't believe in any gods? Or how about "I don't know if there are any gods"?

Science at least tries to work on being objective, but religious faith by itself really doesn't.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

It can't even answer child like questions like Why are we here.

Give it time.

 

[Robert.Evans]

All knowledge in all areas is limited, and why should one believe in God if they don't believe in God? How about maybe they should believe in Gods? Or how about maybe they shouldn't believe in any gods? Or how about "I don't know if there are any gods"?

Science at least tries to work on being objective, but religious faith by itself really doesn't.

You do not think that the Bible is objective enough then? So presumably you do not believe in any history. Or have you got some sort of confirmation bias? Science deals with physical explanations, of which it does very well in. But that is as far as it goes.
Spiritual matters are discerned spiritually. It is not difficult to understand for anyone who wants to.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Give it time.

Haha..... they will answer in their own way I guess... to stop you believing in your own Origin. That is science. Powerful in its own realm, but outside of it, powerless. No time will make them see what God gives freely. It is not for the arrogance of man, but for the humble in heart.

 

[Robert.Evans]

I don't know why we can't just accept that complicated things need intelligence until proved otherwise. Why say luck is a better answer, just because we can't see the intelligence we speak of? Can we see the luck? I don't think so.

Someone recently asked me, Who designed teh designer. Old tired argument, but nevertheless, he has the same problem with saying natural is the designer. Who made the natural? There is no difference.

 

[metis]

You do not think that the Bible is objective enough then? So presumably you do not believe in any history. Or have you got some sort of confirmation bias? Science deals with physical explanations, of which it does very well in. But that is as far as it goes.
Spiritual matters are discerned spiritually. It is not difficult to understand for anyone who wants to.

The Bible clearly was written from subjective viewpoints often decades and sometimes even centuries after the events they covered happened. This is certainly not to say that there are no real history that's covered, only that we have to subject any history to scrutiny based on the subjectiveness of the authors. Unlike in science, we simply can't test history, although sometimes we can cross-check it with other historical accounts.

But take a look at your posts on this and the assumption that you have made that there is only one God and that it is the God as found in the Bible. How could you possibly know there's only one God? How could you possibly know that the Biblical rendition of this God is accurate?

Thirdly, if one posits that they rely on "spiritual matters", what exactly is "spiritual", and how does one ascertain that it even exists if it cannot be observed? Maybe it exists or maybe it doesn't, but every time I ask someone how they know it exists, all I get is the run-around. I used to believe in things "spiritual" but I no longer do even though I do not deny the possibility it could.

Now, let me just mention that I am not saying there is no God, or that even if there is a God that it's not the God of the Bible. I'm not jumping to conclusions one way or another, but what I am saying is that we're in an area that's doesn't really depend on objectivity, plus that the accounts of scriptures in all religions tend to be quite subjective with events that are often impossible to check out.

 

[godnotgod]

As a meditative state - it's a Buddhist thing.

No, it's not. It's beyond anything Buddhistic. But what does 'infinite space' mean in terms of your experience of the universe? Are you an intelligent being having an experience of an intelligent universe, or not?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

No, it's not. It's beyond anything Buddhistic.

Have you experienced what I'm talking about? I assume not given your response.

But let's hear about your experience - are you saying you have experienced the universe as intelligent? If you have, then please tell us what that was like.

 

[godnotgod]

Thirdly, if one posits that they rely on "spiritual matters", what exactly is "spiritual", and how does one ascertain that it even exists if it cannot be observed?

You cannot make it an object of your observation. It already is what is doing the observing.

'That which you are seeking is causing you to seek'
Zen source

 

[Looncall]

I don't know why we can't just accept that complicated things need intelligence until proved otherwise. Why say luck is a better answer, just because we can't see the intelligence we speak of? Can we see the luck? I don't think so.

Someone recently asked me, Who designed teh designer. Old tired argument, but nevertheless, he has the same problem with saying natural is the designer. Who made the natural? There is no difference.

Unless there is positive evidence that the complicated things you have in mind are produced by intelligence, there is no justification for accepting that they are.

Without positive evidence for something, one should withhold judgement about it. Belief in the absence of evidence is superstition. So is decision based on ignorance.

Your use of the word luck here is meaningless unless you mean natural processes. You present a false dichotomy. There is another, more honest, position: "We don't know (yet)".

I object to your presumption in using the phrase "who made". You must first establish that a "who" is required.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

You cannot make it an object of your observation. It already is what is doing the observing.

Sorry but the Zen cliches are not really helping. Could you please talk clearly and straightforwardly from your experience?

 

[godnotgod]

Have you experienced what I'm talking about?
But let's hear about your experience - are you saying you have experienced the universe as intelligent? If you have, then please tell us what that was like.

Have you experienced what I'm talking about? I assume not given your response.

