|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:59 am
This is a reply to a thread on intelligent design I made. It's possibly one of the best posts I have ever made.
It is, of course, entirely possible that everything could have been created by some sort of intelligent designer. After all, we can all see the rate of progression in the complexity of virtual worlds. These are created by intelligent human beings. It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that in hundreds of years (or maybe even less?) a virtual world could be made as complex as our own.
There are two important points to note, however. Firstly, it is impossible to know who made something. Ultimately, we have only our memories to tell us about the past, and of course, we have no independent way of checking that our memories are accurate. (We can check if our memories are self consistent, but that doesn't mean that they reflect something which actually happened. Even if we check our memories by comparing them to something in the present, in fact as soon as we check our memory, the thing we used to confirm our memory has moved into the past and itself becomes only another memory.)
Secondly, there needs to be a decent amount of evidence to suggest that there was an intelligent designer. The truth is that there isn't. If there were, then anyone who looks at the natural world and is open minded would agree, but this simply does not happen. Open-minded scientists doing just that do not agree, on the whole, with intelligent design.
Even if there were an intelligent designer, then the designer would be subject to its own set of natural laws. Therefore, ultimately, everything that exists does so as the result of inviolate natural laws, making the concept of an intelligent designer irrelevant.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:34 am
Yeah, that's a pretty good reply.
In your first point (second paragraph) you refer to our own memories, but I don't think that's directly relevent, because we wouldn't even have memories of creation.
In response to your second point, I'd like to point out that most creationists don't really care about rational conclusions and logic, because their beliefs are derived from faith.
The point made in the last paragraph is good, but in order for something to be designed, it doesn't have to be a completely uncaused and new design which originates from the designer, the designer must simply be the thing which directly causes the design...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 6:15 am
Nice post Giga. Shadroth In response to your second point, I'd like to point out that most creationists don't really care about rational conclusions and logic, because their beliefs are derived from faith. I'd alter that to blind belief, rather than simple faith. They don't want to acknowledge rational arguments or logic, because either they know they beliefs to be unsupportable, or are too ignorant to make a proper choice. I've met (online) plenty of craetionist whoo could barly string words into a sentance, let alone create a simple, lucid, argument against evolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:49 am
The thing is, for the purposes of argument, everything you think about it a memory. If you see 'God did it' burned in fifty foot high flaming letters on the dark side of the moon, as soon as you start thinking about it, you are thinking about the memory of what you saw; not the thing itself.
I can tell you for a fact that I've recently hallucinated and seen the ceiling look like wet paint being blown by a hairdryer. That didn't actually happen. This confirms that memories can be false.
So, you can never prove the existence of a creator, logically, since everything that the creator makes you can only reference in your memory; and that you can never prove is real.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 11:18 am
gigacannon The thing is, for the purposes of argument, everything you think about it a memory. If you see 'God did it' burned in fifty foot high flaming letters on the dark side of the moon, as soon as you start thinking about it, you are thinking about the memory of what you saw; not the thing itself. I can tell you for a fact that I've recently hallucinated and seen the ceiling look like wet paint being blown by a hairdryer. That didn't actually happen. This confirms that memories can be false. So, you can never prove the existence of a creator, logically, since everything that the creator makes you can only reference in your memory; and that you can never prove is real. But of courses, that also invalidates the whole universe. Which gives you a new need to justify and prove everything that ever happens. Brilliant.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2005 2:46 pm
On the contrary.
Our inferrance of the existence of a real past is based on the consistency of our memories. If we remember a house for four years, we infer that a house really existed for four years. We can, in the present, go and check up these facts, where they are historically recorded.
In doing so, all presently checked information enters our memory immediately. So in fact, all we can use to infer the existence of the past is by checking the consistency between our memories.
Our confidence in reality is entirely based on the high degree of consistency of our memory. From this same root are our confidence in causality, and our confidence in universal physical laws, based.
We all are forced to assume that these things are true, because would they not be, we would be incapable of meaningful action. (You must suspect that the things you do will have lasting repercussions, or else no action to bring about what you want can be trusted to work.)
The job of the scientist is to check not only the self-consistency of his memories, but record a great deal of facts, and check the consistency of apparant universal laws.
If the past is not determined in a scientific manner, then nothing can be known of it; even in an a priori sense.
Of course, instantly believing the word of ancient books doesn't count as science.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:42 am
Man, reading this s**t I think I've become much dumber since I stopped smoking weed. That's not cool sad
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
