RE: Small post Clarifying a common fallacy here.
February 24, 2009 at 9:41 pm
(This post was last modified: February 24, 2009 at 9:41 pm by DD_8630.)
(February 24, 2009 at 9:15 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:By your definition, biological life is 'simple'. I don't think that's the kind of complexity people are talking about here.(February 24, 2009 at 6:46 pm)DD_8630 Wrote: But what you're talking about is the kind of what I think of when I try to imagine a Creator less complex than its creation: a kind of 'particle' that, while fully concious and omnipotent and stuff, is ultimately simple. Funky stuff.
Well considering how I've said earlier in the thread that the two kinds of complexity; - 1: difficult to understand and 2: something that is unlikely to simply come about by chance - often get mixed up... and right now I'm talking about number 2 - I would say that with this definition of complexity a particle that is fully conscious AND omnipotent would be complex! It wouldn't be ultimately simple! Because its total consciousness and omnipotence would give it a lot of complexity.
(February 24, 2009 at 7:23 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: Of course I know about Popper and the Swans. But until a black swan appears you don't support the notion that one might be thereWhat? Yes you do. Or I do, at least. The possibility of a black swan existing, while extremely unlikely, was non-zero. And, lo and behold, black swans do exist.
(February 24, 2009 at 7:23 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: but you adopt your understanding of Swans when a black Swan is observed. I am not considering a Dragon might be in your garage just because someone asserts that you can't exclude the possibility that there is one.Then you're dismissing possibilities without justification. There might be a dragon in my bins, but it's so unlikely that we act as if there isn't. That's why theories are never promoted to facts: no matter how unlikely the alternatives, no matter how much evidence is gathered, there's always the possibility that it's wrong.
"I am a scientist... when I find evidence that my theories are wrong, it is as exciting as if the evidence proved them right." - Stargate: SG1
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone. - Charles Darwin
A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, -- a mere heart of stone. - Charles Darwin