I just had to get post number 1000 in this thread.

Edit: And the first post in "Part 2"

I’d like to refresh some food for thought in the beginning of this second part of the thread:

Are humans a property of this universe?

If so, then is not anthropomorphism also a property of this universe?

If so, then shouldn’t these properties of this universe be considered when considering the true nature of the universe?

Not having the advantage of extensive training in formal logic, and being too lazy to look it up for myself, I have a couple questions…

Must a premise be a “known fact”?

By that I mean, can it simply be a postulate that is not itself proven, but is not contradicted by any known fact?

In other words…

“If A were true and B were true, then C would be true.”



Also, what about these two evaluations

All Slobovians have black hair
John has black hair
John could be a Slobovian


Some men have black hair
John is a man
John could have black hair



Are they considered “valid” or not? Or are they not even considered to have anything to do with "logic" at all?

(double post)

Good point.

Although I think it will probably look like Rodney King to the logic police.

The Evidence for a Designer. This unique masterminded question from Creativesoul has many people pondering and wondering that has extended to a second round of discussion.

Yes folks step right up and choose your flavor that best suits you.

For under $10 you can get the right answers to this phenomenal question that everyone certainly believes they have the answer for.

And if you don’t have a answer you certainly have a philosophy going that makes your mind feel comfortable with.

Okay come closer! I have for you for a special


Let me just research and figure it on my own special for only $9.95!



Then we have the Aliens created us and if we knew more about them then we would know more about how a possible design took place for only $9.65!




Then we have the scientific evidence of those who believe to have the answer for only $9.95!



Then we have those who say it is all but a delusion to believe in the supernatural of Gods and religions for only $9.95!




Some are contempt to believe everything started from nothing for only $9.00!



Then we must not forget that very many believe an actual identity created everything. A god of somekind for only $9.95!



More products will be available soon for a special price! Now visit us soon for you never know what might be happening in your side of the world!

I see the humor you are eluding to, but I fail to see how it applies.

Consider the quote you quoted:




Anthropomorphism exists within this universe. Therefore it is indeed a property of this universe. That's a fact.

To set up any logical reasoning based on a premise that anthropomorphism is irrelevant to the true nature of the unvierse is to ignore the facts.

Honestly, I really do see the logic in the "no designer" viewpoint. It is really quite simple...

There is no observed intent/purpose inherent in the quantun field. And since the quantum field is "the source of all things", anthropomorphism (and thus its components "purpose" and "intent") is really just an illusion.

It's a sweet bit of logic.

But it does ignore the possibility that the quantum field itself may be the result of intent/purpose. And that possibility is ignored because it is not observed.

So there is no choice but to conclude that there is no proof either way.

It's not even logic at all. It's just an assumption of conclusions.

How do you "observe" intent/purpose?

If we see a man drop a bomb on a city we proclaim that he had intent/purpose to destroy the city, because we know something of "men".

If we see a hurricane destroy a city we don't assign any intent/purpose to the hurricane because we know something of "hurricanes"

But that's only because we know something of men and hurricanes. So we have an idea of what is 'causing' those things to occur.

In the case of the quantum field we have no idea what causes the quantum field to bring things into being. Therefore to make any judgements about intent/purpose is meaningless. Thus we can't logically conclude that it has none. All we can logically recognize is that we can't say.

Thus any arguments that attempt to suggest that logic favors no intent over intent at the level of the quantum field are fruitless and hold no merit.

So it's not a "sweet bit of logic" at all. It's beyond the reach of any logical conclusion. It's just an assumption that the quantum field is unintentional.

In other words, has logic led us to that conclusion, or is it the conclusion that is leading that logic?

I suspect it's the latter.

Exactly.

What a pain! I can't even grab posts to get them in nice quote format.

Well, I guess I'll just bump myself up to the current page. Probably won't have missed anything really.

Didn't I post that phrase recently?

Well anyway I've been holding back because I can tell you're the type that gets less receptive as people yell at you. I'm not sure what's most effective with SKY as he hates most of what I say no matter the tone but Abra is definitely not receptive to calm description as this was a big competition to him from the get go.

But I'm sure you guys don't appreciate my psychoanalysis so moving on,

You keep saying things like "well it's proven now." That's just as good as saying you have scientific evidence and is really saying you have a lot more than that.

I want to be convinced. I just don't let myself be convinced by fallacies.

Really, I like the mental exercise of having a different reality thrown at me. Without it my world view gets stale and stops growing. It's easier for me to improve it when someone comes along and turns my world upside down and that's a bit difficult to handle but I think I'm up to the challenge.

You certainly act like you're trying to win people's votes on the matter.

Argument requires reasoning. Otherwise you might as well just see who can call the other person the dirtiest word.

