Explaining where everything came from is not and never was my intention.

At least I can give reasons why "Something" has to be the only thing that exists and why it has always existed. You can't give me one reason for believing that something came out of nothing.

I can also explain why I think my theory is more plausible than yours. I don't just make an off the wall statement.

But you do not give "valid" reasons why "something" has to be the only thing that exists nor why it has always existed.

I have given you the (as Creative said) infinite regress.

And you cannot explain to me where the something came from.

Since intelligence is not really a "something" it is a process that a living thing experiences, you are failed at that explanation before it starts.

Intelligence exists because life exists, not the other way around.

Design shows intent for the most part. You cannot show intent. What is the purpose for the design?

Also design is not a "something" that can exist outside of a mind to comprehend it. Minds see design even where there is no intent of design. But design doesn't exist if no mind says it is does.

So until you can give the origin of this something that you claim exists with no origin, you have failed almost across the board on all concepts.

Yours seems off the wall to me.

Yes I have.



So? That is not my intention or purpose or point.




You are on a completely different page and premise than I am with your definition of intelligence as "a process that a living thing experiences."

(I have not even gotten to living things yet. I am still in the micro world.)

But if you want to cling to your above definition of "intelligence" then what you conclude is true according to your premise.

But not according to the one I set forth in this thread.




I have not gotten there yet, that is the purpose of this thread to determine how one might determine intent.




Where the "something" came from is not relevant to this discussion.

The primary premise is true. The secondary premise which you are calling a conclusion is a actually a secondary premise laden with presupposition. The conclusion does not necessarily follow even if both premises were true. If both premises were true, it does not necessarily follow that all things that exist must have intelligence.




I accept the premise, but the rest is still problematic.



Regarding conclusion 2A.)...

Intelligence exists in everything to a degree does not necessarily follow from intelligence exists.



Regarding conclusion 2B.)...

Intelligence does not necessarily suddenly happen. It is known to be a combination of many elements that do not necessarily suddenly appear out of nowhere, and most likely cannot do such a thing. Intelligence could also gradually develop within capable creatures, and most likely does/has based upon observation/inference. There is nothing illogical about the idea of gradually 'growing into our brain's potential'. In fact, known human history supports that notion.

So which is more plausible?

That something apeared from nothing "magically" on it's own?

(Or)

Something was created "magicaly" by an entity that always existed?

Thank you for evaluating my logic.

But maybe you did not read my definition of intelligence for this discussion, or perhaps you did not agree with it.

"INFORMATION AND ENERGY that together performs a function. "

Also, I ask that you imagine the smallest unit of intelligence (energy and information that is used to perform a function) and identify that as a "quanta of intelligence."

From there, imagine the a small "thing" that performs a simple function. That small thing has maybe a few quanta of intelligence.

Now imagine a small thing with zero intelligence that cannot perform any function (if such thing exists.)

If it were to acquire a quanta of intelligence, (the smallest unit imaginable) then that would have to be "all of a sudden." It could not be gradual.

you said of intelligence: "It is known to be a combination of many elements that do not necessarily suddenly appear out of nowhere.."

Therefore, this combination of many elements may be a "formula" or they may have enough information that they can cause intelligence to appear. But don't they themselves have a small amount of energy and information and aren't they themselves performing a function by coming together and combining their information and energy to produce more functions?

I think that these elements you speak of contain intelligence because if they did not, according to my definition, they could not come together and share energy or information with other elements. They would be "duds" so to speak.

P.S. This discussion of a small 'degree' of intelligence existing in all things follows a discussion and agreement or premise (somewhat) that everything contains a degree of intelligence.

That was the purpose for defining the smallest unit of intelligence as a quanta of intelligence.

You're right, I do have a several logical problems with that definition. It requires redefining all three terms, which is what I meant earlier when writing about a vocabulary transplant. Why not just use different terms correctly in order to develop the thoughts? As it stands, if I were to take this definition at face value(using the commonly held definitions), it would be meaningless. On the other hand, if I were to accept it as it is written, it is still problematic. For the purposes of this response, I will accept your given definition and go from there.

If "information and energy that together perform a function" is to be held as a meaningful definition of intelligence, then I would also need to have you define energy, information, and function. I say this because of the reasons given throughout this response.



