Sagan and anyone who care toreply

by jw 111 Replies latest jw friends

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  funkyderek

  AuldSoul:

  I would accept your statement if phrased as "proven", however there are many kinds of knowledge and I respectfully submit that you can only speak for yourself about what is known. This is a frequently overstepped blurring of the lines between the boundaries of thought, and I am just trying to rein you back in before you carry it farther from reality.

  I'm having trouble understanding that, so I'll try to reply based on what I think you're most likely to mean. Please expand on your statements if I get it wildly wrong.

  The principle of parsimony is intended to use - where possible - only "what is known". The fewer unknowns you have in an argument, the better chance you have of hitting something close to reality. Postulating entities of a type not known to exist, in order to explain things that can be explained without them, has to be a bad idea.
• 

  AuldSoul

  Postulating entities of a type not known to exist, in order to explain things that can be explained without them, has to be a bad idea.

  (1) Only IF it can be explained without them, which hasn't been done yet. (2) IF additional universes are not "known" per your offering, how is positing their existence "more parsimonious" than any other "unknown" explanation.

  I suppose my contestation was with your assumption of what is "known" and what is "unknown".

  What percentage consensus opinion would be required to know that God exists, to your way of thinking? Or would you have to "prove" God's existence clinically first?

  The latter can never be done unless we first suppose the existence of God, which the Scientific method and law of parsimony rule out the supposition of doing. However, the former has been met to a very high percentage. So what do you call "known" and what do you call "unknown"?

  Initially, I am only trying to get you to logically challenge your basis for presuming that additional universes is more parsimonious than any other "unknown". We can get into the other discussion later, if you like.

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
• 

  funkyderek

  AuldSoul:

  (1) Only IF it can be explained without them, which hasn't been done yet.

  My point is that it [the existence of life in the universe] can't be explained any better with them [omnipotent beings outside the universe]. If we have to invent a ghost in the machine, let's make it as simple as possible. Inventing an intelligent, complex, eternal being is unnecessary when we can postulate something far less complex - for example, a small number of initial constraints that would lead inevitably to complex life

  (2) IF additional universes are not "known" per your offering, how is positing their existence "more parsimonious" than any other "unknown" explanation.

  We know one universe exists. It is therefore possible for universes to exist. We don't know how likely it is, but we do know that it's possible. We don't know that about gods. None are known to exist. There is no evidence that any have ever existed. There is no known theory that could account for their existence.

  I suppose my contestation was with your assumption of what is "known" and what is "unknown".
  
  What percentage consensus opinion would be required to know that God exists, to your way of thinking?

  Consensus isn't worth squat.

  Or would you have to "prove" God's existence clinically first?

  Evidence is necessary. Bringing God out every time we have an unanswered question wouldn't get us very far. It's been done, and God just gets smaller and smaller every time a question is answered without him.

  The latter can never be done unless we first suppose the existence of God, which the Scientific method and law of parsimony rule out the supposition of doing.

  Not at all. You can suppose (or "hypothesise") the existence of god(s), and then try to falsify the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is falsifiable, then we can begin testing it. If it is not falsifiable, it is outside the realm of attainable human knowledge, but may still be of academic interest. It is quite likely that the "myriad universes" hypothesis falls into this latter category.

  However, the former has been met to a very high percentage. So what do you call "known" and what do you call "unknown"?

  Things that are proven to exist can be called "known". Things not proven to exist can be called "unknown". This does not seem difficult to me. What am I missing?

  Initially, I am only trying to get you to logically challenge your basis for presuming that additional universes is more parsimonious than any other "unknown".

  I didn't say it was more parsimonious than any other unknown, just one particular one: namely, an omnipotent personal being who built the entire universe.

  We can get into the other discussion later, if you like.

  Bring it on
• 

  AuldSoul

  Inventing an intelligent, complex, eternal being is unnecessary when we can postulate something far less complex - for example, a small number of initial constraints that would lead inevitably to complex life

  Without first knowing how complex life emerged we cannot possibly arrive at its spontaneous emergence by any mechanism, under any number of constraints, or the inevitibility of such an emergence.

  The smallest number of initial constraints I know of is 1. Special design by an intelligence that has always existed. Can you come up with a model that requires less than or equal to one constraint?

  Things that are proven to exist can be called "known". Things not proven to exist can be called "unknown". This does not seem difficult to me. What am I missing?

  You are missing that you use the Scientific Method to prove knowns and unknowns, coupled with the human tendency to label and define the properties of that which we do not understand, and then we call it understood, proven, or known, when in fact, it is only understood withing the framework we attributed to it.

  If something exists outside the realm of Scientifically demonstrable human knowledge, does that mean it automatically exists outside attainable human knowledge? I urge you to cautiously answer that question. I don't think you are going to like that tidbit of reality.

  There are no other "known" (proven) universes, which makes their possible existence no more likely than the possible existence of anything else that is "supposed" to exist.

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
• 

  Narkissos

  AuldSoul,

  Sorry I am a bit late, but I was surprised by your first post on this thread:

  Humans are complex carbon-based life forms.

  What kind of life form is God?

  Imo, our very notion of "life," fwiw, is entirely dependent on "carbon-based life forms". Isolating the notion of "life" and extending it beyond its phenomenological area of validity, other than metaphorically, is quite a semantic leap.

  Why should the "life" of God be less anthropomorphical (or zoomorphical) than his "mind," "soul," "will," "feet," "arms," "hands," "fingers," "mouth," "nose," "ears," "eyes"?
• 

  AuldSoul

  Narkissos,

  My concept of "life" is a lot more philosophical than zoological. Perhaps my use of "life" stretches the bounds of discussion forums because of its basis.

  By what measure do we decide what is life and what is not? Movement? A windup wristwatch is alive. The tectonic plates are alive. Magma is alive. The earth itself is alive. Awareness? Amoeba are dead, unless we say that responsiveness to changing environments is awareness, in which case atoms are alive and a comatose or catatonic human is dead. Or is it simply the ability to reproduce, in which case clouds are alive?

  On this planet we have a LOT of examples of carbon-based life forms. Why does that mean all life must be carbon-based? I really am trying to understand why you feel that our concept of life is inextricably linked to the concept of carbon-based life. Robert A. Heinlein wrote a very good book that explored the concept of life from a completely different perspective. "Stranger In a Strange Land." I read it when I was 12 and it changed the way I look at life, from a perspective of there being "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy."

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
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  Pole

  Following Anaximenes, I believe we came into being through the condensation of AER - the essence of all matter.
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  jw

  I respect that answer.
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  AuldSoul

  Interesting take, Pole. Do you also subscribe to the notion of a disk earth?

  I believe that the milesic pilosophers moved too swiftly and utterly away from mythos and into logos, and they failed to recognize that there may be a point where the two converge. That the Pythagorean thinkers cleaved to logos is not surprising, it is appealing to put our capacity for thought as the paramount vehicle through which reality can be described and understood, however there remain other means by which we understand (or "know") reality than simply cognition and theoretical exercise.

  Theory helps us explain, but we each know more than any of us can put into words.

  Respectfully,
  AuldSoul
• 

  Double Edge

  What is your theory on how humans came into existence?

  An Almighty Creator.... (one far superior than the judgemental one the JWs believe in )