The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Thief]

Evolution works in a way that trial and error will always correct the intent. I could shoot a hundred arrows at a target and only the ones that land have an effect. The ones that miss obviously have no intent cause they missed.

So you have poor aim....or the target is elusive.
That you kept shooting the arrows....shows intent.

 

[Sapiens]

Evolution's only "intent" is to maximize the access that a given allele has to the genome of future generations based on the selective forces of the moment. It's kinda weird, judgement (selection) is based on the conditions today, but success is based on how well today's solution holds up under tomorrows often very different challenges.

 

[McBell]

No, you find it agreeable to you. You have no potential to judge it's correctness because you have no objective standard to compare it to.

Nor do you.
And no, bold empty claims, which is all you have, do not an objective standard make.


Regardless of how much you believe otherwise,

 

[Thief]

Evolution's only "intent" is to maximize the access that a given allele has to the genome of future generations based on the selective forces of the moment. It's kinda weird, judgement (selection) is based on the conditions today, but success is based on how well today's solution holds up under tomorrows often very different challenges.

If you hold design for the word intent....it reads the same.

I happen to believe the design includes the chemistry's ability to change.

That 'hands on' effect is rarely needed.

 

[viole]

They are wasting time regardless. Evolution even if true is the most unproductive theory ever. You do not need it for anything except to argue about. Your appealing to popularity despite it having doomed so many in the past. However since popularity is a common foundation I will not reject it as your side does with claims I make whether they rely on popularity or not. I personally find the popularity about what has been experienced meaningful but about an idea not so much.

Well, I think it is more productive than the theory of black holes, for instance.

The argument from popularity is tricky. I tend to avoid it, as long as the counterpart does the same.

Oh I get it. Sort of. Whatever happened to Jonah was a very rare exception. The bible says God specially prepared a fish for the roll, so appeals to the rule just do not apply. What sickness do you reference? Did you hear ISUS destroyed Jonah's tomb? I don't care, but why would they do that? I doubt he was ever in it.

God prepared a fish. Alright. I hope he prepared some deodorant for poor Jonah, too.

No I am not sure but I have almost al evidence in my corner.

I don't think you do, for there is no convincing evidence for either alternatives.

Depends. I would have some caveats I think. I would take 1940 US to 2000+ US any day.

Yeah. Probably. At least you did not have that "in God we trust" on your money. And get ready to buy tons of IBM shares.

I am not being semantically rigorous here. I meant data that exist but is not available for view.

Maybe you should provide an example of this invisible data.

They exist and are some of the oldest but I did not list them. You can still see them today if you want. My family went there and they actually toured them.

I suppose, most of them, if not all, are roman.

It depends on many things how evident the price is. Despite what you may think almost every aspect of your life has been enriched by Christianity. You may not have lost things because of that that would be lost if it was not the case. For example without God humans are not equal so slavery can't be condemned by fact, human life has no actual sanctity so you get abortion, etc..

Slavery is a bad example, obviously.

Separation from God is probably by far the worst of them. Everything else flows from that.

I don't believe in God. Therefore, no spiritual problem.

Actually it was probably luck as the Popes are no examples of revelation constancy. They excommunicated each other far to much to believe that. I just gave some interesting historical details without any conclusion.

There is a plethora of possible explanations, which are far less miracolus than the event they try to explain.

I am actually staling hoping you will forget it. These issues take a lot more time than they deserve and usually wind up with my having to just grant scientific claims I cannot meaningfully evaluate. For example a crystal was said to be maximum entropy by physicists. I have no idea why. I do want to remind of at least one explanation that will account for hydrological sorting. Nature can create less than equilibrium complexity. I believe you will find I stated that long before your example. I did not state it but when I asked for examples I was thinking of the type or level of complexity life exhibits.

I think that if you use them as arguments, you should invest this time.

And it does not really matter what complex things we analyze. One is bound to be more complex than the others. Asking for examples of something even more complex is pointless. What is important is to check if we have violation of naturalistic laws. We don't, until now.

Maybe atheism is the Photoshop of reality.

At least, we start with reality

I didn't. I did not have to guess when Einstein says that thermodynamics is the most immutable natural law in existence.

Yes, and did not need to be changed because of life.

If over the horizon behind me Godzilla was smashing cars as fast as he could it might be accurate. Almost al science is on my side. It is only in the most ambiguous and little understood areas where I find anyone going the other way and it is far less traffic than you describe.

Maybe the problem is that you are still driving a Ford T1. So, you are right, not a lot of traffic.

Just the unreliability of applied science alone causes me to lose sleep on a nightly basis. If we can get it to work here and now so often I have almost no confidence in details about what occurred a billion years ago.
No one who works in applied science should have much confidence in theoretical science until it has become applied for decades or more.