Is intelligence to be defined as "energy and information that together perform a function" or "energy and information that is used together to perform a function"???

Those two definitions require completely different approaches and have completely different conclusions.



Intelligence, if I accept the first defintion in this post, is the thing, and therefore intelligence cannot have intelligence. If I accept the second definition, then intelligence is information and energy that is used by another thing. That is what I think you mean, but I cannot be sure because of your wording here.



I am unsure what "perform any function" means here. As I said earlier, information, energy, and function have not been properly defined.



I think that you are calling physical properties information, without knowing exactly how you're defining the three terms which this entire argument rests upon, it is impossible for an proper assessment.



The elements I speak of have not been extrapolated upon beyond the term "elements", so I am not sure how one would be able to say that they must contain intelligence, unless one presupposes that all things contain it. Using terms/phrases like come together and share implies intentional and deliberate actions, which require intelligence to begin with. That is part of the problem with the first definition given in this post of yours.

Information and energy that together perform a function cannot define intelligence in a meaningful way even according to your construct, because in order for information and energy to interact in such a way that it is to be called 'performing a function' then both must exist prior to that being done, and if that is the case, then we must conclude that intelligence did not exist in either of those two things prior to that function.

The definition of intelligence itself refutes the secondary premise which stated that intelligence exists to some degree in all things.



It seems self-refuting and quite circular to me, but perhaps that can be cleared up with the definitions asked for.

I can understand your confusion.

It is a bit confusing for me also because I am not familiar with quantum physics, biology, physics, logic or any of that stuff -- so I am basically shooting in the dark with just intuition and imagination.

In the quantum soup, I gather that there are elements, Protons, particles, atoms, quarks etc. We have given some of this "stuff" names. I don't actually know if these things can be called "things" or not. They may be what you call energy. (Is light energy or is light (a proton) a thing?) I'm not sure what you would call it.

These things have attributes or qualities which is their "information." These things have a frequency and this is their energy. At this point, other than these two things, (information and energy) they may not have anything else. (like a body) An example might be a particle which can be detected but cannot be measured or observed as a thing.



Well coming together may not imply intention on an individual basis as if the element thinks and plans, --but its purpose may be to do exactly what it does. Given an infinite universe, for things to be attracted to each other and perform the function of combining to make other elements in what some have called a "natural" process could very well be the intention of a field of shared intelligence that directs this action. Otherwise these things might just as well float around bumping into each other and doing nothing or drift apart into the vastness of infinite space.




I understand what you are saying here but I had to read it about three times.

Okay, this is what I think. Information and energy does exist (together as one) prior to any function actually being performed. This would be called potential. When a function is performed in accordance to its information, then intelligence becomes "in use."

Sort of like kinetic and potential energy only kinetic and potential intelligence.

(Have you ever known someone who seemed to have intelligence but just did not use it? ) Or do you know a young person or child that has a lot of intelligence potential?

So a more accurate definition of intelligence (I should call it quantum intelligence) would be "Energy and information used for, or with the potential for being used for performing a function."

JB,

I find this an odd statement from someone who has declared herself 'open minded'



So open minded, you've already decided that you 'don't care' about this information? Is that for an emotional reason - perhaps because this information might undermine the ideas you are attached to?

To be clear, this is not simply a matter of semantics. If you really want to claim to be showing something using logic, you must be able to avoid these fallacies. Some people can do so simply by being extremely careful, conservative, and honest. It can also be beneficial to learn about them explicitly.

About an hour ago I sat down before google to read up on this, to answer your questions, and I must admit to entering a quasi-ADHD fugue state, lost in imagination and musing and hypotheticals. I'm not sure if I've learned much, but its worth reading, for anyone making claims about logic.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

The first one has a nice spacial and color coded arrangement. I would not be surprised if you can read, comprehend, and learn this faster than I can - it quite zoned me out.



I consider this a more honest approach. This is just a comment on cause and effect, and perceptions - but if you had maintained this approach from the begining, I would have found your conjecture/proposals far less presumptively offensive.


I've not read all the comments since I was last here, but I did notice:



And now you do sound very open-minded, and you sound like you have things in a sense of perspective that I would agree with. Does that line above apply to the whole of what you are putting forth in this thread?

