Disproof of intelligent design is not proof of no intelligent design
 

I'm revising **** I wrote for my comic books, and I found this in my archived notes.

Any attempt to disprove God would most likely be centred around recreating fundamental events or ideas of God.
Take for example the creation of the Universe. If we could recreate this event and define every element of the equation it would be evidence in favour of a
hypothesis against intelligent design.

Although there is still the argument that it could have been God's will for
us to discover this method, it would be physical evidence for an argument against Divine belief or any form of divine/almighty
existence.

But there is a problem even with evidence of how the Universe began. To be in possession of this
evidence and to practically apply it to create for example "a parallel Universe" to demonstrate it's validity,
a calculation and action needs to be taken for the event to occur. It can't be proven unless it's calculated and put into action
but by putting the calculation into action it is proven that a Universe can't be created without
the intervention of intelligence. In order to justify the unbiased recreation of the creation of our Universe, there would have
had to have been an intervening force, just as you intervene to create a new Universe.

To suggest calculation is a purely Human creation is to suggest you can control what you calculate; but
proof that this is not true is the simple sum 1+1=2. Calculation cannot control the outcome of a sum.

To say the Human calculation is eternally flawed to x degree because of our involvement or limited intelligence, and that the Universe
in reality needs no calculation is to ignore the involvement as a factor and is simply an admittance of failure, creating our flaws into the new Universe.



What is your rebuttal? :finger:

Let me read your comic books and then maybe I'll indulge you with a rebuttal.
I don't expect them to prove the unfounded presumptions you make in your post but maybe they'll help me understand you better.

I haven't written or drawn them yet, this is basic notes, kid's stuff compared to what I'm writing up for my main mythology lol I'll let you know when I've got something on paper though dude, cheers

It's just a thought provoking idea.

If there is such thing as intelligent design, why do women have clitorises that are capable of orgasm? A woman's orgasm has no reproductive function.


derp

Probably cos if sex feels good people make more babies, I dunno. I'm not God I don't know the why to everything, I'm just saying it's sort of beyond the scope for anything on the Planet to "disprove" any answer to the origin of the Universe without presenting an alternate explanation, or some ****.

herp derp

Yeah because based on what we know of religious teachings, it's a big deal that a woman enjoys sex! The clitoris, where the majority of women orgasm from, is rarely stimulated in sex.

Sounds like sound logic to me...

Well, actually, I'm not talking about religious teachings because that changes depending on who's teaching, I'm talking about the core science of reality.

It's a big deal to me I'll keep that in mind!

Blah. Who works to disprove God? I know many people spend time arguing that a grand designers finger needn't have been involved in various aspects of our existence, like the birth of life, but I can't remember hearing about anyone working to disprove him .. or her.

I guess the reason is anyone would understand it is (at least at present) an unachievable goal.

Seems to me that anyone who sticks this at the end of their argument is not worth engaging.

That was actually my favorite part of the post/argument.

I think a lot of people would want to and a lot of people consider a lack of evidence as disproof, which isn't true. You'd have to rival God to disprove God, and then just relinquish the title of God if anyone starts worshipping you.

But the fact that's an unachievable goal is definitly some sort of evidence of our limitation, which just makes it a bit stupid that anyone mocks anyone else's beliefs.

I'm not saying God is a dude or dudette in the sky who magically builds things with a pair of boxing gloves, just that if you consider what I said about limitation, maybe some World religion holds the personified answers to the perfect Scientific explanation of God.

Probably right about that one if you're only taking into account the last line and not the rest of the argument man!

In any case, I think Hermione Granger best sums up the response to your initial post.

The thing to me is .. This idea that you can't prove/disprove anything is not a new idea to me. It may seem fresh to you because you are young (I guess?), but it's a fairly established principle, also in science. This line of thinking is what made Descartes propose his famous statement Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. It was the only thing he knew for sure. Everything else, even so called "proof" could be f.ex figments of his imagination without him knowing.

Science accepts this and doesn't actually work by proving things in that way. What you do in science is you define a limit to what you want to accept as true and then you stick to that. Example, if you want to say that americans are taller than japanese, then you test that and if your statistics show that the statement is likely to be true with more than 95% certainty, then you accept the statement as true. But, you are of course open to the possibility that the statement may be disproved in the future.

