Theorem: The Intelligent Self‑Sustaining Universe

[The Grand Nudger]

It is normal for every person to want to believe in something and first in themselves, because what is the point of not believing in themselves? Not at all, because you do not trust what you think, what you do and even what you feel. Therefore, when you believe in something, you want to see if it is true not only because you feel it, but if it is true objectively, that is, if it is valid in reality. How do you do this? By using logic and even the strict critical logic that scientists try to use, so that they do not get misled into wrong logical conclusions.

I see you're drawing a line between "logic" and "strict critical logic".  Useful....I'll have questions about that.

So, when you think: "What could create something intelligent?", the only logical answer is only something intelligent, either because it has the ability to create, or because someone or something has programmed it to create.

In strict critical logic, when you think "what could create something intelligent" you're already in error.  Assuming it was created.  This has a habit of turning everything that follows into an intuition pump, where an audience...either yourself or someone else, is being lead to a specific and predetermined conclusion.  That is to say, it's not that the conclusion follows from the form of the argument or the contents of the premises, but that it has been loaded into the question from the outset by our deeply flawed intuition.  

For example, when you have sex and a child results, you do not do it because you know how to create, but because that is how you are programmed to do it and your body does the rest. It is that simple! With these simple logical steps you get to the point where you can understand the theorem, because the more you question it, the more you confirm it as you constantly confirm your intelligence and the First Absolute Law of Logic.

You aren't programmed, your body doesn't just work, and absolutely none of it is simple.  So, after you get through that and reach the conclusion that is actually an assumption that this somehow proves a theorem which isn't a theorem... are you doing logic, or strict critical logic, do you imagine?

Your superstitions are not an explanation for any of these things, nor do they inform me about or have any relevance whatsoever to respect, obligation, or meaning. Even as statements of your own private beliefs..which you do not have to demonstrate to be true at all...they need work. Here's a tip - stop telling us that x or y leads to z, and show us. Actually take the time to lay out why one statement relates to the other. How does fucking relate to your beliefs, exactly?

"Little johnny fucks; therefore god" is not logic or logic™. It's gibberish. Even you don't believe it. Watch. If little johnny doesn't know how to fuck, or if little johnnys body doesn't work...does that prove you wrong? Does that mean little johnny was not created? Would examples of that discredit your beliefs about disembodied intelligences, your theorem, or your laws of logic?

[Angrboda]

Whether something other than intelligence can create intelligence is an empirical question. You either have to show it is physically impossible, which you haven't done, or infer it from an argument from ignorance, which is invalid.

But we're all just wasting our breath here.

[The Grand Nudger]

Worse, is positing that nothing other than intelligence can account for intelligence when we're drowning in explicit and well demonstrated counterexamples, particularly if we're committed to defining intelligence as loosely as it's been defined in thread. From thermostats...through plants, to our own intelligent self.

Thermostats don't work because they were created by intelligence. They work because bimetallic strips open and close in response to heat which physically opens or closes a circuit. Plants don't reach for the sun because they were designed by intelligence. Plants reach for the sun because the growth hormone auxin is a negatively phototropic compound, which is to say that it migrates to the shaded side of a plant causing buildup of material away from light source. Neural peptides don't work because they were created by intelligence. They work because they're transportable and long lasting. These behaviors would exist and these compounds would do what they do regardless of whether or not any intelligence was involved. Temperature sensitive structures and compounds act that way regardless of whether they're in a thermostat. Fungi, bacteria, animals..auxin is present in all of these things - a double whammy...in that it shows a common ancestor -and- that the function of auxin in plants is neither intentional nor systematically necessary to all auxin possessing organisms. Peptides are every-fucking-where, and not doing intelligence by any definition for the vast majority of where they're found. To say that the universe is intelligent is, on the one hand, a deepity..insomuch as all we are saying is that some stuff in the universe is (sometimes) intelligent, or sometimes acts in a ordered and predictable way. I can already smell the smoke from the gears grind - but order itself does not require intelligence. We could use this line of hasty generalizing and dial our focus back to ask a question about solar systems and planets. What created them to be the way they are? Nothing. No more so than when I throw pebbles the debris pattern can be predicted to a high degree of certainty in advance by the shape and density of the pebbles, not by my possession of intelligence or intent. Nothing made us this way Pan, we're just what's left of how things panned out. More stubborn, more persistent..because of our intelligence, perhaps, but certainly nothing that would inform a rational observer relying on empirical observation of any intelligent and self sustaining universe.

[panpan]

Artificial Intelligence is now the standard example that only intelligence can create intelligence, why? Because it is what we can immediately understand, since we created it. The thermostat is also evidence that something intelligent made it work that way, that is, it manifests the intelligence of its creator.

In step 5.3 Rejecting Random Occurrence and 5.4 Scientific Foundation: Information & Purpose, explains why intelligence cannot arise by chance.

