(February 20, 2016 at 4:35 am)Harris Wrote: Because infinite regression is an impossibility because it simply ends into nothingness therefore the explanation of the existence is the uncaused cause that is God.

God is also an impossibility, by your own definition. You are saying that a thing exists which was never created-- and yet your reason for positing this being is exactly that nothing can exist without being created.

Not only is God a poor solution to your "problem" of infinite regress, your definitions make God unnecessary. SOMETHING, it turns out, CAN exist without being created, according to you-- therefore no problem exists, and no solution is necessary.

(February 20, 2016 at 2:29 am)Harris Wrote:

(February 18, 2016 at 7:17 pm)Alex K Wrote: But more seriously, it is easy to imagine (and to construct!) systems which self-organize in a complex fashion that after a few iterations cannot be "understood" by human intellect any more than the entirety of how dna organizes embryological development or how the brain creates consciousness. Take a blank deep neural network and let it learn something. It will become a highly complex thing which accomplishes a task by seemingly magical and to our minds hopelessly intractable steps. My point is that our level of understanding of how a complex self-organizing system accomplishes things is by no means a measure of how likely it could have arisen on its own dynamically (and I am talking not about the construction of the blank network which is obviously designed by humans in my example, but of the learning process which creates the actual complexity which is entirely driven by experiencing the environment.

Without having proper code of conduct for stabilizing and disciplining the action, ever-changing circumstances would transform into chaos in any structure of events in the universe. Not a single event in the universe is the conduct which is free of some coding system which specify explicit rules of action and specify the expected behaviour in accordance with those determinant set of rules. That is another story whether we have an understanding of that coding system or not but there is always a connection between action and certain laws which guide those actions and we cannot simply say that whatever can cause a representational state is represented by that state.

Unfortunately, lack of code of conduct obscures the clarity of Natural Selection’s distinction which by no means can disentangle itself from the ambiguity and able to fit into the world of terminology of the modern scientific traditions. Natural Selection is too weak to support a comprehensive mathematics and on other side system of virtual analogy are not exchangeable: the order of results makes a difference. That regrettably means that wheels of fortune do not constitute a technological (let alone a biological) kind for which you can use information about previously investigated instances. But if you had knowledge of a random sample of all existing wheels of fortune, then you would work on the average for a new, randomly drawn, one.

See, Alex said something very reasonable and factually true. I and other scientists who have worked with artificial evolution and self organisation can attest to the fact that it is relatively easy to evolve something using very simple components that can take many months to figure out how it works, if at all. Whether it's a circuit design using FPGAs, neural networks or whatever. I myself spent three months trying to figure out how my neural networks actually functioned during my PhD. In fact I actually spent two weeks trying to stop them working by removing components that I assumed were required only to find that they kept on working albeit at a lesser performance. I envisage spending just as long if not longer with my artificially evolved dynamical systems. All I know is, they work.

You on the other hand Harris, have responded with word salad that is not relevant to anything that Alex has said. It is also factually incorrect and relies on equivocation. You still haven't explained what a proper code of conduct actually is. Or for that matter a coding system. I can say though that "specify the expected behaviour in accordance with those determinant set of rules" is factually wrong because it ignores the concept of emergent phenomena which has been studied in-depth in the scientific literature (e.g flocking behaviour, ant colonies, bee hives etc). You can for example emulate flocking behaviour with just three rules without specifying an expected behaviour.

You Sir, are talking shite.

(February 20, 2016 at 2:30 am)Harris Wrote:

(February 18, 2016 at 9:37 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Yeah!  And also, Darwin said the human eye could have NEVER evolved on it's own!  Oh, wait a minute...

Creation is not possible without intelligent creator because nothing in the universe has created its own being.

Define creation.

When is a hammer created? When wood is carved into a handle and metal is reshaped into a hammer head and the two are put together? When a tree grows and metal ore is refined? When the metal atoms that will eventually be found in an ore are created in the heart of a sun?

Again you are relying on equivocation and the ambiguity of words. Things are never really created so much as the constituent matter reshaped into different configurations.

Only theists generally posit an apparent infinite regress problem, and then only theists demand the problem be solved, and only theists special plead in a first step, violating their whole argument.

I say maybe there's no regression external to this reality, maybe there's some, and maybe there's an infinite regress. They would all look the same from our point of view. There's nothing logically inconsistent with an infinite regress, it just seems unintuitive and doesn't sit well with our observations. But if we're talking about the goings on outside this reality, and indeed the very structure of reality upon reality, it's a massive fallacy of composition to just assume it all behaves in the same way.

