Atheists Answer This Question: How Can a Limited Intelligence Contain a Greater Intelligence? The Mystics and Physicist's God.
Offline http://www.lordandme.com/2011/04/proof-of-god-in-three-steps.html
A Proof of God in Three Steps
If by the end of this you don’t feel God running through your veins and moving through your spinal cord like a shiver… you probably should’ve smoked more weed before reading further than this line. For this is not addressed to those who think God can’t be found in the more fluid states of human consciousness… that is actually God’s permanent address. He’s that gust of breeze at dawn that can only be fully experienced when one is naked. A mind clad in corporate suits and leather shoes would find the touch of God unpleasant; like the brush against a stranger’s body on public transport; something otherwise entirely natural but repulsively inappropriate under the arbitrary paradigms of human civilization.
So leave your shoes outside and follow me. Only the bare of feet are entertained here. But do bring your mind along. You’re going to need it. This is after all, a scientific, rational proof of God.
Your Skin Does Not Contain You
Her name, is Jill Bolte Taylor. She studied the brain at Harvard and Indiana University and went on to establish herself as one of the leading neuroanatomists in the world. One morning she woke up, got out of bed, undressed, got into the shower and as she was taking the shower, realized that she could no longer discern where her hand ended and the tiled wall against which it was resting, began. The boundaries of her being, the outlines of her physical self that she used to differentiate between herself and the world around her, had disappeared. Jill Bolte Taylor was no more. There was only the continuous ocean of energy that extended all the way from her body to the ends of the universe. And she was a part of it. And she could see it and feel it, clear as the fucking daylight.
What did she do? She reminded herself that she was having a stroke; that her brain was gradually shutting down, one hemisphere at a time. That feeling of limitlessness, that was her left brain giving up. She suddenly had a powerful insight; it was her brain that told her that she was separate from the universe. It was her brain that defined her self for her, her brain that was the source of her self-awareness, her brain that explained her how she looked like, and howother things were and how she existed in relation to other things. The reality was, the shower curtain and her hand were more alike than they were different. They were both made of energy.
Everything in the universe is made up of either matter or energy. One of the implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity is the idea calledenergy-matter duality. It goes something like this; matter is, at the very fundamental level, just energy concentrated at a point, and energy is, to generalize a little bit, matter exhibiting wave behavior. Matter can be broken into pieces or fused together to release large amounts of energy and similarly energy can be captured inside matter through changing the state of matter. Matter is energy, and energy is matter. It’s all basically the same thing.
Now, since everything is the same, then the boundaries, limits, containers and skins we imagine upon entities are essentially as much a matter of perception as they are a matter of objective reality. We don’t really know where one thing ends and the other begins, we just imagine arbitrary outlines because that helps us operate in the world in a more efficient and survival savvy way. Consider any two objects, the coffee mug sitting next to your type writer and the workstation it’s resting its bottom on. Now, you’d like to imagine these two things as being separate from one another, but the truth is, there is an ongoing exchange of energy and matter taking place at all times across the boundary where the base of the cup and the tabletop meet. The most obvious of these transactions is the exchange of quanta of energy in the form of heat. Also, all matter at all times is always decaying and giving off some amount of radioactivity; too small to have any significance in our lives, but this barter is still always taking place; taking place right in front of your eyes and right across the boundaries that you would imagine impermeable for matter. All boundaries everywhere are only impermeable for some percentage of some forms of energy or matter. There isn’t a cup out there that holds everything, always, forever.
When we define an entity as an object separate from its surroundings, we are making a subconscious choice to ignore the multitude of uninterrupted connections that the object maintains with its habitat. The cup is connected to the desk, which is connected to the floor and the air around it, which is connected to everything else in the room, which is connected to the rest of building which is connected to the atmosphere and hence the entire planet. The planet in turn, is connected to outer space and hence to the entire universe. Everything is one interconnected blob of energy in its multiple manifest forms. Even “empty” space-time has background energy. Energy is everywhere; it forms the base fabric of our universe. We are not separate from it, we are only concentrated little lumps in the grand custard of energy that is our universe.
