Systematically Dismantling Atheism

[Whateverist]

According to the math you use in string theory, they all can exist

You can posit any number of dimensions you want.....but say you posited 100....that wouldn't be string theory....that would be some other theory.

String theory posits 10 or 11(depending on the flavor of String theory) dimensions. An 11 dimensional universe allows for at least 10^500 different configurations(size, curvature, etc) of those 11 dimensions which means String theory allows for at least 10^500 number of ways the universe could be different(i.e. have different physics).

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Is there going to be any maths beyond counting psalms?

Anyway, you can evolve a brain the size of a planet, (or Brain 100000^100000 as sophisticated ID scientimathicians like to call it), you'll still be limited by physics, still know nothing about stuff outside the light cone, still not be the creator. Of course, within our universe counting from 13.x bi. Years ago, there wasn't enough time anyways for that.

A brain that large would then begin to "feel" the effects of the finite speed at which information could travel. Because it would take so long from information from a neuron on one side of the brain to reach a neuron on another....the brain wouldn't think as fast as a smaller brain. The bigger the brain the slower it thinks. A brain the size of the solar system might take several hours to consciously compute 2+2=4 while you can do that in nearly an instant.

POE! or troll? POE! Possibly just a stupid fundy. Naw! This is just what I might say if I wanted to act like a stupid fundy. Oh, I give up.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have "checked a dictionary". Either God exists or he does not exist. Its either A or B, if you reject A you must accept B, and vice versa. Learn the law of exclude middle

Hey, Aristotle -- that's also a fallacy.

[Chas]

I know what you believe because I know what you don't believe. Either God exists or he does not exist. Therefore If you claim you don't believe your team will lose, I understand you must believe your team will win because no third option exists.

Yes it does. A draw.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not neccessarrily. (The bigger the brain the slower the thought). Independant concurrent processing and heuristic algorithms allow for a model that is both possible and in evidence which serves as a solution to many speed related issues. We may not have any examples of this sort of brain here (arguable) but even if we don't it hardly matters, we're off in hypothetical fairyland afterall. We'd be talking about impressively large brains here, of course- if we talk about any significant slowdown in thought due to signal travel time (because even if my brain were many, many times larger than it currently is - and the signal travel remained constant..the significance or order of any slowdown would only be relevant locally. - but we have no reason to assume that size is some direct correlate for intelligence (or that all brains must be arranged like our own, or fall into the same patterns of observation as our own) to begin with.

However, a bigger brain just might compute 2+2 slower than my smaller brain- if we're willing to posit that humans have a fast brain, relative to any other hypothetical life. Sure. The reasons that this may be so are nearly boundless - but as far as a barrier to a really big brain...I don't think that the speed of the signal would be a very difficult barrier to overcome. I think that finding the resources to build and maintain such a large brain would be a much more daunting prospect -if we're using anything at all about our own biology to make these inferences. Question one has to be -can an organ such as this one be nourished effectively no matter how large it scales up in size. Again, not that it would have to - to get a smarter brain.....I just love this subject. It takes .1 seconds to blink. If size and intelligence where analgous, a brain 100 times the size and 100 times as intelligent could handle the task in ten seconds. That's not bad considering the distance involved (again 1:1) would be 66 feet at a minimum, roughly (my head is about 8 inches wide) - that serves as a (very, very, very low) estimate of both speed and size assuming direct connections both through the brain and to any apparatus that it may be operating.

There's a fantastic "hypothetical" species in the Culture series by Ian Banks (lol) -I forget the name he gave them- that were large, essentially just a nervous system - and incredibly long lived. They thought slowly, they lived slowly, they metabolized slowly. The urgency of the moment to us was a concept entirely alien to them because they were not presented with (nor had they evolved under) the same conditions as ourselves. It is, I'll admit, difficult to imagine why a slower "speed" would not be overridden by a greater breadth of processing ability it an evolutionary model on that metric alone (even if this barrier could not be overcome as it can be in reality as opposed to the hypothetical). There are creatures on earth with very slow (verging on and perhaps even rightly described as mechanical) "nervous systems". They respond over the course of hours or days, some months..or more, not even minutes or seconds...and even though they lack any breadth of ability to compensate for this greatly reduced pace - they have done very very well for themselves here. If they can make it here, then any creature 100x "smarter" than us, 66 feet long/wide/deep - and still many many times faster than plants or fungi (they still send the blink signal in ten seconds) would do just fine anywhere life like our own might be present-at the least. All of this is entirely speculative and may even be baseless - for reasons mentioned in my previous post in this thread.

-but it sure is fun.

[downbeatplumb]

I have "checked a dictionary". Either God exists or he does not exist. Its either A or B, if you reject A you must accept B, and vice versa. Learn the law of exclude middle

This is like saying your chances of winning the lottery are 50/50 either you win or you wont.

It discounts all the other possible explanations for everything and reduces them to a binary either or which they aren't.

[Esquilax]

Therefore God could logically exists does follow unless you can prove a God-like intellect is incapable of existing or highly unlikely to exist. Therefore God could exist, just as life form 1.1 and 1.2 could exist.

Now explain to me why life form 1.1 can exist . but life form 10000000 can not. And if you can't explain it , then you have no logical basis for atheism.. You will eventually be forced to admit your atheism is based in 100% subjective faith

Is this seriously your conclusion? This wheedling, hand wringing "well, my god is logically possible..." crap? Really?

So, let me get this straight: first, you decide to "define true atheism," by telling us what we believe and demanding that we go with your definition and not our own or the dictionary's. Essentially, you strawman us. Then, instead of just giving evidence for the existence of your god, you go for this weaksauce deistic "ooh, my god might possibly exist!" nonsense, patting yourself on the back because the bland, nothing of a god you've managed to come up with- really? "Has intelligence that is godlike" is your criteria for a god? Nothing else? - isn't obviously contradictory. Congratulations, jackass, you managed to define a- possibly fictional!- concept that doesn't collapse in on itself.

And then to cap it, the sun-drenched monument to your ignorance at the top of the summit of ineffective argumentation you've thus far provided, is blatant special pleading and a shifting of the burden of proof: "I don't need to provide any positive evidence for my god, but unless you can provide comprehensive evidence that my god does not exist, your position is irrational!"

But let me ask you this, genius: wouldn't it logically follow that if my position is irrational because I can't provide evidence against your argument, that yours is irrational because you haven't provided any evidence for it?

Because let me be absolutely clear: "It's logically possible!" is nowhere near "it exists." Possible gods are not extant gods, and moreover, it's only possible if our only criteria for possible is "not logically inconsistent," because you've got no indication that it's physically possible, or that it did happen, just that intelligence might grow to that threshold because we've seen intelligence.

You've given us nothing, and then berated us for not breaking with the rules of logic- the same ones you're abusing to come to your conclusion- and allowing you to shift the burden of proof by demanding we disprove your vague, amorphous argument.

Congratulations: you're an asshole.

[Angrboda]

I think he's trying to say that if you can't deny the possibility of a god, you can't rationally be an atheist.

Yeah, that's pretty whack.

[Bad Wolf]

We should have just stopped considering this as a discussion when he dictated what our views were.

[Whateverist]

When you think about it, it is funny to talk of dismantling atheism. Atheism is simply what remains when you take apart theism. The only way to reverse atheism is to rebuild theism, but those foundations will never pass code.

[Cato]

There is no middle ground. Produce your god or shut the fuck up.