Another way to establish truth in science is by gaining support from other studies, observations and other tested hypotheses. The number of tested hypotheses which support the modern idea of evolution f.ex is so staggering that the theory as a whole is accepted as scientific truth. Of course, if you want to nitpick, there's always the slightest chance evolution does not exist, just like there is a chance God exists. ;)

Wingardium leviosa?

Yeah alright I would tolerate that when she was 12 but she's a woman now. What about if there are no alternative explanations for what it does?

That's solid man and I respect the scientific process, I'm not a qualified scientist, pretty much I'm just bringing armchair philosophy to the computer here.

I don't have any problem when you have some proper evidence or a real theory to crunch like atomic theory for example and I get that a lot of discoveries are trial and error and freak chance.

Because even Steven Hawkings, up until a little while ago said it's not an impossibility to attribute intelligent design to the initial cause of the Universe, I think he's revised it since then, but theories are always up to be challenged.

We can trace most observable phenomenon along a line of cause and effect but what's at the start of it all? And what about comment elements, literally atomic elements but in general the primary particles of what everything is built of; is that an actual inherent pattern or have we just grouped those together to make them easier for us to understand. And if all it is on the most basic level is chaos, then what the **** started the chaos? I realise that's jumping the gun and asking too many questions, but that's how things get started.

I'm of the belief that evolution doesn't need to be counter-idealistic to God. It's more like God caused the Universe we observe.

People have a crack at pop science for their own agendas, probably because they don't like the idea of something watching over them. We live on a Planet surrounded by satellites we're watched over anyway man, so this is like a way to tie a knot in the argument of "God doesn't exist because I don't know what God is" and start the argument as I think Descartes did of "What the **** is God?"

I don't think things are that bad on the Planet in general thesedays when it comes to discussing controversial ideas, but all the same maybe everyone just needs to chill out and ask themselves what they really know, cos if it's nothing, awesome that's where you start asking questions and observing the Universe.

What is God? I dunno, all I know is there's nothing which adaquetly explains how we got here, any answer requires faith to some degree.

If there's no alternative explanation, the most honorable and sensible thing to do is admit ignorance, not feign knowledge.

Yes, true and an important point. I think people should be critical towards what they choose to put their faith in. Myself, I want the world I believe in to be as similar as possible to the world I believe I exist in. I want to be as right as I can about stuff and I want to minimize the chance that I am wrong. Because of that, I choose to put my faith in things that can be seen, tried, tested, experimented with, etc. I am very sceptical towards things which are not proved through formal observation/testing and which I can not experience as anything other than ideas, generally other people's, like the existence of God or ghosts. Even if I did experience one of these things, I might question my sanity before questioning my idea of the world without these things.

So yeah, faith is important and I think people should "spend it" wisely ;)

On a side note, I feel like there are perfectly good explanations why we're here, even if they in rough ways do have to cover a lot of ground (explaining processes taking place over millions - even billions of years). But the start of everything is of course an elusive thing to figure out.

that was awesome.

Excellent use of Boondocks. +10 points.

I think it's great that they're voiced by black dudes. I can't believe Samuel L. Jackson almost did a whole scene from Pulp Fiction, almost word for word. That is what's awesome.

I like the way you ended that. :finger:

:laughing:

But I think that is a really good point you made.

Side note: I saw someone mentioned ghosts. Ghosts are real, people. Whether you want to accept it or not. There is no denying it in my mind. If you're perfectly sane and an intelligent person, you will not question your sanity if you were to have an experience. There's no reason to. I'm a sane person all the way up to the time of the experience, and I'm just as sane after the experience. But I guess I just lost sanity for that one moment and regained it after it happened.

I'd like to think they weren't real. But dammit, they are.

Unicorns are real guys. Whether you want to accept it or not.

That's usually how it goes. It takes firsthand experience. Although I've personally never experienced anything, I do believe in them. I don't necessarily believe that they're definitely spirits of the dead though. I do believe in the bizarre phenomena that people experience in places that have seen a lot of death, grief, or maybe just a lot of history in general. I'd like to go to Europe one day and check some places out there. Of course, it's easy to say that now in a well lit room while typing on a computer.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2402/2...2c8a1692_z.jpg

So, if we can't create another universe, does that mean that our universe was not a product of intelligent design? :laughing:


Maybe "ghosts" aren't spirits of the dead, but I don't know what else they could be.

