Does God exist? (10 Viewers)

[michael1990]

Told you its a topic that can keep going on.

 

[Slidey]

I am also confused by your mention of Evolution. I fail to see how evolution could be applicable to this at all since it relies on natural selection - that implies that something must have been living in the first place.

I'm just skimming through this thread, so there's probably other things I could reply to, but I don't like posting in this thread anymore. Still, this really caught my eye.

Who on earth told you that natural selection requires life?

If it's a presumption you're making on your own, I suggest you dump it immediately, as it is not correct.

Whether or not you call it natural selection, optimisation for fitter forms is a ubiquitous process anywhere you see stable equilibira interacting; from chemical solutions to erosion due to weathering.

Life is irrelevant in the question of how life arose; it's well known that the classical definition of life isn't necessary for life to form/exist; e.g. evolution of bacteria to viruses (living to 'non-living'), the 'evolution' of prions (self-replicating proteins), various self-replicating chemicals (especially nucleic acid polymers like DNA, RNA, TNA, etc).

Obviously the DNA molecule that is surrounded by a membrane of oil (which is what a cell is) is going to be fitter than one that isn't; it's less likely to be torn apart. However it worked, it's not hard to see how various precursors to cells also underwent 'natural selection'.

It's to do with how equillibria interacting forms a complex system where order is favoured among the chaos; the origin of life is but one of many examples of equillibrium systems (i.e. systems based on greedy rules competing) producing order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

 

[Slidey]

Could you please share some of the theories that currently seek to explain where information in DNA came from that exclude intelligence? The ideas that I have seen put forward so far haven't been substantial enough for me to switch beliefs.

Let's talk about RNA since it's simpler and came before DNA.

It's rather simple: RNA can exist; that much is obvious.

Further, nature can spontaneously create RNA that can self-replicate; that has also been shown to be true.

With that in mind it's pretty foolish to think that RNA is the product of an intelligence; it's far more likely that nature spontaneously created it and it got caught up in an oil membrane along with a few other key components, or it formed inside the soup of a membrane that had already formed. Considering it's a fairly 'easy' chemical reaction, and that it had about a billion years to occur in over and over again all around the earth, I don't think resorting to an intelligent designer is called for.

The origin of life is a question not of the ability of RNA to spontaneously form or replicate, but of how all the components of a cell joined together to form the first proto-cell; something that could produce something of at least equal complexity to itself.

What's been proven possible:
1) spontaneous formation of lipid/oil membranes in various different, often unrelated ways.
2) spontaneous formation of nucleic acid polymers
3) spontaneous self-replication of nucleic acid polymers
4) various other things less exciting but necessary
5) for all the different components of life to be present together in one place and for long enough not to degrade too quickly (one theory I like is the rock sheet one - some rock formations form oily organic sheets between their layers; they're safe, protected and have all the necessary ingredients for life)

In reality it's probably a mix of genes-first and metabolism-first; they're not mutually exclusive and one without the other is harder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-sulfur_world_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis

 

[KFunk]

The reason for suggesting intelligence stems from the analogy that all information we currently see stems from intelligence - hence why would not this follow also for nature?

There's a major risk for vagueness here --> what is your definition of information?

(Issue: if you have a signal, you generally need an interpreter or assigner of meaning. Perhaps things only constitute information in so far as we attribute meaning to them, rather than possessing intrinsic meaning. Also, there are a number of definitions of 'information' depending on context of use so you want to be really careful that you don't equivocate between the everyday useage and some technical version - hence the vagueness issue.)

 

[BradCube]

What I am proposing is that we do not know a lot of things, yet in most circumstances I'm willing to (for all practical purpose) dismiss supernatural explanations. I wouldn't say I'm agnostic about pixies shooting magic arrows into people's butts to make them fall in love, nor will I say I am about some intelligent being creating the universe.

I can't see how comparing the belief in fairies can logically be compared to a God. Dismissing the idea of fairies leaves no where near the problems that dismissing a God does. The non belief in God leaves a large amount of unanswerable questions alone in ignorance. I am just not comfortable doing this. Now I'm not promoting a God of gaps theory that says research into an area should stop since we can just place God there. Certainly we will always continue in research wanting to know how God did something (or proving how it wasn't God that did something).

Currently though, with lack of better naturalistic explanations, I am forced to choose a cause that is not naturalistic - that of a supernatural God.

I would certainly prefer this than putting faith in science that a naturalistic explanation will one day be found (regardless of whether it ever is or not). Science of Gaps vs God of Gaps it comes down to I suppose.

It seems to me that the non-existence of supernatural entities is about the truest thing we CAN know. If the supernatural is something we're going to reasonably consider in our reality, then that calls into question any other truths we may claim to know.