I hope you genuinely understand. I've found that most people who act as you have are unable to keep themselves from trying to knock down any alternative views they see around them and don't ever find out how to change that about themselves. It's a real delight to see people overcome that expectation but it's certainly a rare event.

Oh no, I'm not going to hunt you down or anything, I just didn't expect that you would leave the thread and since we were both going to stay you either admit you're wrong, have it shown that you're wrong, or you start coloring in the lines and making some sense instead of flipping between saying "this is flawless science" and "I've been talking philosophy." You leaving so you don't have to suffer through any of those option is definitely a viable alternative but most people consider that akin to pronouncing your opponent the victor anyway so there's really not much you can do if you want to avoid that.

Actually that's me being sarcastic. I know damn well that people don't get phased by loses an argument on the interweb.

How can I quote mine them out of context? Unlike you I leave the whole post in tact.

Do I smell a No True Scotsman fallacy in the making?

ANY intelligent person can just go visit the Brian Yoder's Fallacy Zoo site and read what the fallacies I've mentioned are and then judge for themselves if what you've done is really what I've called you on. ANY not-so-intelligent person can do it.

So really it's only busy, lazy or disinterested people who will have any question about which of us has been dishonest or ignorant.

I'd say this is a bad situation for you but instead I'm going to ask people to visit the site (or wikipedia or really just toss "fallacy" into google and click whatever pages come up,) and say if they think so.

Actually I don't really mind you. I spoke a bit unclearly here but I only care about showing your arguments for what they are. You're being a bit of an obstacle to that but I expected that walking into this.

You really need to get creative to give you the ok before you get to go equivocating intelligent design with intelligence itself.


http://www.goodart.org/fallazoo.htm
It's not very long and it will show you most of the common fallacies.
Alternatively you could just copy and paste any particular fallacy I've named into google and find an explanation of it in a snap.

If it's not your logic can be sound but your argument will collapse should the premise be found to be false.

Since we've already had some solipsism dragged into this topic that is effectively the format all things take.
If reality is more or less as we view it and the Earth and Venus and Sun are real then we have seen shadows on Venus and we cannot have nice circular orbits for the planets thus the Earth goes around the Sun, to paraphrase something I went into many pages ago.

Could be is a very important modifier.

Congratulations on no fallacies so far.

Well no, they would be emergent properties.

Picture a chess board. All of the pieces are quite simple. Chess strategy is not a property of any of the pieces but only comes about when the are put together in a unit- the game of chess. Chess strategy is as real as, say Democracy, but you obviously can't describe Democracy in terms or atomic interactions- trying to work on such different scales is effectively meaningless to us.

Now, you can probably tell that the properties of atoms or various quantum particles are essential for something like democracy or chess strategy to ever come about but the properties come from many pieces and aren't at all visible to us looking at the single units.

Again with the "nobody gets to have opinions but me" hullabaloo.
-_-

Haven't I been asking you that for pages and pages? So far you've said something about 100 atoms magically indicates it but I haven't worked out if that's science or philosophy so I don't know where else to go with it.

If I didn't know better I'd say this was shaping up to be a non-designer argument.

If you'd actually stick to that line of thinking there wouldn't be so many problems between us.

The default isn't about playing favorites. It's about not having anything that doesn't need to be there.

It's not a conclusion. I've already told you that it's the starting point.

Now please stop trying to treat my view like an opposing religion.

congratulations! I just knew someone would have to do it!!!

Abracadabra wrote:



We do not know that the quantum field 'brings things into being', so to assume that first and then claim that we do not know what causes it is nonsense. That is a huge misrepresentation of science. The quantum field is a hypothetical place, it does not have known properties. We do not know that the quantum field exists, let alone the presumption that it "brings things into being."



You began with a false premise...

Nothing which depends upon it is valid.

In other words, the rest is logically and reasonably disregarded.



Claiming that we cannot determine intent, purpose, or reason of/for a quantum field is the only reasonable claim based upon the evidence and fact at hand - the quantum field itself has not been proven to exist. For you to claim that saying we cannot possibly know, therefore we cannot logically conclude is something akin to assuming that the quantum field is unintentional is a non sequitur. Your claim that unintentional is an assumption does not follow from saying that there is insufficient evidence to be able to draw the conclusion either way.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sky,

Logic does not deal with 'could be' scenarios, but to answer your questions regarding the syllogisms...



If both premises are true, and the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises and the form is valid, then the conclusion must be true.

I would not call this a valid form. John 'could be' any other type of creature which also has black hair. If only Slobovians had black hair, and all Slobovians had black hair, then if John has black hair, he necessarily must be Slobovian.



Same scenario. While it is not a false conclusion, logic does not deal with 'could be' scenarios. I see no logical fallacies in either of these, however 'could be' or 'could have' is not a necessarily true or false conclusion. Neither syllogism has enough information to determine any truth value. Neither one is wrong though, just not very useful.

