Naturalism and human faculties...

kelly1

pauldla wrote: »

On post #114 above, would kelly1 like to give examples of 'historical evidence'?

Sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-wuMZGXq2c (Reliability of NT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rml5Cif01g4 (ditto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bLlpiWh9-k (Historical evidence for Jesus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFI07vLJA0 (ditto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPbkn5Aq3A0 (Resurrection - Gary Habermas)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmKg62GDqF4 (Resurrection - WLC)

magicbastarder

very first link, wikipedia entry on the host:
"John Ankerberg (born December 10, 1945) is an American Christian evangelist and TV presenter."

i'm not going to bother clicking any other links.

kelly1

King Mob wrote: »

Kelly1 claimed that most scientists don't believe the universe has a beginning. The article explains how the majority of scientists believe in the big bang.

What I'm saying is that, yes, the Big Bang is the best model supported by the evidence but a lot of scientists are uncomfortable about the idea of a beginning to a universe. It stinks of God, it leaves no wriggle room for a physical explanation.

So in response to that scientists have tried unsuccessfully to come up with eternal cosmologies which is just what is predicted by the BGV theorem.

kelly1

magicbastarder wrote: »

very first link, wikipedia entry on the host:
"John Ankerberg (born December 10, 1945) is an American Christian evangelist and TV presenter."

i'm not going to bother clicking any other links.

Head in the sand! It's the John Ankerberg show, William Lane Craig is the one making the argument.

magicbastarder

ah, don't be so hard on yourself.

King Mob

kelly1 wrote: »

What I'm saying is that, yes, the Big Bang is the best model supported by the evidence but a lot of scientists are uncomfortable about the idea of a beginning to a universe. It stinks of God, it leaves no wriggle room for a physical explanation.

So in response to that scientists have tried unsuccessfully to come up with eternal cosmologies which is just what is predicted by the BGV theorem.

Evidence for this "lots of scientists" please.
The article you linked to show this mentioned 2.

RichieO

I have only been an atheist for the last 65 years and I must admit I do not have a great deal of patience with religious nuts, so I have a great respect for you guys, as it obvious that the mind that accepts religion as a belief has no interest in facts or evidence of any sort, but will go to great lengths to substantiate their beliefs... And yet always end using "divine revelation" and "you need to have faith" not to mention, "because the bible tells me so"...

I wrote this some time ago, not sure if everyone would agree with it...

You cannot be a “good Christian” without cherry picking the hell out of the bible, and changing most of it to fit in with current scientific facts and ever changing moral issues… When you cherry pick your religion, you are more or less forced to cherry pick science, the end result is you create your own reality in which you are happy to live…

smacl

King Mob wrote: »

It also contradicts the point they were making there.
Kelly1 claimed that most scientists don't believe the universe has a beginning. The article explains how the majority of scientists believe in the big bang.

I think the main point which has been made repeatedly throughout this thread is that if we don't understand something inserting 'God did it' is neither a credible or rational response. There are lots of things that we didn't understand, many we still don't, and many we may never. Throughout history, various religious types have inserted a 'God did it' in the gaps in our knowledge, and as many of those gaps have been filled with reasonable solutions, religions have furiously back-peddled to stop looking silly (or in the case of YEC and other extremists continued to push their utter nonsense and become widely considered as nutters). 'God did it' has never proven to be the right answer to any gap in our knowledge and there is no reason to suppose it ever will be. Where we don't understand something, saying 'I don't understand' remains the most reasonable option.

Blowfish

kelly1 wrote: »

What I'm saying is that, yes, the Big Bang is the best model supported by the evidence but a lot of scientists are uncomfortable about the idea of a beginning to a universe. It stinks of God, it leaves no wriggle room for a physical explanation.

I think you are confused as to what scientists consider 'the universe'. They don't use it as a short hand for everything that has ever existed in any possible sense. They use it as a shorthand to describe the current structure of spacetime, it's contents, matter, energy and laws of physics that we are currently present in.