Truest things we can know empirically maybe. I don't know that it follows that it is the truest thing we can know full stop though.

a) What created the creator? Your only way out of this is to say that the creator already existed, which is about as good as saying the universe has just always existed.

b) I actually have examples of 'information adding in nature':

a) Although I may be being pedantic here I was not merely stating that the creator already existed, I was saying there was not a beginning to his existance. Thats a pretty big difference because the most commonly accepted theories and evidences regarding the universe indicate that it did have a beginning. If you believe otherwise, than please provide reasons.

b) I don't know how the argument is self defeating. Eventually we come back to a point where original information is created - ie the creation of of life. What then causes this? Even if humans do add information because of the itelligence already in them, this as a counter seems to be quite circular. ie humans add information through intelligence because information already existed. I don't follow how this works. Humans create information because they can reason and gain understanding and they can then express this.

I don't put my faith in some multi-verse theory (beyond day to day deductions, I really have little faith)... As I've said, I just believe I don't have an answer. It does seem to at least be somewhat supported by some research results though.

So you must maintain then that you are an agnostic and not an athiest? Which research results regarding multi verse theories have been supported by research?

 

[KFunk]

b) I don't know how the argument is self defeating. Eventually we come back to a point where original information is created - ie the creation of of life. What then causes this? Even if humans do add information because of the itelligence already in them, this as a counter seems to be quite circular. ie humans add information through intelligence because information already existed. I don't follow how this works. Humans create information because they can reason and gain understanding and they can then express this.

Once again, I'd be interested to know what definition of 'information' you are using because I suspect that one of the following two things will be the case:

(1) that you are equivocating between different definitions of information, in particular between a colloquial and a technical form, or

(2) that in assigning the status of 'information' to something you do so from a position which presupposes an intelligent interpreter, such as would make it a relational status (versus an intrinsic one)

 

[BradCube]

I'm just skimming through this thread, so there's probably other things I could reply to, but I don't like posting in this thread anymore.

Why is that Slidey?

Who on earth told you that natural selection requires life?

That was my assumption and shortcoming. As far as I understood, I was under the impression that evolution worked on the basis that random mutation allowed a certain characteristic to become favorable and hence it is naturally selected. So in this way, I suppose that one mutation needn't be limited to the entire lifetime of an organism. I find trouble with this though in that it does not leave room for progression of a species since the next generation could mutate multiple times in it's life and give up the very characteristic that made it's previous kind survive in the first place.

Unfortunately much of what you said in the rest of your reply is so far beyond my education I'm having trouble trying to understand what you are saying.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

I can't see how comparing the belief in fairies can logically be compared to a God.

Well let's see if you can show me how...

The non belief in God leaves a large amount of unanswerable questions alone in ignorance.

There's something 'special' about love aparently right? Then perhaps that 'specialness' comes about through these magic pixies. I mean there are A LOT of 'unanswerable' questions out there. To be honest though, the questions still are answerable without a God... just they're more an alteria hypothesis than any solid denunciation of fact.

Even if the only options were "I don't know" or "Supernatural Explanation of some Type" I don't think it makes the supernatural explanation any more likely to be true.

Currently though, with lack of better naturalistic explanations, I am forced to choose a cause that is not naturalistic - that of a supernatural God.

There are PLENTY of naturalistic explanations, they just don't explain EVERYTHING. You want a theory of EVERYTHING, you're NEVER going to get that.

I would certainly prefer this than putting faith in science that a naturalistic explanation will one day be found (regardless of whether it ever is or not). Science of Gaps vs God of Gaps it comes down to I suppose.

a) Science has a record of delivering.
b) I don't put faith in the idea that science will, I just say I don't know... science has answered questions I haven't had answers for in the past... so maybe it will again in the future.

Truest things we can know empirically maybe. I don't know that it follows that it is the truest thing we can know full stop though.

It's truer than that we are existing on the planet earth. Truer than that the sun goes around the earth. Truer than gravity.

a) Although I may be being pedantic here I was not merely stating that the creator already existed, I was saying there was not a beginning to his existance. Thats a pretty big difference because the most commonly accepted theories and evidences regarding the universe indicate that it did have a beginning. If you believe otherwise, than please provide reasons.

You haven't understood me at all. The current evidences are for a beginning of OUR OWN UNIVERSE, this doesn't speak at all as to the nature of any meta-reality from which this known universe of ours may have spawned.

b) I don't know how the argument is self defeating. Eventually we come back to a point where original information is created - ie the creation of of life. What then causes this? Even if humans do add information because of the itelligence already in them, this as a counter seems to be quite circular. ie humans add information through intelligence because information already existed. I don't follow how this works. Humans create information because they can reason and gain understanding and they can then express this.