I can't imagine how it would work, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It's not surprising I can't imagine it, since we're stuck very much inside one tiny link in the theoretical chain.

(February 20, 2016 at 3:18 am)Harris Wrote: My short answer is:

God is UNCREATED.

We know energy cannot be created nor destroyed so the universe is uncreated. We don't need a god.

(February 20, 2016 at 11:11 am)Mathilda Wrote:

(February 20, 2016 at 3:18 am)Harris Wrote: My short answer is:

God is UNCREATED.

We know energy cannot be created nor destroyed so the universe is uncreated. We don't need a god.

I wouldn't take a gnostic position on that, especially with the Big Bang, but certainly if you're going to look for something that has always existed, the first candidate should be what exists.  Why take seriously the superstitious ramblings of ancient, uneducated desert people?

(February 20, 2016 at 5:35 am)robvalue Wrote: Why is infinite regression impossible?

You haven't even demonstrated a single regress external to our reality, how can you speak about the rules under which such regression works?

I am not trying to educate the rules of regression here rather I am using the concept that your beloved Evolution has given to explain how life developed on earth. According to the theory of evolution former stage of life form is always less developed state. The conjecture of first primitive cell was developed by the use of this very concept of regression. If you bring further regress into effective action to the first primitive cell that leads to the idea of “No Life.”
Evolutionary theory explains that life evolved through cumulative changes through many slight successive steps. If we reverse this cumulative process and apply this reverse pattern to everything that will give process of regression which certainly ends up into nothingness and without doubt nothingness is an impossibility.

(February 20, 2016 at 7:47 am)Ivan Denisovich Wrote:

(February 20, 2016 at 4:35 am)Harris Wrote: You are asking me a proof of God and this request represents your disbelief in the existence of God. You cannot perceive God through your physical senses and that for you is a sufficient justification for your disbelief. In other words, God is an irrational concept for you. For that reason, let us talk by abiding the rules of rationalism.

Can you give a proof that things that we use in our daily lives are popping out in reality from nothing merely as a consequence of our stream of thoughts which emerge out of our needs and desires?

Do you think there is anything in the known universe that has created its own being out from nothing and without any intervention of some intelligible cause?

In my opinion any healthy person who thinks on this pattern is doing nothing but deceiving himself by closing eyes on the obvious facts.

The thought that things are popping out from nowhere is not only irrational but an utter absurd.

Because infinite regression is an impossibility because it simply ends into nothingness therefore the explanation of the existence is the uncaused cause that is God.

I'm interested in proof not your special pleading. Though from theists I expect nothing more.

The questions which I have imposed are in fact the answer to your question about the existence of God which you are trying to transform into a plead.

By providing a decent logical answer to my questions you can counter argue my point.

Can you give a proof that things that we use in our daily lives are popping out in reality from nothing merely as a consequence of our stream of thoughts which emerge out of our needs and desires?

Do you think there is anything in the known universe that has created its own being out from nothing and without any intervention of some intelligible cause?

(February 20, 2016 at 7:59 am)paulpablo Wrote:

(February 18, 2016 at 4:37 pm)Harris Wrote: All objects of experience are characterized by generic and specific properties. Ponder over this question:

Why the form of a material thing became the manner in which material particles combined, with their relationship giving rise to the specific properties of the material thing?

I don't know what objects of experience are, I don't know what it means when you say ""Why the form of a material thing became the manner in which material particles combined."

Think like this. Why humans do not have tails like monkeys do, why palms are not giving strawberries, why everything maintain a specific shape and properties?

I think Aristotle was the person who first attempt to describe this unseen factor by using the term SOURCE OF UNITY.

“The role of the form in determining the persistence of an organism results from its role as the SOURCE OF UNITY. The form, including the organism’s vital functions, makes a heap of material constituents into a single organism.”

(Metaphysics VII 16)

So, what is the origin of this SOURCE OF UNITY (I say it a Code or Instructions) that holds the elements of anything into a specific order?

(February 20, 2016 at 10:26 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(February 20, 2016 at 3:18 am)Harris Wrote: Oh Benny! You are in love of fairy tales.

My short answer is:

God is UNCREATED.

If you're going to special plead philosophical solutions to philosophical rules that only you really instist on just 'cuz, why don't you say that the universe itself is uncreated, instead of inventing magical fairytale humanoids to fill that role?

Whether from science or philosophy I do not have any evidence that favours the idea that things are appearing out from nowhere like magic.

Science is not founded on such absurd idea which in fact is worse than a fairy tale. Science precisely follows the rules:

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”
“A cause is the origin of an effect. No cause no effect.”