But let's hear about your experience - are you saying you have experienced the universe as intelligent? If you have, then please tell us what that was like.

Our discussion went like this:

me: 'Well, you're still in the realm of conceptual mind. Not saying that I maintain a belief in a creator-God, but am saying there is, without question, an experience in consciousness/spirituality beyond the conceptual mind.'

you: 'Of course, I know that from long experience of Buddhist meditation.'

me: 'Does that experience include an intelligent universe, or just an intelligent observer?'

What I'm trying to get from you is whether you experience a subject/object merging in your meditation. You confirmed by your statement that you had the same experience in consciousness/spirituality that I pointed out. But instead of providing an answer, you want to shift the focus of the inquiry to me.

But then you went on to say that your experience of 'infinite space' was a 'Buddhist thing', which makes no sense. 'Infinite space' is not Buddhistic or anything else. It's just infinite space.

So can you answer the question? Is your experience of infinite space one of a merging of subject/object?

 

[godnotgod]

Sorry but the Zen cliches are not really helping. Could you please talk clearly and straightforwardly from your experience?

Excuse me: What I said, which is what you quoted, was:

'You cannot make it an object of your observation. It already is what is doing the observing.'

That is not from Zen. Only the quote after it is from Zen.

So what is it about my statement that you don't understand? It's meaning is as clear as day.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

So can you answer the question? Is your experience of infinite space one of a merging of subject/object?

I think you're playing games. So no thanks.

 

[metis]

You cannot make it an object of your observation. It already is what is doing the observing.

'That which you are seeking is causing you to seek'
Zen source

That really is still not answering the question. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist, only that it seems more based on assumption.

 

[Ouroboros]

I don't know why we can't just accept that complicated things need intelligence until proved otherwise.

Simply because intelligence is in itself a complicated thing. For an entity/agent to be able to reason and think, it has to be able to process very complicated things. And if this intelligent entity can process the information required for our universe, it has to be so complicated that it's far more than our universe. Then we must ask, why doesn't that intelligence, being complicated, also require intelligence? If it doesn't, then we're saying that complicated entities can exist without intelligence, and our premise is broken.

The only answer I can find after all these years going through the paradoxes and contradictions is that it's all interrelated. Mind/consciousness/intelligence requires a framework, a thing, within it can exist and process. Processing requires temporality. So we end up with that space/matter/time as requirements for intelligence. And yet, based on other arguments, it seems like space/matter/time is something that falls into place because of intelligence as well, which suggests that all exists interchangeable, inter-relational, inter-dependent. Not one without the other.

Why say luck is a better answer, just because we can't see the intelligence we speak of? Can we see the luck? I don't think so.

To be able to intelligently reason one's way through literally trillions and trillions of genetic code and figure out exactly what to change at any given time. Or to control and know how each and every electron, which are in the numbers of fantasilions , it requires an intelligence that can process all those things, simultaneous, in a time of every quanta of Planck's time, which means that all that is processed trillions, trillions, trillions, ... of times per second. We're talking about such a massive ability to process information that it has to be more advanced and complicated that our universe. And also more perfect and beautiful... in design! Which means, this intelligence you're talking about was also designed by an even more advanced and complicated intelligence.

Someone recently asked me, Who designed teh designer. Old tired argument, but nevertheless, he has the same problem with saying natural is the designer. Who made the natural? There is no difference.

Nature isn't a problematic answer because it's a matter of seeing it as folding in itself. It recreates itself constantly, and always did. Nature is God. God is Nature. They're both the same. The problem only happens when you separate them and argue that Nature requires God. It's the dualistic view that causes conflicts and contradictions.

---

But on the other hand, if you argue that God is simpler than this universe, then God isn't able to process the information and isn't "intelligent". You can then assign a single quark to be God. God as the First Quark, and the First Cause as the First Quantum Event.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Unless there is positive evidence that the complicated things you have in mind are produced by intelligence, there is no justification for accepting that they are.

Without positive evidence for something, one should withhold judgement about it. Belief in the absence of evidence is superstition. So is decision based on ignorance.

Your use of the word luck here is meaningless unless you mean natural processes. You present a false dichotomy. There is another, more honest, position: "We don't know (yet)".

I object to your presumption in using the phrase "who made". You must first establish that a "who" is required.

One can always make a decision on whether something has come about by luck or intelligence. Anyone who says that they do not think it is intelligence must accept luck, as that is that is left. To take the cop-out of 'I don't know' is just that, a cop-out. You might not know yet, but surely you can see complicated things do not come about by luck. There would have to be a guiding factor.
I am amazed at how many people do not seem to know this.

All science theories do not have positive evidence at first, yet can be accepted

 

[Rick O'Shez]

To take the cop-out of 'I don't know' is just that, a cop-out.

On a question like this, "don't know" is actually the most sensible answer. Because we don't know!