The distinction between entities seems even more meaningless when one of those entities is a living thing. Self-awareness or the ability to see yourself as separate from the space you inhabit, isn’t the rule in the world of consciousness, it’s an anomaly. It’s not a fact or self-evident universal truth, it’s just a cognitive skill that some species have evolved and honed into a ruthless über-survivalist weapon. Right now there are hundred of thousands of living species traveling back and forth almost unhindered across the boundary of your self that you call your skin; not to say anything of the heat exchange or other forms of energy barter your body constantly engages in at all times. Your skin is no boundary, it’s just an input output device you’ve evolved to better control the exchange of energy and matter. You are not separate from your surroundings; your mind just tells you you are because this worldview increases your chances of survival and propagation.
Everything is connected. It’s all energy, and so are we; a tiny globule of energy in a big abounding mass of it. Mystics felt this truth in their bones centuries ago. Today, scientistsknow it for a fact.
As her mind flickered Jill Bolte Taylor saw, felt, heard, smelled and tasted this fact in her entire body, and came to a realization of it deeper than the mystics could have enjoyed or other scientists discerned. Jill met God like only a twenty-first century neuroanatomist having a stroke could have.
Decision Diamonds are Forever
There’s a delusion at play here, a hoax, the greatest perhaps in the history of consciousness. We are all victims of it and we’re the perpetrators too. We start running the trick on ourselves the moment we are born, then we continue to layer upon it further magma of fiction, with each layer thickening the artificial profundity of the illusion. But an illusion it is, and in moments of quiet reflection -trying perhaps to imagine what it would be like to ride a beam of light, or watching a bush burn in the desert under a starlit night, or tuning in to the rhythms of the universe uninterrupted after completely losing all hearing- we sometimes finally break through. We see the illusion for what it is, an illusion. We realize that the world of matter that our souls had so obsessed over for so long is only a minor and probably insignificant slice of our entire existence; that our true selves extend from the heavens to hell, that the material form we take in this life does not define us. That the fundamental unit of our existence is not a cell or an atom or a quark, it’s a decision diamond.
What’s a decision diamond, you ask. It’s the fundamental unit of intelligence. An if-then structure with a binary output, any simple rule that says, if condition A is satisfied then do X otherwise do Y. We are not made of cells or atoms, we are made of millions of trillions of these decision diamonds, interconnected, nested, serially or parallel linked to each other to construct the grand symphonies of our consciousness and souls. These decision diamonds are mostly expressed in the form of energy -as the ever morphing cloud of electrical sparks that resides on our neural network- and only partly implemented upon matter as atoms or cells that make up our body, but to take off from there and conclude that we are made of atoms or cells would be like saying that a book is made of ink and paper. It may be true in a strictly physical sense, but it is not the Truth. Mere pigment and papyrus not a volume make.
Now ponder this, everything in the universe, including the universe itself, is made up of these decision diamonds. A collection of these diamonds in any combination, can be called an “Intelligence”. And just as there are single cellular organisms, there are single diamond Intelligences. The light switch on the wall next to you for instance that knows whether to turn the light on or off based on the position you put it in, is a single diamond Intelligence. The light switch and all the other objects we consider non-living things, have most of their intelligence implemented upon matter, and coded in their physical form as the laws of physics and chemistry that govern their behavior. For a more complex Intelligence like us or the universe, most of the algorithmic compilation of decision diamonds is expressed in various designs upon energy, electromagnetic sparks or networks of heat or light exchange. Ultimately it’s the diamonds that make up everything, energy or matter are just the languages the poetry is written in.
So, to summarize so far, you are made of decision diamonds expressed as either matter or energy. But matter and energy are the same thing. Also, the rest of the universe is a material or energetic representation of decision diamonds too so there’s no way you can be separate from the universe, you’re a part. You are just a drop in an ocean of Intelligence. You have individual properties, a little more salt maybe, a higher degree of self-awareness, more of an inclination for communication, but that’s about it. The enumeration of similarities is a whole datacenter with millions of servers compared to the small laundry list of differences.
Are you getting a better picture of the universe now? And your place in the universe? No? Take a couple more puffs and let the universe invade you. Expand yourself to see that you can encompass entire galaxies in your arms.
