Why do Athiests require 'proof' that God exists?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

That would make those truth propositions a minimum of twenty thousand years out of date by the time they get here, depending on where the nebula is sitting relative to the Earth, or fifteen hundred minimum if it's above or below the galactic plane. I'm making no comment on a nebula being between galaxies in the first place - I don't want to look silly.

Something something, quantum mechanics, something something.

[Cyberman]

Of course... I knew there'd be a simple explanation! Quantum solves everything!

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Of course... I knew there'd be a simple explanation! Quantum solves everything!

Quantum Mechanics works in mysterious ways.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I reject the the notion that proof can be determined by reason alone.

And you have data to back that up? Maybe some physical evidence? I didn't think so.

Proof? Not yet. So what? I'm merely opining, not trying to convince you of anything. I may be wrong,no matter how unlikely I think that might be.


By all means,you continue to cling to your faith based beliefs if that's what makes you happy. That stopped working for me over 40 years ago.

[Epimethean]

"Software doesn’t emerge from anything. Software instructions impose order on the hardware as it (the hardware) does its physical operations. Punch cards trip switches to make dials register in various positions. The directions encoded in the cards and the calculated results are meaningless to the computer itself."

And when the machine can write its own code to better adapt to its environment, and, in adapting to its environment, begins to show distinct patterns of assessment of its surroundings, and when it can articulate such assessments? Are the directions, code and cards somehow automatically meaningless to such a machine? I think Turing would have suggested otherwise.

[genkaus]

To my mind, most of the examples you provided still represent functional shifts. Self-initiated motion? Within the materialist paradigm there are only chains of cause and effect. These do not require subjective experience, like shocking the nerves of a dead frog causing its leg to twitch. Reproduction describes the various states and actions of physical matter, a functional property derived from other functional properties.

And how is subjective experience any different? They'd be functional properties of the brain, derived from the functioning of the neurons underneath.

To my mind that’s not a good example. Software doesn’t emerge from anything. Software instructions impose order on the hardware as it (the hardware) does its physical operations. Punch cards trip switches to make dials register in various positions. The directions encoded in the cards and the calculated results are meaningless to the computer itself.

The point is, software is something qualitatively different from the hardware. It is something intangible and invisible unless the gears, so to speak, are in motion. And it is meaningless to the computer only because there isn't a self-awareness software designed yet.

I did exaggerate for rhetorical effect, but I think the concept still holds. What you describe sounds analogous to Morse Code. The clicks are meaningless in themselves. A higher scale of reality, human intelligence, is required to interpret them. What is the higher level of reality that interprets neural clicks? That’s really not a fair question, but you get the idea.

Not exactly. One click does not depend on the other in the Morse code. Think of it as a sort of very complicated domino effect where the dominoes stand up after the show is over. There are separate patterns of dominoes and each domino in one pattern is connected to another domino in another pattern. Once one pattern is activated, all others are activated as well.

Not sure I fully understand what you’re saying. I know electronic neural nets can be trained for facial recognition, for example. Is that what you mean by perception? Otherwise I’ve always considered perception a more complex construct of sensations, something I may need to reconsider.

A rather simplistic type pf perception, but yes, perception nevertheless. Perception refers to organization, identification and interpretation of sensory inputs. Now, consider a security system consisting of cameras, pressure gauges and temperature gauges. Those are its "sensors" and provide sensory input. All this input, presumably, is being continuously fed to a software which is constantly analyzing the data. It has records of all the allowed personnel, so facial recognition will pick anyone unknown. By temperature and pressure sensitivity, it can figure out other things such as who is where. All this is perception. The machine may not be conscious of what it is doing, but it is perceiving nonetheless.

[Ryft]

What I don't understand, though, is why one cannot say that the cosmos has intrinsic ... objective laws of logic [which] exist by being a reflection of the nature of the objective universe.

Because physical laws are descriptive, whereas logical laws are normative. In order to derive the one from the other you would need to overcome the deductive gap that exists between the descriptive and the normative; that is, how do you derive normative propositions from descriptive ones? There is also the deductive gap between contingent truth and necessary truth, physical laws constituting the former and logical laws constituting the latter (e.g., the law of non-contradiction is necessarily true); that is, how do you derive necessary truth from contingent truth?

Why does it seem to you that only in God one can have an absolute standard of truth from which logic reflects? What does God provide that the universe by itself doesn't, in other words?

The metaphysically necessary preconditions for the existence and intelligibility of normative and necessarily true propositions.

[The Grand Nudger]

The application of logic is normative Ryft, logic itself is descriptive.

The metaphysically necessary preconditions for the existence and intelligibility of normative and necessarily true propositions.

Not simply because you say so. Elaborate. Haven't we all been here before? The statement would be troubling if for no other reason than the above.

(human beings all by themselves fulfill "the necessary preconditions" of normative propositions btw)

[Creed of Heresy]

I walked in. I saw this debate. It is above my intelligence. I departed, suddenly feeling a lot stupider. ;_;

[Epimethean]

It is not actually that far out there CoH. Some of it is simply couched in intellectual halloween costume.