You seem to have a lot of confidence in Vilenkin's theorem.

I am not a quantum physicist but that is what they claim to be true. Let me ask you this. If a benzene atom disappears from location A and another appears in location B and if we assume they are related then what mathematics is used? All the math I was taught says that makes no sense, not that I think it does not occur.

The Schoedinger equation is a good starting point. But at graduate level the mathematics used involves Hilbert spaces with infinite dimensions or Feynman inegrals ovel all (infinite, again) histories of a particle.

By the way: what is a benzene atom? Could not find it on the periodic table

Where does it exist and how could you know if it did? It does not exist in any random number generators, at any casino, in any instrument? I think your getting thought experiments and reality confused again. I feel an appeal to the deep end of science on it's way.

Deep end of science? I was addressing the two slits experiment. Also known for a long time. However younger than the physics known 200 years ago.

I think you really need a new car.

Actually I think that has been resolved the other way around. I have heard how it transpired but not for a while. Regardless Guth does not cancel Vilenkin and Vilenkin has made his views far more emphatically than Guth. Vilenkin went through most of the alternate hail Mary theories and specifically defeated them one by one. I only wished to show my side is intellectually grounded as well as yours if not vastly more so.

But Vilenkin himself said that his theorem is as good as the premises: classical timespace without QM. It is implausible that QM does not become important when our (observable slice of) Universe is very small and compressed. The Heisenberg principle will unavoidably start to kick in.

But I would not have a problem even if the regime is classical all the way down. Tenseless theory matches perfectly with pure classical and not quantistic relativity.

I think so but do not know. I have heard massive studies that suggest both conclusions and gave it up for now as it is to politically charged to get reliable data from. I ran into one unexpected view. That it was un-chosen but still a genetic flaw. Had to do with chemical flaws in a women who has multiple kids.

I don't care about the studies. I am asking you if you feel like you could choose to be sexually attracted by members of the same sex.

That is horrible. How can murder be right. If it can then why was Hitler wrong, would he have been right in another time. The foundations for morality are either objective or non-existent. Your talking more about legality or ethics and just about everyone separates the two from morality, from the Hebrews and Greeks to Lord Lyndhurst.

So, we agree that stoning people for not holding the Sabbath is a universal and immutable wrong?

This one in particular has gone off so often for no reason that no one cares any more. I only had to go so I could put on a F-15 cranium I have laying around. I never even thought fire for a second. I used to work on them and they malfunctioned at least a thousand times more often than performed as advertised. I am not against them but am against science having a reputation it does not deserve.

Then don't use it in your arguments. It is puzzling that you do.

How do we know you are sincere if you use general relativity and inflationary cosmology to prove a point while being skeptical about the overall reliability of science?

Ciao

- viole

 

[ArtieE]

No, you find it agreeable to you. You have no potential to judge it's correctness because you have no objective standard to compare it to.

Give me the list of the declarations and I will see what I can do. I also need the foundations that group used as humanism is founded in many way in Christianity. I need they say X is moral and they know this by Y to do as requested.

Here is the link. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights I don't understand the X and Y. Simply ask your god whether he can confirm whether each article is moral or not. According to you he is the one who's got the objective standard therefore he is the one who has to be consulted.

 

[metis]

Are you suggesting this would still have occurred without intelligent agency and intent? That was not even a coherent attempt at the non applicable sharp shooter crutch. I will wait for you to make it at least coherent before I show it has no application what so ever.

Just for your benefit I will illustrate AGAIN my analogy. If a man won a lottery everyone would think well it was improbable but someone had to win. No tricks, no intent necessary, no agency. However if he won them all no sane person would not instantly yell cheat and assume agency was a necessity. Yet you are doing just that and what is more your saying that the rest who are crying foul are mathematically unjustified and fallacious. Keep digging until you hear Chinese I guess.

I know your position very well, so no debate is necessary from my angle. If your position was so logical, then one would expect most in the scientific community, especially cosmologists and physicists, would agree with you, but they overwhelmingly don't?

There simply is not one shred of evidence to suggest an "intelligent designer", nor is that necessarily logical since there are other options, especially "infinity", which you in the past falsely claim was disproven. The fact of the matter, which I believe is very obvious, is that your opinion is driven by religious faith and not either science or math. Of course it's always possible you could be correct, so I'll not go to the opposite extreme position.

 

[ArtieE]

No, evolution seems to have intent because it defies astronomical goal orientated odds over and over and over. It has nothing to do with creatures having intent. When something hits a bulls eye so small you can not see it in a universe of possibilities only the irrational would not suspect intelligent intent.

