Correction. If someone said to me, "at the fundamental level, the universe is completely random. Nothingness is random and there is no physics in the completely empty spacetime. A physics arises because universes with physics are a lower energy state than universes that have no physics", I would be almost 100% convinced. There would still be lots of questions, but this would probably put a nail in the coffin for a creator for me. Another possibility is that physics could spontaneously evolve. This would be less convincing, but also possible.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726485.700-quantum-randomness-may-not-be-random.html Claims of random activity is just another way scientists express their ignorance of the nature of programming.
ok, my head is about to explode. I'll put it into plan language: Directly reconcile Dawkin's statements. Do each follow logically? If not, what needs to be changed so they would? Further, If his first statement is plausible (life on earth may have been "designed"), wouldn't that require that life on Earth DID NOT follow some "darwinian process" (dirt==> every species) Also, Why Do You Insist On NOT directly responding to Dawkins? Fear? ("facetious statements"... THEY ARE HIS.) Also, what evidence do you rely on to declare me a creationist, given that I'm committed to only agreeing with Dawkins notion that life may have been designed. How does my agreeing with the world's most reknown atheist make me a creationist.
Who says it is software? Who says they were written? You are projecting programming onto something that shows no signs of being programmed. Because neutrons can combine with protons does not mean or necessitate they have to be programmed to do that. Real physics are not anything you or anyone wants them to be. They are what is observed the universe proves them to be. Why not? It is known how virtual particles exist, so once it is known why, like it is known how and why lightening comes into existence, will you look for some other gap in knowledge to plant your incredulity /so therefore God/ into?
Didn't the thread intend things quite the other way around? Good. But perhaps you should start out that way in future to avoid further potential skull damage. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself. I did. You had to read what I said and then query the parts you thought were wrong . We could have examined how our respective viewpoints and Dawkin's stand scrutiny. Right , so you want explained how the statements you've attributed to Dawkin's (I have not checked they are his, or that he made them in that order) are reconciled and are compatible with each other. Dawkins proposed that, indeed, life on earth may have been designed. I take it you intend that to be read as -intelligently designed- to correspond with the next statement. Dawkins declared that the designers would thmselves have been a result of some "darwinian process". So? Are you telling me you can't carry the implications through? If life on earth is a lab experiment of some far off alien civilization which is what the Intelligent Design community bandy about, then life as we know it Evolved there , so sooner or later , the so called intelligent designers would have had to have Evolved , just like life on earth did. To me it is clear the statement is suggesting without Evolution there is infinite regress whatever other route you go. Dawkins declared that Darwian evolution (dirt ==> every species) is an established fact, as much as any established fact in science. (perhaps as established as global warming) Already answered. It is an established fact as gravity is. Global warming is not in that category. By the way, Darwinian Evolution does not say "dirt ==> every species". That is the kind of thing a creationist says. Further, If his first statement is plausible (life on earth may have been "designed"), wouldn't that require that life on Earth DID NOT follow some "darwinian process" (dirt==> every species) No it wouldn't require that at all. That is the kind of mixed up idea a creationist would suggest. The Darwinian process is shoved back to the intelligent designers or to the intelligent designers that designed them, until Evolution. Otherwise it is nothing but intelligent designers 'all the way down'. Also, what evidence do you rely on to declare me a creationist, given that I'm committed to only agreeing with Dawkins notion that life may have been designed. How does my agreeing with the world's most reknown atheist make me a creationist. I have not declared you are a creationist. I have not said "you are a creationist" . You talk like one. âDesignedâ is not âintelligently designedâ. I hope that helps clarify. ps. This whole idea that for instance, a drop of water is not a designer and does not design the ripples it makes in a pond, is quite obviously ludicrous. You cannot turn design into intelligent design just by assuming everything has to be ID'd when there is no evidence it does, and there is such clear straightforward overwhelming evidence produced by a single drop of water, that it doesn't.
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I'm done. The subject of this thread is "How to make an atheists head explode", and I've at least exploded the myth that Dawkins has the slightest bit of credibility. 1. "Life On Earth May Have Been Designed" 2. "The Designers of Life on Earth would have been the result of some 'Darwinian Process'" 3. "Darwinian evolution is an established fact" Any imbecile would conclude these statements are in direct conflict with one another. (Provided they weren't bound by their rigid set of beliefs... oh, irony, got to love it) The argument that a "a ripple in a puddle looks designed" is simply not worth responding to.
I assume too much. When I say the same thing to my physics/mathematician friends, they understand exactly what I mean. The point is sort of this. We can take the equations of motion etc for say a proton. We can then model those on a computer and to extraordinary accuracy tell what happens. Therefore, and perhaps incorrectly, we assume that the proton is doing some sort of "computation" itself to know where it should be, how much it should bend in the presence of a charge, etc. Is it actually "computing" differential equations to know what to do next? Most probably not. But to take the small leap that the proton is running "some sort" of algorithm (we call them laws of physics, but if computers were invented before physics, we might call them algorithms) when it is interacting with the electromagnetic field is probably ok. Hence, my assertion. Again, I was too mysterious in what I meant. What I mean is that once you introduce physics into any system, you can hardly call that system, "nothing". To me that is like saying, well that guy is completely mad, so let's try to reason with him. And yet once again, my meaning is not clear. What I mean is this. These guys start with the assumption that there is nothing. Next thing you know, there are virtual particles, not quite nothing, but probably as close as you can get. Ok, fine, I can bend a little. But wait, there is more. Not only are these virtual particles, these are identical particles as their long lived versions, except they live for an imaginably small amount of time. This is where I lose it. This is no longer "nothing". [There are strong philosophical arguments that one cannot comprehend nothing, since the very act of thinking about nothing no longer makes it nothing. Think about it] My point is that I can accept that the universe can spring into existence through a quantum fluctuation from "nothing." Just leave the quotes around nothing, and I am ok. To me, this is no explanation. It is a pull the rabbit out of the hat and hope they don't notice that "nothing" is not nothing. It is imperative to understand that to me, the universe is some sort of computer, one closer to the Holodeck on Star Trek NG than our current computers, and probably 100 quintillion times more complicated than that. A universe without some sort of designer ("GOD"), it is as if, you went and bought an Apple Macintosh (analogously, the universe) and miraculously MacOS X (analogously , the laws of physics) spontaneously without any programmer writting the operating system, emerged on its hard disk and now you can run programs on the computer. Without the operating system, the computer may as well be a paper weight.
You're done alright and if you've exploded a myth, it happened in your own head dude. You're going to damage yourself like that. I always thought you had no point. and no argument to defend. You've made up a series of questionable statements which even if taken as what you describe "Givens" , do not hold up any sort of reasoning for intelligent design or against Evolution. It is clear you cannot get over the problem for your nonsensical idea that design must and can only be intelligent. And the utter irony!! A ripple in a puddle doesn't look designed? So how exactly did it get its design? Did your "Intelligent Designer" not design its design? Another Fail.