I've had experiences, but today, I'm pretty sure they were mixed up with wishful thinking, a bias towards the ghost explanation and generally bull****ting myself. I believe had I had those experiences now that I'm a lot more critical, what I thought were ghosts would be explained as something more rational.

So I feel like today, I can understand some of the psychology behind what makes people see ghosts in the first place. Just a willingness to believe can get you far.

Give me a logical explanation for a rocking chair turning around, facing you, and then beginning to rock back and forth? No, this isn't out of a movie, it really happened. And I never wanted to believe it was a ghost. There's just no other more logical explanation. I never try or want to believe in them either, quite frankly, the thought makes me uneasy.

Well, first I'd like to know more about the situation.

Where did it happen?
Were you scared and/or thinking of ghosts before the incident happened?
Were you sleep deprived or intoxicated when it happened?
Were you alone?

edit :

Also very important; where were you and where was the chair? Were you right next to it? Could you just see it through the doorway from another room?

Wasn't thinking of ghosts at all. I was thinking about my corn dog that I was eating. I wasnt sleep deprived or intoxicated at all. I was alone. I wasnt scared before it happened, but I sure as hell was after it happened. The chair was across the room to my right, not very far, in plain sight.

Could you describe again where and when it happened and what the circumstance was? Were you just having a snack in the kitchen during midday?

edit : Did it swivel around 180 degrees from it's back facing you to it's front facing you instead? Or was it more slight?

I was sitting at the kitchen table. It was still sunny outside, around 4 or 5 PM. It was a snack, or meal, whatever you want to call it. And yes, the chair did a 180 and faced me.

Alright. To help explain the chair swivelling around 180 degrees, three explanations immediately come to mind.

1. Someone was pulling a prank on you in order to scare you and made it look like the chair turned on its own, even though it didn't
2. Something was leaning up against the chair and, as gravity took over, made the chair swivel around. Most rocking chair only touch the floor with very little surface and so may be good candidates for swivels.

The third explanation is of course that it didn't happen the way you suggest which means you are not being truthful, either purposely or unknowingly. I'm not accusing you of lying, but it's a valid explanation. You could be lying on purpose, by fabricating the entire story or by modifying it or leaving out factors you know could explain the happening in order to further your argument.

It is possible to unknowingly do this, although the circumstances are usually different. Through suggestion, one can imagine things and alter memories of experiences. I've done a bit of ghost hunting and so I know I've done this myself. Once, me and a friend locked ourselves into an abandoned WW2 bunker for a night. We had locked ourselves in with a chain and padlock and threw the key out through this breathing hole (:p:). After a night's sleep, we were up by the locked door waiting for our rescuer to come. I remember I was looking out through the breathing hole and then turned around to look back into the cave where we'd slept. I thought I saw a ghostly shape in the dark and it scared me quite a bit. I thought it had looked like a lady in a floating white dress, although why the hell would there be a lady in a floating dress in a WW2 bunker?

Of course, we'd been in the dark for a long time and when I saw the light through the breathing hole, that left white spots in my eyes. We were already a bit jumpy and thinking of ghosts and so when I turned around, my imagination turned those light spots into something a little more sinister. As I started to believe my own story that I'd seen something supernatural, my memory started altering, adding detail to the vision of the lady that I'd seen. Today, I believe there was no ghost at all and all that was a fabrication of my imagination based on an accidental light trick.

There was also a haunted house that we sometimes would visit. We'd go there in the evenings and sometimes bring tabletop RPGs to play in the attic. It had the kind of attic where you climb up some steep stairs and then there's a trapdoor at the top. When sitting up there in candle light, we heard sounds of people rummaging around downstairs which really creeped us out to the point where we put heavy stuff over the trapdoor. The more we imagined the noises were the result of hauntings, the more the sounds became like footsteps, etc. And the more convinced we were that it sounded like people, the more we altered our memories of the sounds to fit that story. Of course, it was probably just the sound of the wind in the house which is perfectly able to do stuff like close doors (it was particularly bad one stormy night after all). Or, it could even be someone else (alive I mean) visiting without knowing we were sitting scared in the attic. ;)

I wouldn't say that midday snacks in the kitchen are typical situations where people kid themselves, but perhaps it's possible. I do believe that once you've accepted your ghost explanation, you would become biased and favour evidence that points to that explanation. Your memory of the event might start to alter. F.ex you say it turned to face you. Perhaps it didn't really, it turned - but faced a direction to either side of you.