From that perspective, the evidence does indeed point to a 'big bang' or inflationary period. The maths of general relativity points to a singularity (i.e. an infinitly small and dense point) as a beginning. The issue is though, and the reason why scientists are hesitant to call it a 'beginning', is that when you get to small enough and dense enough levels, such as close to the 'big bang', the laws of general relativity break down and the laws of quantum physics play a dominant role. Quantum physics and relativity disagree in key areas, in particular quantum physics does not point to an initial singularity that is infinitely dense and infinitely small.

To absolutely confirm confirm what happened at the 'beginning' of what we define as the universe, or to understand what came before, we'd need a much better understanding of how to consolidate the disagreements between quantum physics and general relativity, in particular in the field of gravity. In the meantime we have other theories such as string theory, loop quantum gravity and the multiverse theory.

For all intents and purposes and for the vast majority of science, the 'big bang'/inflationary period is as near as makes no difference to a 'beginning' as it's when our current mass/energy and laws were defined.

smacl

RichieO wrote: »

You cannot be a “good Christian” without cherry picking the hell out of the bible, and changing most of it to fit in with current scientific facts and ever changing moral issues… When you cherry pick your religion, you are more or less forced to cherry pick science, the end result is you create your own reality in which you are happy to live…

Only 51 years an atheist myself, so lacking your experience but I suspect we all cherry pick at science and every other field of academic endeavour to some extent regardless of whether we're religiously inclined. The rationale here is that as a race we have amassed huge amounts of knowledge and us being rather short lived with a tendency to procrastinate will only ever really study a tiny proportion of it in depth. As such, we all rely heavily on trusted sources where we have neither the time nor the inclination to delve further. Same goes for religious people with the only difference that they include religious material and the church hierarchy as a trusted source, where most atheists would not. I think of most people as good people until they prove me wrong, and have actually found most people to be good, whatever good means. This includes plenty of 'good Christians', or rather good people who are Christian. No idea how good they are at being Christian :pac:

endacl

magicbastarder wrote: »

i would guess that a lot of atheists would be quite happy to respond 'i don't know' to many of those questions.
except the one about whether quarks are self-aware.

This one would be quite happy to respond with an 'I don't care'.

dr.fuzzenstein

Well, I, errm, ah fcuk it.
Can't be arsed. While you discuss, I'll be having sex.

smacl

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Well, I, errm, ah fcuk it.
Can't be arsed. While you discuss, I'll be having sex.

Go forth and multiply so

melty melty beautiful wickedness

People are saying that determinism means that free will cannot exist.

That isn't true.

There are levels or heirarchies of cause and effect and upper levels, like human minds or computer software while it's running, control the actions of lower levels by providing context for the actions of the lower levels.

The upper levels (like human minds and software) are capable of independent thought and of independent action, despite the fact that they are the result of the actions of the lower layers in the heirarchy, and the lower levels are determinstic.

pauldla

kelly1 wrote: »

Sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-wuMZGXq2c (Reliability of NT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rml5Cif01g4 (ditto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bLlpiWh9-k (Historical evidence for Jesus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFI07vLJA0 (ditto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPbkn5Aq3A0 (Resurrection - Gary Habermas)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmKg62GDqF4 (Resurrection - WLC)

Would you care to offer an argument, or at best a synopsis? The offering you make above is little better than 'go read the Bible'.

King Mob

pauldla wrote: »

Would you care to offer an argument, or at best a synopsis? The offering you make above is little better than 'go read the Bible'.

It's the typical stuff.
Jesus was mentioned once by a historian decades after the fact.
The Bible mentions real places, therefore must be real. Much as Spider-man is real cause he lives in Queens.
The apostles could possibly lie about something or be tricked or just be gullible.

There's nothing new or shocking alas.

kelly1

King Mob wrote: »

Evidence for this "lots of scientists" please.
The article you linked to show this mentioned 2.