John also may not be Slobovian, and may not have black hair. Therefore not much was gained.

Sorry. I was totally unware that I had to get the clearance of someone else's opinion before I could express my own.

If we're going to worship creative as the final authority on everything then why don't we all just shut up and allow him to give his dissertation in an empty thread without any opposing views.



Excuse me, but this is indeed the most widely accepted view in science. It's called Inflation Theory. See Alan Guth's book "The Inflationary Universe".



It most certainly does have known properties. They are described in great detail by Quantum Mechanics.

It also does indeed "bring things into being". Although that's a bit of a misnomer. Apparently what it's actually doing is transforming energy into matter. And of course we already know all about that from Einstein's E = mc² so there's nothing surprising there.

The only difference being that Einstein's relationship is solely one of energy and mass, whilst the quantum field determines the actual rules of structure that matter must conform to.

In fact, you don't even need to think of the quantum field as a 'field' if that's what's bothering you. Just think of it as the quantum rules. The rules exist. If they didn't, then Quantum Mechanics wouldn't work, and neither would we.

so we just need a new equation, showing how much energy slows down and how, to become matter. It wouldn't be correct unless it could be reversed as well.

We already do the process in reverse in particle accelerators. That's precisely how we hope to find the "God particle".

The Higgs particle.

If we manage to create a Higgs particle that will be a major breakthrough in science to be sure. And we're close to either doing it, or showing that it doesn't exist. -- or poentially creating something totally unexpected which would be equally exciting.

To me what you have accomplished in the above statement is to admit there is no evidence for intelligent design.

If you were seeking evidence of intelligent design and using the quantum field as the object of that design - then that is as far as your designer has gone.

From that point whatever occurred is no longer part of the design but rather a consequence of it having been designed in the first place. In other words, any matter which exists would simply be a byproduct of the design - or perhaps a byproduct of having created the design.

Either way, consequence or byproduct, there is still no current evidence of intelligence behind the design for several reasons.

First, we have very little knowledge or understanding of the quantum field, so it can not be used to support a claim that it provides evidence of being designed. Which you have obviously conceeded in the above statment.

However, if we were to proceed on the premise that the QF might have been 'designed' we cannot maintian that because the QF might have been designed that there was an intelligence behind it, it might have been the only possible outcome of what pre-existed it, as in the only natural form it could take.

Secondly, any matter which eminates through the quantum field is a direct result of the field and not the designer - therefore, matter itself is not the design.

Thirdly, if your intention is to imply that the QF was designed for the purpose of creating matter and that the matter was a pre-programmed part of the design, then we have a greater argument against the intelligence of a so-called designer and in favor of natural universal laws.

If the program is only to produce matter, then there is nothing to guide how that matter interacts or connects other than what exists within its inherant properties.

While this limitation is obvious in the singular pieces of matter which are generated - the interactions between these pieces of matter broadens the scope of limitation. With enough variables (the matter which QM materializes) there may be a nearly infanite pattern capability but these are not directed, or in and of themselves designed but are simply the consequence of how the particular pieces of matter begin their interactive journey. How this process unfolds may just as simply be the consequence of which atoms came together first. (ie. hydrogen and helium)

For example, in our own universe we find only certain elements and the way in which they combined created the foundation for the natural laws from which all other combinations would arise.

This would explain why there appears to be so much overall confomity, pattern, and unity without ascribing any matter, which we currenly have knowledge of, to an intellegent design theory.

An attempt to do so brings up the question of exceptions. Why don't all planets have exactly the same axis tilt. Why do some planets have an opposing orbit, and why aren't all solar systems exactly the same? Why do humans come in different shapes and have different physical anomolies? Why doesn't DNA always function perfectly - why are there genetic diseases and differences between humans and animals and plants?

You see, to argue that the universe is the product of intelligent design, requires that the premise of WHAT IS THE DESIGN (what are the characteristics and properties of the desgn) must be idendified. If the design is only the QM field then we currently have no evidence of intelligent design.

Alrighty then, lots to read.

I still haven't seen proof of intelligent design, a designer or designers.

Alot of stuff here granted but when you read it and analyze it, it still doesn't even lean towards creative design.

For Shoku and Creative, I can see where you are coming from and I don't feel there is any more I can learn from you on this subject because you live in an object reality. You don't go any deeper than that.

Shoku, you seem to fancy yourself as someone who knows how to debate and you think you know how to analyse everyone, but you don't know how to make friends, you just want to win a debate to pad your ego.

Therefore I concede this silly debate. Within the objective reality in which you live, you win but you have nothing better to offer than "I don't know.."

Smiless, your post was entertaining...lol