What I'm saying is that you're saying humans 'information add' right? Well so do stars when they create planets/new materials through fusion. Now when I say this, you'll probably say "yea, but what makes the star do that".

I can just as easily do the same with a human being.

So you must maintain then that you are an agnostic and not an athiest?

I'm as atheist about God as I am of the concept that I'm really a woman hooked up to the matrix... when you ask me whether I'm a man or a woman though, I'll tell you I am a man.

Which research results regarding multi verse theories have been supported by research?

MW interpretation of Quantum Physics

 

[BradCube]

Nope.

Reasons?

 

[KFunk]

Unfortunately much of what you said in the rest of your reply is so far beyond my education I'm having trouble trying to understand what you are saying.

The core of it isn't too complicated. Basically certain chemical arrangements are more stable than others (say because they are less prone to random decay than other, unstable arrangments). Such stable arrangements will tend to appear over time. Furthermore, some molecules may be able to self-replicate - effectively allowing certain molecules to propogate themselves (consider prions, such as cause 'mad cow disease', for an interesting example of this). The idea is then that the basic constituents of life a) may be generated spontaneously in the right electrochemical environment and b) have some advantage in terms of stability either individually or collectively (self replication of some molecules may contribute ot this advantage).

The situation is much the same as competition amongst organisms. There is a population of things (molecules) which vary in fitness with respect to the environment, which can replicate (this only applies to specific types of molecules of course) and which may suffer random 'mutations' (i.e. chemical alterations in this case, say through interactions with reactive oxygen species). This isn't really my field (so any pros correct what I've said above), but I think this is the general gist.

 

[BradCube]

The how do these elements come together to be stable enough? Ever asked that question?

Who or what decides how stable an atom is?

I think this was one of the more idiotic arguments.

I think you may be mis-understanding his point here. My thought was not that he was asking why an atom is stable, but rather why are there the laws that would allow an atom to be stable. I suppose it's the same as gravity and any other natural laws that seem to be perfectly "tuned" to allow life in our universe.

 

[BradCube]

I <3 you Kfunk

So essentially what we are proposing is that life is the result of random unguided chemical reactions?

Kfunk I also think it is very critical that we have a definition of what I mean when I write "information". I don't even really know how to describe this elegantly but I suppose I would say that information is data which has been given order and meaning by something external to it. ie a humans interaction with language is information since it is essentially a set of patterns (which in themselves mean nothing) that have been given order and meaning by intelligence. This is the same as a painting. In itself those different colored paints have no inherent meaning, but when placed in a pattern by something to external to the paints (ie a human with intelligence) they are giving order and meaning.

I find myself drawn to the position that the language of DNA similarly reflects this same sort of information. Mainly because we know that the language has a meaning (since it allows a living cell to function as it should) and it follows that it cannot be random. We also know that this language is not a result of chemical attraction since it does not form a repeating pattern (ie ABABABA).

I may be overstepping the mark on the last position, so please someone correct me (simplistically if possible ) if I am erroneous.

 

[Kwayera]

I think you may be mis-understanding his point here. My thought was not that he was asking why an atom is stable, but rather why are there the laws that would allow an atom to be stable. I suppose it's the same as gravity and any other natural laws that seem to be perfectly "tuned" to allow life in our universe.

Perfectly "tuned"? How so? The laws are the laws; tuned any other way, and the universe wouldn't exist. It is arrogant to assume that the laws were "tweaked" somehow to be beneficial for life; they just ARE.

 

[Slidey]

Why is that Slidey?

I'm over God debates, that's all. I had my little existential crisis in year 10.

That was my assumption and shortcoming. As far as I understood, I was under the impression that evolution worked on the basis that random mutation allowed a certain characteristic to become favorable and hence it is naturally selected. So in this way, I suppose that one mutation needn't be limited to the entire lifetime of an organism. I find trouble with this though in that it does not leave room for progression of a species since the next generation could mutate multiple times in it's life and give up the very characteristic that made it's previous kind survive in the first place.

Random mutation is only part of evolution. Gene transfer is the other major part, and it has two forms: cross-over and horizontal transfer. Natural selection is not evolution; it is one of the patterns that emerge from evolution. Another is allelic drift, which often favours unfit mutations due to the low population size. Allelic drift is not rare, either.

In terms of bacteria and earlier 'life', randomness and horizontal transfer (basically accidental uptake of random snippets of RNA) are most prominent. In terms of early life it's likely both of these played a part. In the context of proto-cells however, 'random mutation' is more appropriately thought of as 'random chemical reactions' (of which random mutation is one specific one relating to nucleic acids).