I'm not going to waste my time getting a list of names. The fact is that a beginning to the universe is something very difficult to explain and smacks of a creation event/creator. This is a difficult position for a scientist to be in. In response to that, physicists attempted to construct alternative cosmologies which don't involve a beginning. I see this as a glass-ceiling situation.

kelly1

smacl wrote: »

You've had pretty much every point you've made soundly rebutted and yet you continue to plough on regardless. Then you come and accuse us of intransigence? C'mon now Ted, if its shifting you're looking for, look no further than your own position.

Soundly rebutted, my ar**!

The free-will discussion concluded in an acceptance that we don't actually have free-will, it's an illusion. What a cop-out!

I've claimed that humans have the ability to use pure reason, i.e. conceiving of ideas that have nothing to do with the physical world, numbers, using pure logic etc.

This ability to reason can not be explained in physical terms. If you assume reason has a physical basis, you cannot claim that the reasoning process result in truth. In a physical model, reasoning could just as easily result in falsehood.
And you cannot appeal to evolution because evolution, as I've been reminded, has no goal and hence we have no reason to think evolution produces a brain which can produce reason/logic/truth. I don't think I can make my argument any clearer than this!

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

I'm not going to waste my time getting a list of names. The fact is that a beginning to the universe is something very difficult to explain

Yes.

and smacks of a creation event/creator

A creation event maybe, such as the big bang, but not a creator. Certainly nothing whatsoever to suggest the notion of Christian God, or any other god for that matter. Does it not ring alarm bells for you that the creation story in the bible, garden of Eden, Noah's ark etc... are no longer considered historical truths by most Christians where they were once, and so much of the religion that would have been taught as literal truth a few decades ago is to taught a metaphorical?

magicbastarder

kelly1 wrote: »

And you cannot appeal to evolution because evolution, as I've been reminded, has no goal and hence we have no reason to think evolution produces a brain which can produce reason/logic/truth.

huh?

melty melty beautiful wickedness

kelly1 wrote: »

...
The free-will discussion concluded in an acceptance that we don't actually have free-will, it's an illusion. What a cop-out!
....

My contribution has been that free will and determinism can both exist.

The lower layer of a heirarchy is deterministic (i.e a physical computer processor, or a physical brain) but the upper layers, like human minds or computer software while its running, controls and provides context for the lower layers. By doing so the upper layers control the lower layers and provide context for the actions of the lower layers.


Free will is possible in such a world.

That's how computer software works.

smacl

kelly1 wrote: »

This ability to reason can not be explained in physical terms. If you assume reason has a physical basis, you cannot claim that the reasoning process result in truth. In a physical model, reasoning could just as easily result in falsehood.

I'm guessing you haven't heard of the Turing test so, or the fact that a computer passed it for the first time in 2014. While this does not represent general artificial intelligence, it does suggest that true general artificial intelligence is not that far off, as Elon Musk is getting so concerned about..

melty melty beautiful wickedness

kelly1 wrote: »

...
This ability to reason can not be explained in physical terms. If you assume reason has a physical basis, you cannot claim that the reasoning process result in truth. In a physical model, reasoning could just as easily result in falsehood.
...

You use language somewhat confusingly, and that leads to confusion.

Reason depends on logic, and logic doesn't depend on physical universes.

Maths truths are true, in this physical universe but also outside this physical universe.

Maths proofs don't rely on physical facts, therefere maths truths transcend physical universes.


Our space is not Euclidian, therefore perfect Euclidian triangles don't exist, as they're twisted out of shape by our curved spacetime. So the only place perfect maths forms exist is in a imaginary platonic universe, where 'ideal' maths forms live.


So, maths truth, (and logic), transcend our universe and are therefore not only true in our universe but they are true in all universes.


No physical facts are mentioned in maths proofs, or in sub-branches of maths like pure computer science, therefore physical universes can change but the maths truths are still true.

melty melty beautiful wickedness

kelly1 wrote: »

...
And you cannot appeal to evolution because evolution, as I've been reminded, has no goal and hence we have no reason to think evolution produces a brain which can produce reason/logic/truth. I don't think I can make my argument any clearer than this!

How did God ensure that humans would be created in Gods image if evolution is undirected and has no goal?