To the question of how intelligence is created, the answer is what intelligence is and this leads you to how something is created, which the First Absolute Law of Logic does with the definition of intelligence and the theorem as a whole.

[Angrboda]

Artificial Intelligence is now the standard example that only intelligence can create intelligence, why? Because it is what we can immediately understand, since we created it. The thermostat is also evidence that something intelligent made it work that way, that is, it manifests the intelligence of its creator.

In step 5.3 Rejecting Random Occurrence and 5.4 Scientific Foundation: Information & Purpose, explains why intelligence cannot arise by chance.

To the question of how intelligence is created, the answer is what intelligence is and this leads you to how something is created, which the First Absolute Law of Logic does with the definition of intelligence and the theorem as a whole.

🔹 5.3 Rejection of Random Emergence
Emergence as mere structure (e.g. crystals) is an entropic phenomenon, following energetic laws. But emergence leading to meaning (a structure that self-references and self-reproduces to preserve its own information — like DNA) demands purpose (P.O.K.A). This self-referential purpose is a logical function acting actively against disorder (Entropy) with intention, and thus cannot be a product of chance.

This is an example of begging the question. In order to support your assertion that intelligence requires intelligence, you assert that intelligence, its creation, demands purpose, which is to say that it requires something that is exclusively associated with intelligence. This is essentially a restatement of your conclusion that creation of intelligence requires intelligence. Nowhere do you actually demonstrate that it is required or that it demands anything, nor describe how this demand is effectuated. It's just another bare assertion. That which can be asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence. Thus your argument here is rejected without prejudice.

🔹 5.4 Scientific Foundation: Information & Purpose
Meaningful information does not arise from randomness.
From information theory:
Information = Organization + Meaning
Meaning = Intention / Purpose
➡️ Therefore:
Meaning → Purpose → Intelligence
Anything containing real information contains purpose → a sign of intelligence.

There are multiple problems with this, the most glaring of which is that intelligence is not in itself information. Intelligence is a property that some complex systems, like brains, possess. The root problem here stems from what appears to be a misunderstanding about meaning. Ignoring your symbolic formulas for the moment, meaning is something that is assigned. Ultimately, it is a form of association. For example, the letters 'apple' grouped together to form the word apple do not inherently have any meaning. It is through our associating the group of letters together with the idea or an image or example of an apple which gives the word meaning. This is ultimately a form of associative memory. We see the letters grouped together and that stimulus provokes the associated idea or image. It's worth noting that artificial neural networks can be trained to do the same thing. A network presented with the letters as an input can be trained to index things associated with apples on its outputs. This way it can be trained to associate and recognize any arbitrary input with any arbitrary output -- apples with apple, fish with fish, tree with trees and so on. The inputs have no inherent association until training, and afterward the behavior is governed by unintelligent properties of the weights and configuration of the network.

So you make two mistakes here. First, confusing that intelligence uses information with intelligence itself being information. Second, you ascribe meaning as an inherent property of information when meaning is something that is assigned to information. Information itself has no inherent meaning. There's a bit of question begging going on here as well. You are asserting that intelligence is meaningful information, which is to say that an intelligence has made a meaningful association between its intentions or purposes and the resulting creation of an intelligent being. This is just another way of stating that intelligence requires something associated with intelligence, begging the question again. We can strip the word meaningful from the equation, and intelligence is still information, in whatever sense it originally was, but it no longer requires intention or purpose as meaningless information can readily arise through random chance.

ETA: In hindsight, I see that it is possible that you are arguing not that intelligence itself is meaningful information, but rather that meaningful information arises in the operation of intelligence. Thus, ostensibly, the existence of this meaningful information could not occur without the intervention of purpose, intent, and design. Well, first off, the meaningful information in my mind is the product of my own intelligence creating it, not of whatever process or thing created me, or whatever process or thing created beings that can manipulate or assign meaning. So I think there's a confusion here regarding your causal story here, as well as, again, question begging. If the process that created me is being asserted to have necessarily required intentions, purpose, and so on, then again your conclusion is stated in your premise. Additionally, you're asserting that say, my thinking of a juicy red fruit upon looking at the letters 'apple' grouped together is in some way a necessary product of my created form, then you're playing the same games you did with the thermostat example where you claimed that the reactions of the thermostat were intelligent, but they were not 'real' intelligence as their activity was governed by whatever designer and his intentions created the thermostat. It's true that the thermostat's activity is governed by the intentions of its designer in a sense, but that is because the designers expression of his or her intentions are governed by the laws of physics. If a bimetallic strip did not have the physical properties and behaviors it does by virtue of the laws of physics, any designers intentions would be somewhat irrelevant. The design is possible because of physics, not because of the designer's intelligence. The reactions of the thermostat are ultimately governed by its structure, what it is, not by the fact that someone or something else conceived of that structure.