PeterPan, I find your comments to be trollish, and I normally ignore those kinds of comments. But since we haven't spoken much in these forums, I'll err on the side of communicativeness:

I don't consider "I'll bite" or "Still waiting for..." to be a statement or question worthy of responding to. There's nothing there, no content.

I believe you mentioned an interest in "where I was going" earlier in this thread, to which I gave a one line response. Since I do not understand why my one line response to that was inadequate as an answer, I don't know how to expand on it. I wonder if you have assumed a level or kind of intention behind the baldness comments which I don't have.

Pretty much, yes. I have always thought of the terms logic and logical in more relaxed terms of common sense.

I avoid details, dogma and strict rules because it may have a tendency to skew my creativity, besides it does put me to sleep.

You are more than welcome to consider my posts trollish, but the fact is, I thought your post was trollish. Hence, the "I'll bite" response. (you went trolling, I took the bait, logical, no?)

You said you were creating a mirror image of jb's logic, that didn't explain it to me.



Here you take jb's logical structure and reword it to something that fits your premise of the baldness example. Then you say you've proven that people with full heads of hair cannot become bald.

If there is a thread in which you have done this, send a link.




I think it's pointless too, but if you feel it's pertinent, please elaborate.

OK THE BALDNESS ISSUE:

The baldness analogy is a bad one is because baldness is the absence of hair, as in the absence of intelligence. Hence baldness does not arise. Hair arises.

Assume a person is completely bald and he buys a cream that will make his hair grow. At some point he is completely bald and then a single hair pops up. That is the miracle where he goes from no hair to a single hair. He now has hair.

But perhaps upon appearance people still think he is bald because there is only one hair and they just don't notice it. (It is the same with a quantum of intelligence. It goes unnoticed.)

I have yet to see a person with absolutely no hair at all. Maybe one exists but I have never known of one. I suspect that a complete and total hairless person does not exist. I could be wrong.

But if one does, and if by some miracle that person started growing hair, that first follicle of hair that pops up is the point at which a miracle happens and he goes from hairless to a person with a single hair. And no matter where that single hair is, he probably still looks like a person with no hair. It might take a long time for him to look like he has hair as his hair makes its appearance gradually.

Now replace the hair with my idea of a quanta of intelligence and there is your analogy.



My position would be that every person alive has at least a single follicle of hair somewhere on their body.

or if there is a person with absolutely no hair and they started growing hair then:

There is a point where that person suddenly has hair even though it might only be a single follicle.

Getting closer to that point would be the exact moment that single follicle of hair broke through the surface of the skin and made its appearance.

Now if this hairless person was using a cream to grow hair and had never before had any hair and he saw that single hair pop through his skin, he might jump for joy that the cream was working and acknowledge that "a miracle happened" with his miracle hair growing cream.

The use of the term purpose necessitates a pre-existing intelligence, so the extrapolation below, while supporting the above, still presupposes an intelligent origin of all things and does not allow the possibility for intelligence to emerge from naturally occuring physical interactions.



It could also very well be the result physical interaction(s), according to the laws of physics without purpose, intent, or reason. The laws of physics do not necessitate the pre-existence of an outside intelligence.

The simplest of elements and molecules do not even contain the things which we normally associate with a display of intelligence. That is a very large part of our inability to understand the counter-intuitive nature of some QM observations such as non-locality/entanglement. Add to that the commonly used terms like know and aware which are often carelessly employed to describe the twin elements in a non-local entanglement and it compounds the comprehension problem by loading the explanation with unwarranted presupposition.

Just because one twin element is known(by us) to be physically affected by what happens to it's 'sibling' does not necessarily mean that it knows anything or that the two 'communicate' with each other.

Well, at the quantum level what we "normally associate with a 'display' of intelligence" would hardly be observable, just as a man with only a single follicle of hair would probably still appear to be bald or hairless. It might be difficult to 'display' a single follicle of hair or a quanta of intelligence.

The twin element in a non-local entanglement may not be considered to be "communicating" with each other in the way that we view communication but they are very likely a part of the same thing that instantly shares information and intelligence in the performing of a function in a co-operative manner automatically. In other words they are simply part of the machine and its function.

You said:
"The laws of physics do not necessitate the pre-existence of an outside intelligence."