I understand what you're saying. I have had experiences like the ones you described. And after those experiences ive come to realize it was probably just a matter of imagination and being frightened.

It's true that you can fool yourself into thinking you saw something when you really didn't. But it's also true that you can second guess yourself so much that you can fool yourself into thinking that it was just your imagination, because not everyone wants to believe it was a ghost. I, along with many others I'm sure, want there to be another explanation. Therefore, you start coming up with all these other explanations, and you want to believe them enough that you fool yourself into believing them.

And no, there was nothing up against the chair. There was nobody there to prank me, I'm positive. But I can understand how you could question it. You weren't there, and like you said, I could just be full of **** for all you know. :laughing:

Right now there's this "alternative" wave in Norway which I think is pretty hideous. People here seem more inclined than ever to choose an "alternative" explanation over the rational, be it that people have healing or psychic powers, that their houses are haunted or even that guardian angels leave their feathers in people's wallets - one of many experiences with angels described by the norwegian princess Märtha Louise in her latest book (she runs an "angel school" where people learn how to get in touch with and use angels for finding keys and other mundane practicalities).

So here today, it seems to me that those explanations are often preferred. I believe the underlying reason is that people are not rational beings. We're emotional beings and alternative explanations in general appeal to your emotions rather than your rationality. I believe it takes more effort and knowledge to be a critical thinker because you have to try and turn yourself into a rational being which may include denying yourself certain knee jerk reactions and being open and humble to the idea that even you yourself can be fooled.

I just don't think that the idea of ghosts is that irrational.

It persistently and consistently fails to be proven by science and I'd rather be guided by scientific research when it comes to what I want to believe in than anecdotes by people I don't know or trust.

edit :

As for irrationality, scientific backing to explain the existence of ghosts is lacking and to accept their existence would be very irrational according to the principles of occam's razor. The reason is, explaining ghosts would also mean you would have to accept that there's existence of the "self"/"spirit" after death, that dead spirits are able to manipulate objects, perhaps possess the living and a whole range of other ideas that may be wrong - just so that you can acommodate the idea that ghosts are real. Not believing in them requires no such feats of wild imagination as the world without ghosts is (increasingly) well documented.

It's not. Apparitions can be a number of things, not just the classical wandering spirit.

As for science - 500 years back science was convinced that the earth was flat and the center of the Universe. What do you think science will evolve to if humans are around another 500?

Can't keep a closed mind to what you see and experience. But you as well can't be set in a belief 'entirely'. The only things that are irrational spiritually speaking are the planets major religions, but that's because they're philosophically moronic and any intelligent human can pick them apart.

These were assumptions that existed pre-science when they were not rationally deducted from any work using scientific methods. Galileo Galilei, the most famous scientist from the scientific revolution, is known for challenging this misconception and he famously got into trouble with the church for it and was forced to renounce his research.

The geocentric hypothesis had proponents arguing for it in science, as is healthy for any scientific debate, but didn't come from science and was eventually disproven. So, as an example of 500 year old science, I don't think it's a good one.

I don't know all the details to how Galileo Galilei "got into trouble with the church." But the idea or the proposition or theory that the Earth orbits around the Sun goes back to Capernicous ("De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium") and even further back to the ancient Greeks - namely Aristarchus of Samos.

I think it is a good example. Both the Geocentric system & Flat Earth Theory are examples how learned men of their time (whether some would considers them being a part of science or pre-science) can adopt an erroneous ideas of the universe. It's easy to point the finger and say "hey that's pre-science" but not all pre-science is bad either. You have to admit modern science relies heavily on pre-science knowledge (or what we now call "science") from ancient times. Now it is easy to see how the geocentric hypothesis is wrong and to say that it didn't come from science - but hindsight is 20/20.

(And in some ways we are back to square one with the newer sciences, with Einstein's theory of Relativity the Earth is relatively the center of the universe from our perspective here on Earth and the Flat Earth theory hasn't really left us it had an extreme make-over and now appears as the theory of Holographic Universe... and that is the beauty of science... old theories don't get thrown out - they just get recycled into new ones. :) )

ahhhh who cares?

"reality is consensual hallucination" - Bono

You can't disprove God but you can easily debunk claims attempting to prove God.
It pretty much comes down to the idea of burden of proof... with that in mind there's absolutely no point in entertaining a discussion about God's existence until theists can present a solid scientific theory.