God must have interfered in evolution in order to produce humans, or otherwise he sidestepped evolution and placed humans, fully formed, on the earth.

smacl

melty melty beautiful wickedness wrote: »

My contribution has been that free will and determinism can both exist.

The lower layer of a heirarchy is deterministic (i.e a physical computer processor, or a physical brain) but the upper layers, like human minds or computer software while its running, controls and provides context for the lower layers. By doing so the upper layers control the lower layers and provide context for the actions of the lower layers.


Free will is possible in such a world.

That's how computer software works.

Perhaps you need to give an example here, because I wouldn't agree with the above. The only way a computer program can behave in a truly non-deterministic way would be if it had access to truly random input. In this sense it is no more or less deterministic than anything else in our universe. Note that just because we aren't able to determine how a random number was generated, doesn't make it truly random and non-deterministic. For example, you might generate a number combining the heat of the CPU, recent mouse and keyboard input, and the least significant part of the time of day stated in microseconds. You also might not state how you derive this pseudo-random number, such that it might appear truly random for nearly any practical purpose, giving our computer program the appearance of non-deterministic behaviour. This is however just an appearance, as is our free will, albeit a much more convincing appearance.

kelly1

melty melty beautiful wickedness wrote: »

How did God ensure that humans would be created in Gods image if evolution is undirected and has no goal?

I'm not claiming that. I've said that my belief is that God creates an immortal soul in every human being and that this soul gives us faculties of reason and will.

melty melty beautiful wickedness

I thought the bible insisted than humans were made in Gods image.

Either,
God interfered in evolution to achieve that result.
God placed humans on earth fully formed.
Humans are not made in Gods image.

What happens if evolution continues and human appearance changes?



Smacl.
I always thought that determinism meant that free will couldn't exist. Now I don't.


There are layers of cause and effect. Some upper layers, like software or human minds, are almost virtual but they control the lower layers, and provide context for the lower layers. By doing so the upper layers direct the actions of the lower layers.

The upper layers are capable of original thought and of original action.

I agree that I'm not great at explaining. I got the idea from a book whose name I can't remember.

If determinism was real then how do you explain how anything happens?
Why does the world improve and change?

The changes in the world are directed by the upper layers of human minds.

I believe that human minds genuinely make choices.

kelly1

melty melty beautiful wickedness wrote: »

I thought the bible insisted than humans were made in Gods image.

Either,
God interfered in evolution to achieve that result.
God placed humans on earth fully formed.
Humans are not made in Gods image.

God is spirit, not a man with gray hair sitting in the clouds. And we humans are body and spirit. OK?

The body has evolved but the spirit cannot evolve because it's not physical!

We are conceived and born and somewhere in that period, God "places" an immortal soul within our bodies.

smacl

melty melty beautiful wickedness wrote: »

I believe that human minds genuinely make choices.

They do, but those choices are based on their current states which are at the ends of causal chains. Just because we might never be able to decode or understand those causal chains doesn't mean that they don't exist.

melty melty beautiful wickedness

smacl wrote: »

Perhaps you need to give an example here, because I wouldn't agree with the above. The only way a computer program can behave in a truly non-deterministic way would be if it had access to truly random input. In this sense it is no more or less deterministic than anything else in our universe.

I gave the examples of lower layer of physical computer processor and upper layer of software while its running, and second example of lower layer of physical human brain, and upper layer of human mind.


We could say that the computer receives non-random input from the human operator but this simply moves the problem to inside the humans head.

If the human brain is as deterministic as the computer then how does the human brain act in non-deterministic ways?


The upper layers depend on emergent properties, or on the fact that the sum is greater than the parts.

Simple rules, such as those in Conways Game of Life, can lead to unexpectedly complex behaviour. Is that behaviour emergent or is that behaviour predictable from the simple rules?


I now think that humans do genuinely make choices, despite the fact that human minds are the result of physical brains, and physical brains are deterministic. I can't explain this fully but our human mind depends on emergent properties of large complex interconnected systems, and it is the same as computer software when it's running.