I am not actually talking about 'an outside intelligence.' It is a field. The energy and information that make up the field contain units of intelligence in the form of the things (elements, matter, energy, etc.) that have intelligence that facilitate specific functions that work together (and are designed to work together IMO) for the functioning of the whole.

Just as your cells and all the things inside of your body work together to keep you alive and functioning.

It is my position that everything has a degree of intelligence, and that means that the universe is intelligent.

It is my OPINION that life is the design and that the intent of the intelligent universe is life.

The cells and many bacteria and other things that live and function and operate inside of your body may not appear to have "intent" or "intelligence" BUT they each have energy and information (encoding) that enables them to perform their very specific function that works together with other things to facilitate your life.

It seems to me that it is very unlikely that this is an accident.
I am seeing intelligence at work from the quantum level on up that facilitates life and co-operates as a unit or whole.

What does plausible mean to you? Does it indicate truth, valid, and/or reasonable based upon known fact, or does it mean presented by and/or according to specious argumentation - such as a plausible lie? Both are considered as plausible.

The term magical is unneccessary and cannot even describe either proposition in a meaningful way. If it represents that which is not or cannot be understood, then what is the point in calling it magical? The use of the term magical automatically places either option beyond our comprehension. If it is beyond our comprehension, then however we choose to describe it is necessarily false because we cannot comprehend it, let alone describe it. In addition, these are both loaded questions and represent a false dichotomy. They are not the only two possibilities.

Our knowledge of the universe does not require accepting either one as being more plausible than the other. Either case could be true, or it could be that something always existed without the need for an entity of any kind. It could be something completely outside of our ability to even imagine from our frame of reference.

If the universe is a creation, it very well could have been created by an entity that we can never know. It could have been the result of an accident by an entity. An entity could have created the necessary ingredients and walked away from it without ever looking back. If there is one entity responsible, there could be more. There is no more evidence which necessitates the conclusion of the universe being a purposeful design/creation of one entity than there is to conclude any of the other suggestions here or of that which is beyond our comprehension.

By identifying the designer, or proving reason, purpose, and/or intent.

What do all designs share as common denominators?

The QM entanglement reference was meant to highlight the significance of how certain terms can be used in what are inappropriate ways and will effect the thinking process by presupposing things in their use. Such presupposition often causes a skewed perspective which does not allow one to consider other available possibilities.

There is a big difference between performing a function without purpose, and performing a function which is part of a purpose. If a thing is performing a function which has a definite purpose, and that thing does not or cannot know what that purpose is, then it must be the case that the purpose itself does not belong to that thing, but that the thing itself is being used for a purpose which belongs to another thing.



The above does not make sense to me as it is written.

A field is made up of energy and information that contain units of intelligence(energy and information performing a function) in the form of things like elements, matter, and energy that have intelligence(energy and information performing a function) that facilitate specific functions that are designed to work together for the functioning of the whole.

Literally translated from your previous definition, it reads like this in my mind...

A field of intelligence is made up of potential intelligence in the form of elements, matter, and one part of intelligence that have intelligence that facilitate specific functions that have been designed by intelligence.



Function does not necessitate a intent, reason, and/or purpose. The fact that our cells work in conjunction with one another and that keeps us alive does not necessarily mean that they do so purposefully in order to keep us alive.



That position represents a conclusion that has not been logically supported and requires redefining the term intelligence in such a way that it is conflicting with the rest of what you've been claiming. I attempted to show that to you earlier.



I see that to be case.



It does not necessarily follow that those things do so for the purpose and/or reason of facilitating life.



It does not have to be one or the other... purposeful or accidental.

Co-operating requires intelligence. Performing a function does not. In order to rightfully claim that all of the individual things that perform separate and distinct functions are working in co-operation with one another requires that either those things are knowingly doing so, or that they were intentionally created to unknowingly do so.

It could be that those things have come together according to the laws of the universe in such a way as to produce life as we know it without having a predetermined intent, purpose, or reason. That would not necessarily be an accident. An accident requires being a mistake. There is no such a thing as a mistake made on purpose. An accident requires a prior purpose because it is an unwanted deviation from the original intent and/or purpose.

But where did the entity come from? And where did whatever made the entity come from?

And where did the thing that made the thing that made the entity come from?