Re: Exploring Origins
Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 10:36 am
i love how gleefully he siezes on these definition "GOTCHA" s.
The clockwork hypothesis was retired long ago, Robert. Either you know it and wont accept it as retired or you are attempting to defend Laplace where no defense of him is required.The point of citing Laplace, who was responsible for the clockwork universe theory of universal determinism, is to indicate that we cannot really have a coherent ethical theory that is not based on sound epistemology, ie that if we base our views on convenient imagination about divine entities then as Voltaire said, our belief in absurdities will permit atrocities. Ant's view of Laplace as an idiot is based on ant's bullying of anyone who questions ant's irrational supernatural fantasies.
.The hypothesis is that a unified intelligent entity created our universe
I'm lost here, Robert. I thought you first claimed this was a scientific hypothesis. Now you seem to be saying it's not.No, that is why it is probably untrue. It is unethical to promote belief in ideas that appear to conflict with all observation.
Okay, I'm ignorant. I knew that before I met you here.Again, ant displays ignorance of simple scientific logic. It is a basic axiom of science that if something did happen then it was possible. Impossible things don't happen. Only possible things occur.
,Our solar system contains the necessary conditions for the evolution of life. Therefore, since intelligence exists within our solar system, the alternatives are that intelligence evolved here
Meh.., okay.Since it was possible, it is meaningful in some sense to suggest the purpose of the earth was to become intelligent, in Aristotle's sense of a final cause. Even though every acorn does not become an oak tree, that is the telos it contains within it. So too, intelligence is the flowering glory of our planet. Let us hope intelligent life is not a beautiful swan song and prelude to extinction.
What evidence indicated information spontaneously generated?My point is, we don't need to address abiogenesis in order to conclude that information spontaneously generates.
I do not need to deny anything here.Tell me ant, are you denying that abiogenesis happened?
Actually the conditions needed relate directly to the environment that life began in.The conditions are all there for abiogenesis to have happened.
Do the math. The zettabyte figure was for all the DNA info in every cell.What evidence indicated information spontaneously generated?
Semantic information did not arise until much later, around the time consciousness arose. When we speak of genes as containing structural information, that type of information is causal information.Semantical information the biggest question here. How such information was able to continue the necessary sequences to develop into "life" is itself a deep mystery.
I gave you my reasoning above. We know life exists, which is powerful evidence. We know that existing explanations for countless phenomena are all naturalistic. Why should the obvious conclusion not be drawn from those premises? Please enlighten me.And it's dumb of you to push for any conclusion here.
No, the clockwork idea has not been retired. Quantum physics shows that science cannot predict the future, but not that any acausal events are possible, which would be needed to refute determinism.ant wrote:The clockwork hypothesis was retired long ago, Robert. Either you know it and wont accept it as retired or you are attempting to defend Laplace where no defense of him is required.
Thank you for the clarification – non-idiot scientist says idiotic things. Okay. The supposedly “idiotic” comment by Laplace was that astronomy had no need of God. So in antworld science does need God, and it is idiotic to say science doesn’t need to fantasise about a creator being. Non-idiot science would need God hypothesis, following ant logic. Except no science ever does make any use of supernatural imaginary beings, so ant is engaging again in what we might rudely call posterior analytics.ant wrote:I never said Laplace was an idiot. I said that particular statement attributed to Laplace is idiotic.
There are good hypotheses and bad ones. God is a bad one. Looking at Wikipedia, we find a scientific hypothesis is a suggested solution based on the evidence. Considering God, we have the evidence of the Bible, which claims that God split seas, inflicted plagues, brought people back from the dead, rained manna from heaven, and did all manner of other impossible things before breakfast to intervene miraculously on our planet.ant wrote: for something to be a SCIENTIFIC hypothesis, it must be testable, observable to a minimal degree at the very least, and subject to falsifiability. GOD is not able to be tested in ANY fashion. Hence, we could not even begin to work at our "God Hypothesis,".
The God hypothesis should simply be held to the same standards as any other claim. If there is no evidence or reason to believe it, park it as irrelevant, especially if there is a better explanation (psychological projection). My Masters Degree was on the philosophy of science, which is why I am interested in how observation intersects with metaphysics in psychology.ant wrote: you are are a very inconsistent, double standard scientist, Robert. You are a scientist, are you not?
God ranks with epicycles, the idea that planets do elaborate pirouettes. Both are scientific hypotheses, but both are obsolete, since modern knowledge is not helped by considering them as true.ant wrote: I thought you first claimed [God] was a scientific hypothesis. Now you seem to be saying it's not.
Going back to your favourite idiot Laplace, he argued that celestial mechanics assumes the universe is deterministic, so by definition anything that does not occur cannot occur. This is the model from Spinoza of God as Nature. We simply cannot on principle know if it is true or not, since we don’t know if our free decisions are physically caused.ant wrote: This is an interesting comment: Only possible things occur. Many possible things do NOT occur as well, Robert. Did that make them impossible as a result?
No, it was an answer to your question ’The data indicates that potential for intelligence existed within the disk?” As you point out, your question is answered by a truism. That says more about your question than about the answer to it.ant wrote: Robert wrote:,Our solar system contains the necessary conditions for the evolution of life. Therefore, since intelligence exists within our solar system, the alternatives are that intelligence evolved here
That is a silly truism. It is devoid of any useful content. It was a waste of space.
Flann, did you read my post on how evolution is an explanation for how information spontaneously generates?This to me,if correct, is the problem with the whole neo-Darwinian approach to things.Everything is goalless yet the results are spectacular. D.N.A. was too complex so we got the R.N.A.world,it's too complex so we get the proto-cell.