ETA2: Perhaps there's a simpler way of saying the same thing. Yes, meaning requires a thing that can create meaning, a being that can make meaning. However, this does not mean that the making of the being that can make meaning required meaning. To say otherwise is begging the question.

[Angrboda]

As long as I've rambled this much already, let me summarize the problem to avert misunderstandings.

You have repeatedly asserted that the creation of intelligence requires intelligence. Abstractly, I can concede that some creative processes can involve intelligence. I can even concede that it is possible that human intelligence was itself the product of intelligent design, by a god or an alien. This won't get you across the goal line, however. As you must demonstrate not that creation may involve intelligence, meaning and purpose, but rather that it is necessarily true that the creation of intelligent beings required intelligence. In other words, you must show both, a) that it is possible that intelligence was involved in the creation of intelligence, and b) that it is not possible to create intelligent beings through an unintelligent process. Both your sections 5.3 and 5.4 fail in this regard. 5.3 fails because it's a bare assertion and essentially using your conclusion as a premise. 5.4 fails because while the existence of meaningful information in the mind of an intelligent being required intelligence, the intelligence required is that of the being itself, not its creator. So your formula in 5.4 is satisfied without ever touching the central problems of showing that creation can involve intelligence (conceded) and that creation of said beings cannot happen via unintelligent processes.

[Angrboda]

Worse, is positing that nothing other than intelligence can account for intelligence when we're drowning in explicit and well demonstrated counterexamples, particularly if we're committed to defining intelligence as loosely as it's been defined in thread.  From thermostats...through plants, to our own intelligent self.

Thermostats don't work because they were created by intelligence.  They work because bimetallic strips open and close in response to heat which physically opens or closes a circuit.  Plants don't reach for the sun because they were designed by intelligence.  Plants reach for the sun because the growth hormone auxin is a negatively phototropic compound, which is to say that it migrates to the shaded side of a plant causing buildup of material away from light source.  Neural peptides don't work because they were created by intelligence.  They work because they're transportable and long lasting.   These behaviors would exist and these compounds would do what they do regardless of whether or not any intelligence was involved.  Temperature sensitive structures and compounds act that way regardless of whether they're in a thermostat.  Fungi, bacteria, animals..auxin is present in all of these things - a double whammy...in that it shows a common ancestor -and- that the function of auxin in plants is neither intentional nor systematically necessary to all auxin possessing organisms.  Peptides are every-fucking-where, and not doing intelligence by any definition for the vast majority of where they're found.  To say that the universe is intelligent is, on the one hand, a deepity..insomuch as all we are saying is that some stuff in the universe is (sometimes) intelligent, or sometimes acts in a ordered and predictable way.  I can already smell the smoke from the gears grind - but order itself does not require intelligence.  We could use this line of hasty generalizing and dial our focus back to ask a question about solar systems and planets.  What created them to be the way they are?  Nothing.  No more so than when I throw pebbles the debris pattern can be predicted to a high degree of certainty in advance by the shape and density of the pebbles, not by my possession of intelligence or intent.  Nothing made us this way Pan, we're just what's left of how things panned out.  More stubborn, more persistent..because of our intelligence, perhaps, but certainly nothing that would inform a rational observer relying on empirical observation of any intelligent and self sustaining universe.

I think this ultimately gets back to the question of what is the metaphysical interpretation of Aristotle's causes, efficient, material, formal, and teleological. While Aristotle's causes form a valid and consistent framework, modern causal theory effectively vacates any metaphysical interpretation of teleological causes and relegates material and formal concerns to the status of mere facts rather than causes. Is Thomism valid? I don't think so, but I confess it's not a cut and dried matter.

[The Grand Nudger]

To the question of how toaster is created, the answer is what toaster is, and this leads you to how something is created, which the first absolute law of pan does with the definition of toaster and the theorem as a whole.

I'm guessing this is some sort of communication problem. I don't speak whatever brand of woo you're fluent in, and if I did it might make more sense..but........as written, not so much. I hope this example helps.

[Paleophyte]

Artificial Intelligence is now the standard example that only intelligence can create intelligence, why? Because it is what we can immediately understand, since we created it. The thermostat is also evidence that something intelligent made it work that way, that is, it manifests the intelligence of its creator.

Thermostats, therefore god.    That might be some of the worst apologetics I've ever seen.

In step 5.3 Rejecting Random Occurrence and 5.4 Scientific Foundation: Information & Purpose, explains why intelligence cannot arise by chance.

No, it simply states that. That's just saying shit and expecting us to believe it. We have abundant examples of how you're simply wrong.

From the OP's continued behaviour, I conclude that he could not be created and there is no loving god.

[The Grand Nudger]

IDers, of any type, by any description, are all the same. They tell us that we can infer an intelligent creator by the presence of intelligence, but will not allow us to infer it's absence by the absence of intelligence.