You can say that again. Just go back ten generations and the chances of you being born at all is at most 1 in 6000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.The chances of you existing So 1robin this proves that the DNA of every creature must have been designed and created by a god because these are "astronomical goal oriented odds". Right?

 

[idav]

You can say that again. Just go back ten generations and the chances of you being born at all is at most 1 in 6000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.The chances of you existing So 1robin this proves that the DNA of every creature must have been designed and created by a god because these are "astronomical goal oriented odds". Right?

Interesting stats, and that is with us coming from something.

 

[jtartar]

I have seen this argument branded about to somewhat discredit evolution (I am lost as to why persons think this have anything to do with evolution, but that's another story). But I would put it to "creationists" that it is you who are advocating that something indeed came out of nothing. Let's forget the "who created God" question for a while; you (usually) advocate that God created everything..ok.

So here is my question: What did God uses to create the VERY FIRST thing that he created? Wouldn't that FIRST thing had to be created from ....nothing?? For example, if he created dirt first, what did he create that dirt from (since dirt would be the first thing created, there wouldn't be any other "something" around; would there)?

See, your argument that God created everything cannot, in my opinion, work unless you are advocating the "something actually came from nothing."

BigTJ,
The dictionary term, ex nihilo nihil fit, means that nothing is created out of nothing. This is true, but everything is made from energy. Some material has more energy in it than others.
Notice what the Bible days on this subject, Heb 11:3, Things seen are made from things not seen. The Almighty God, Jehovah created all things from the unlimited energy He possesses, Isa 40:25,26, 28-31.
God, Himself says that He is The Almighty, which means that He NEVER is lacking for energy, Ex 6:3. Read the 8th Psalm!! and Ps 104:24,25.

 

[ArtieE]

Interesting stats, and that is with us coming from something.

Yes, every single cockroach, mosquito or T Rex or human who lives and has ever lived must be the result of a god who either

1. Directly designed and manufactured them on the spot or
2. Controlled every single atom in the universe up to the moment the egg and sperm cell fused in order to produce that exact genome

because the chances of a particular genome assembling are astronomically small. Right 1robin?

 

[Ouroboros]

Yes, every single cockroach, mosquito or T Rex or human who lives and has ever lived must be the result of a god who either

1. Directly designed and manufactured them on the spot or
2. Controlled every single atom in the universe up to the moment the egg and sperm cell fused in order to produce that exact genome

because the chances of a particular genome assembling are astronomically small. Right 1robin?

And
3 a God who controls the environment to push evolution in certain directions.

It's like an indirect control. Some evo-emulators I tried in the past allowed the user to play with the environment without directly affect the mutation/reproduction.

 

[ArtieE]

BigTJ, The dictionary term, ex nihilo nihil fit, means that nothing is created out of nothing. This is true,

No it isn't. In quantum mechanics, nothing transforms into something all the time. Watch the video. New Scientist TV: How the universe appeared from nothing

 

[ArtieE]

And
3 a God who controls the environment to push evolution in certain directions.

You would still have those impossible odds against your exact genome assembling.

 

[Ouroboros]

You would still have those impossible odds against your exact genome assembling.

Sure.

My addition was only to show that there was yet another option, not that it would disprove or prove anything.

 

[1robin]

I suspect (at least on the basis of your posts) that my course work in statistics, probability, and exploratory data analysis is a bit more sophisticated than yours. What you are missing is that statistics are only meaningful apriori. They are only useful for predicting likelihoods of future occurrences since they are independent of all past trials. A past track record of a billion landings on the edge in a row or a thousand "00" spins just tells me that the game is fixed, not that probability theory is wrong.

I see no use of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, half-hearted or any other way.

I have no idea and do not really care. I had 4 junior college (more than any bachelor requires outside statistics majors) level engineering statistical and probability classes but you only need a high school freshman education to get the probability trend here.

Statistics can be meaningful in other than apriori applications. In fact if they were not they would be of almost no use. People who have billions on the line stand or fall by using statistical data just as I have to make predictions or derive causes.

I would hope you do not see a sharp shooter because there is not one. There is only an argument that makes a similar claim in that whatever we actually have is equally improbable. That is simply not true.

Let me slowly give just a few things at a time you need to get a Godless universe where evolution can occur. (if you do not exclude God then there is no longer an application for probability here and no point of meaningful disagreement, but I assume the opposite in your case).


First I need a universe of some type. The best evidence and virtually all of it strongly suggests the universe began to exist from nothing. The chances of that occurring is zero given any reliable science. Non-being has no property what so ever to do anything. So your swamped at this point but that is boring so lets assume you can get a universe.