The environment of both today and 3.5 billion years ago is inherently both very complex and very stochastic; randomness was always in the equation, existence of genetic material or not. Indeed it is the primary force behind the formulation of any type of proto-cell.

Unfortunately much of what you said in the rest of your reply is so far beyond my education I'm having trouble trying to understand what you are saying.

As long as you read it I'm be happy; understanding is secondary (exposure breeds familiarity).

 

[SashatheMan]

Perfectly "tuned"? How so? The laws are the laws; tuned any other way, and the universe wouldn't exist. It is arrogant to assume that the laws were "tweaked" somehow to be beneficial for life; they just ARE.

He does have a point about various constants being tuned.
If these constants are tweaked mathematically, in some cases by as little as 30's decimal point, various outcomes turn out that for example make gravity too weak or to strong and result in no proper formations of starts, galaxies etc.

I even remember Richard Dawkings being asked what's the most difficult concept do you grapple with in regards to evidence of God, and he mentioned the universal constants.

However using that to come to a conclusion of a personal God is a non-sequitur

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

But how could we exist in a world which wasn't so "tuned" anyway? The fact that we exists presupposes that we must live in conditions that accomodate our existence.

 

[KFunk]

That seems to be roughly in line with my second suspicion - i.e. that your use of 'information' seems to refer back to intelligent interpreters, making it a problematic relational concept. Naturally I won't hold you to this one definition (you are free to revise it!) but I figure that I will point out some potential problems.

"Information is data which has been given order and meaning by something external to it."

Firstly, a similar question arises "what is data?" (if not something akin to information?) but I will ignore this. More important is where you say "... has been given order and meaning by something external to it". You then give the clarifying of language where the individual words (signs) are imbued with meaning by virtue of an appropriate relation between us and the sign in quesiton. In other words, these signs have no intrinsic meaning but can be deemed meaningful in the right relational context (say, in a context in which some intelligent beings attribute a certain meaning/proposition/command/whatever to the particular sign).

Note, then, that this seems to invalidate your argument from analogy, because we don't need to tell a fancy story about how genes came to contain information of this sort. Your account shows that they contain information provided they bear the right sort of relation to some external intelligent being. But then it appears that they bear this relation to us! This seems to be the case because we have learnt to interpret DNA in terms of amino acid sequences and proteins (and everything else in between) and thus view these corresponding physical structures as somehow being abstractly coded for by DNA. Certainly, DNA does 'code' for proteins in the right circumstances (with the appropriate cellular machinery, etc.), in so far as it produces them, but it does not seem to intrinsically represent anything like haemoglobin or sodium ion channels. If we can thus identify that (a) this type of information is not intrinsic to DNA, (b) information is generated through an appropriate kind of relation and (c) DNA bears this relation to humans, then it is not necessary to invoke the existence of god in order to explain why DNA contains information / is meaningful.

 

[SashatheMan]

But how could we exist in a world which wasn't so "tuned" anyway? The fact that we exists presupposes that we must live in conditions that accomodate our existence.

Well if the hypothesis of infinate multiverses does show it self to be true, then, the fine-tuning certainly does lose it's unique appeal.
But for now, accepting the idea of a multi-verse without substantial evidence to back it up is no better then faith

 

[KFunk]

But how could we exist in a world which wasn't so "tuned" anyway? The fact that we exists presupposes that we must live in conditions that accomodate our existence.

Of course, our existence makes our existence possible (to speak in tautology). The big question, however, is why a universe came to exist which can support our existence. If all alternatives are instantiated (as in the MW interpretation?) then it is easy to say why our universe appeared ---> because all possible ones appear! On the other hand, if our best theory suggested that there is nothing beyond our universe and that this is the only variation of the universal constants that has ever occured (assuming, hypothetically, that other arrangements are at least possible, in a broad sense. If only this arrangement were possible then the issue would disappear) - such that they just happened to alight on the right values - then I would find this a bit of a mind-fuck. I wouldn't feel compelled to turn to the god hypothesis, but it nonetheless has a distinct existential 'trippiness' about it.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Well if the hypothesis of infinate multiverses does show it self to be true, then, the fine-tuning certainly does lose it's unique appeal.

Even if our universe is unique, how is the 'fine tuning' anything of a surprise? To me our universe exists and it has Y properties and needs Y properties to exist, if it did not then it simply would not be our universe.

It's like being surprised at (though I'm aware the tuning is finer... I hope you get my basic point) the existence of a triangle because if you added just 1 more side to it it would no longer be so.