Second you need a very specific type of universe. You need one that has structure, gravity, etc... to get any conceivably possible life forms of any kind.
Even given only universe similar to this altering the expansion rate by 1 part in trillions would have either caused things to fly apart or reverse trajectories before any structure could exist to have any life forms on or in. It is much worse when compared to all non impossible universes. You get 1 part in a potential infinity or basically zero. However this is boring and so lets pretend you did get some universe where some possible life can exist.

Third you need one with the parameters that can support structured life. Possible universes would produce countless Boltzmann brain type universes for one that can support material life forms. I will be generous and give it a 1 in a million probability.

Fourth you need this improbable universe to create conditions somewhere that can turn non-life into life. So far that has been shown to be exactly a zero probability. In fact I am going to stop here this is so absurdly improbable that even the attempt to make it sound reasonable without pre-existing intelligence is just silly.


Let me state that even given everything above (and every one of them are secular scientific conclusions) that the chance you get any life from even that vastly improbable universe has been estimated as being 1 in the number of atoms in the universe.

This is a sequential winning of lotteries that in any other circumstance would instantly cause anyone to think intention and agency. Not one step in the above is a Christian position. They are all secular admissions they just adopt the most unlikely of explanations for them which is not scientific it is preference.

It is not the case that what we have is as probable as any other universe.
Other types of universes are trillions upon trillions of times more likely. In fact without God there is a 100% probability that no universe of any kind would exist using reliable modern science and excluding science fiction. To even begin to have anything to say about this first improbability you must use only the most unknown and unreliable parts of science. I say again why is no argument against God to be found in proven science but only in the most ambiguous and unknown fringe of scientific fantasy.

 

[1robin]

Evolution works in a way that trial and error will always correct the intent. I could shoot a hundred arrows at a target and only the ones that land have an effect. The ones that miss obviously have no intent cause they missed.

It does so in some ways but not in others. The only relevance the THEORY of evolution has is if used as an argument against God's existence. If you grant God's existence then probability is no longer relevant. But if you deny it then you need many things as absolute necessities long before you get any life to evolve at all. See the above post. I think your confusing what the theory says with what the theory depends on in reality. I am debating reality not a theory.

 

[1robin]

This is horse pucky, there are at least four ways (from Sunday) that your claim jumps the tracks:

The calculation of odds assumes that the protein molecule formed by chance. Biochemistry is not chance, rendering your calculated odds, from referenced sources, meaningless. All biochemistry produces complex products which interact in complex ways. For example, complex organic molecules are observed to form in the conditions that exist in space, and it is possible that they played a role in the formation of the first life (Spotts, Peter N. 2001. Raw materials for life may predate Earth's formation. The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 30,2001).

Your unreferenced calculation of odds assumes that a protein molecule must take one certain form. However, there are innumerable possible proteins that could promote biological activity. Any calculation of odds must take into account all possible molecules (not just one protein) that might function to promote life. The one that "succeeds" is just chance, but that does no raise the odds, it lowers them.

Your unreferenced calculation of odds assumes the creation of life in its present complex form. The first life would have been much, much simpler.

Your unreferenced calculation of odds ignores the fact that innumerable trials would have been ongoing simultaneously.

I don't think a single thing you called into question was used in any calculation I made or quoted. I have no desire to get bogged down in a biological discussion and biology is only possible once you get past many things you have so far not even addressed. I hate biology and find it boring and consider biological theories about what occurred a billion years ago so meaningless as to be irrelevant (not that even if true they settle the issue). I wish to contain whatever debate we have in one post at a time so please respond to the above post and then add whatever you wish from this one.

 

[1robin]

Sure, Tom Clancy, Alexander Kent, C. S. Forester, Bernard Cornwell or George McDonald Fraser all wrote pure fiction that was built around real events and would rank way above 950.

That is one horrible comparison. None of them were written long before printing presses existed. Textual criticism is complex. You must view it in the actual context it comes in. The bible unlike a single source you used was written without the printing press, in a hostile nation, in a hostile empire, by hand, at a time when writing material was expensive, precious, and rare, and has been copied for over 2000 years or so, etc.......

You will not find a single text of any kind that is even close to the bible within that context. Only someone with a bias compares things that dissimilar. In fact beyond the fact they are both collections of words what do they have in common? However, even despite this insane level on dissimilarity, the works you named are unanimously thought to be fiction where as the bible has vast numbers of scholars who take it to be a historical biography. In fact it's official classification is not fiction like your sources, nor is it myth as almost all other theological texts are, it is officially classified as historical biography.


I can think of few arguments as lopsided as this nor responses as ineffective as yours. I am not picking on you but only on your argument.

You must explain why every work in the same class with the bible is pathetically inaccurate in comparison and the bible is extraordinarily accurate, with a better explanation that mine. Why do similar human failure rates always fall below 50% and many below 20% for everything else but rise to 95% for the bible? Good luck.

 

[viole]

Your premise does not support your conclusion. I do not like divine command theory, yet I find it to be flawless, so have adopted it. Now that has symmetry and consistency where yours did not.

What? My ipad command theory is also pretty consistent. if you wish, I can make up a book about what it wants.

I did not say a location. I said a value that has relevance to the proposed infinity. For example if you said that ruler was infinitely long (or as you have said that any two points are infinitely far apart) then it you must assign distance values to any units you use to prove it to be the case, but the moment you assign real values to them they instantly are of no use in finding a infinite. IOW you must show any two points have an infinite number of finite sections within them. You will never ever do that with real values in a real world. ...

Now I am not sure what you are talking about. i was talking about finite distances and finite rulers. If you think that the number of points between two finite points, say one meter apart, is finite, then how many points does it contain? One biilion? One billion billions? How many?

And suppose that it contains N points. What prevents me from finding an additional one between them, contradicting thereby the premise that they are N?

Your confidence and proclamations of what no one has ever done nor ever could do in the actual world is quite bizarre. Produce the thing instead of telling me you easily could have. I want an actual infinite. It does not even have to be infinite just potentially so. Not an idea but a reality that exists. Its no wonder multiverse found such a home with you.

I told you. The number of points between two points. Or the number if instants between two instants. You say it must be finite. So, how many instants of time you have in one second?

There is no actual infinity of points with any actual size. The infinity of points exists as an idea and pertains to abstract math not reality. I do not think the average cosmologist is a female, do you? Not that I care one way or the other. As long as I do not have to depend on a women to carry me out of a battle zone I don's care what they do. Regardless the moment you make that point a reality you instantly make it of finite dimension and your span only contains a finite number of them. So no infinity is crossed, no actual infinity has been found, you still have produced what I requested. You ought to let it go because you never will.

Could be, but you fail to tell me how many points there are, if they are finite. At least the order of magnitude would help. So, what do you reckon? I give you a meter. How many times can you devide it before getting a metaphisical constraint?

I think the overwhelming bulk of scientists would say the universe is finite as well as everything in it. Of course many scientists especially in this modern grant driven dynamic do not stop at what can be actually found, but will venture anywhere either money or attention can be had. I really have no problem with them doing it but what they produce out there in that speculative void of faith should never be claimed as mainstream of reliable. That is where we really go wrong.

You would say? How many? Not a lot, I am afraid.

There is no riddle I can see. There is only what could be true of an idea and what has shown to be true of reality in every single observation ever made.

Of course there is. For no scientist can tell you if it is finite or not. And they are the same scientists who accept the big bang.

If they want reliable concrete realities they most certainly would object to abstract exercises. If I am dying of cancer, I do not want a theory about how a cancer drug could work, I want one that does. If I am an investor I might find a very reliable theory worthwhile, only if I am an academic would abstract concepts have more relevance than reality. You have not made a reference to any actual infinite. Or of you did I completely missed it. There is not one known to the entire scope of human experience.

I think I did.

I rarely do this but despite Holly wood screwing up the most simplistic scripture for about the millionth time in the interest of prophets you might want to see Noah. It is not accurate but might provoke interest. I know quite a few middle aged people who have no interest in taking on a decade or two of the most unproductive and least secure years of our lives. I think about 70 is the average. The way our SS and Medicare is being expended it might be more merciful to not live from 70-9?. Regardless this is a bit off topic.

Yes, I am provoked by Noah. But even more by the ones who believe that he existed.

No, worse than money they have that awful Mosque to deal with. It will take a miracle to even begin but we are far closer than we were. If God exist I do not suppose chronology will impede him.

Are you telling me that God might compromise about the particulars of His own prophecy?

Todays Israel is extremely secular. Liechtenstein nor Switzerland are not at the spiritual vortex of a war between Satan and God. Whatever dynamics apply other places don't seem to work in Israel. Looking at Israel's history and especially many of the most important stats in modern times and you will quickly see that something unusual is going on with the Jews. I can give you endless lists of stats hat show them at the top per capita in just about every meaningful statistic there is despite having to spend more per person on defense than any other nation on Earth. Whether good or bad they are extraordinary, but I would argue for good in about 90% of cases.

War between Satan and God? What? How can an almighty being let wars against Him drag for longer than 1 femtosecond?

Ciao

- viole