Proof in the Pudding
I’ve changed my mind, I’d no longer try to prove anything. Now that we’ve established that the universe is one big pudding of intelligence expressed as energy, and we are but a chunk within that pudding, I’ll just leave you with a question.
And the question is this. If we are, but a small part of the greater intelligence of the universe, and we are self-aware and cognizant, how can the universe NOT be self-aware and cognizant?
And what do you call this greater intelligence of the universe and everything beyond, that we cannot even begin to completely understand, that is part of us and includes us, that is therefore at least as self-aware and as complex as us, that knows everything instantaneously and is everywhere, all the time? What do you call it?
Names, names. There are a few out there, but I think they all fall short. For trapping something infinite in the finite bounds of a label, now that's what I call true blasphemy.
Mod edit: I fixed this giant block of incoherent text. Well....it's still incoherent, but at least it's readable now. 
- Login to post comments
Baruch Spinoza called. He would like his philosophy back, however, you don't have it so he needs to try somewhere else.
=
I know... I've been talking to him. And Einstein... and many other great minds too. That still doesn't answer the question.
I could, as a thought experiment, conditionally agree with most of your op. The conditions being that decision diamonds are allegorical, and the second condition being that it is all a personal experience, just a feeling, no more or less important than any other feeling.
No need to invoke the God construct on this. In fact implying a sentience of the universe without the "thought diamond" of an energy/matter brain is somewhat offensive. The only brain/sentience is the individual having the experience in this experiment.
Does that answer the question?
May I suggest buying a keyboard with a functioning Enter key. That big block of text is difficult to read. Also, why dress up your idea in poetics? A polished turd is still a turd. There are a lot of fallacies with what you are proposing, while dressed up in pseudo-scientific 'facts' and sounding all pretty make it seem mystical, it's the same old BS.
Firstly, when trying to express quantum phenomena with our 'everyday' narrative and perspective, the concepts become at best meaningless, and at worst grossly misunderstood. You need mathematics for plank scale frame of reference to make sense. That's why it is so easy for all this new age bullshit mambo jumbo to use their interpretation in their form of BS.
Secondly, the appeal to authority example you are using in this block of text is a brain surgeon, while her IQ may be greater than both of ours combined, she is far from a physicist. I doubt that her comprehension of the mathematics involved is enough to make her an authority in your (using the pronoun loosely here) epiphany.
Thirdly don't start posts with the promise of the 'god feeling' in an atheist forum if you want to be taken seriously, most people may not read past the first two lines.
There is so much more wrong with what you copied from somewhere and pasted on here that I could type all day, for the sake of coherency (hint, hint) I will leave it at this for now.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Possibly the fact that Jill Taylor had a blood clot the size of a golf ball removed from her brain shortly after the shower experience and it has never repeated might be taken as possible evidence that she did not have a special insight into qunatum mechanics that nobody else ever figured out despite a century of trying?
=
Paragraphs plox. I'm not going to read that.
If you have the patience to write all of that, then surely you have the patience to...........oh, you didn't write that; you just pasted the whole thing from some random website. Good for you.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
No, it's not.
It's anecdotal.
Got anything substantial?
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
The fact that everything has the same basic constituents if you dig down far enough does not in any way remove boundaries, or make everything 'the same'.
Water has the same components as a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gases. A container of water with an 'atmosphere' of hydrogen oxygen mix above it has a very clear boundary between the liquid and and the gases.
The difference is their structure. Structure is very important. It is a certain category of very complex structure which allows consciousness to arise.
Just a few facts which may be relevant to your 'argument'
===========
I merely skimmed through a few bits of that text, it is far too hard to read through without paragraph breaks - it becomes too hard to keep track of where you are.
Paste it into a plain text editor and insert some 'return's, then copy and paste it back here. See if that fixes it, otherwise not many people are going to read it.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
It most likely will not help, I read it the same as you and I think it is more of the new age BS with a basic understanding of physics.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I like some of this but the universe it's self is not intelligent. We are it's awareness of self and as close to a mind as it has.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Exactly.
The very definition of 'self consciousness' may have to be 'redefined', at least in our 'global' view of the term.
We are both conscious and subconscious at the same time. We can probably prove conclusively that we are also completely unconscious of many aspects of ourselves.
Labelling that 'intelligence', in the way that 'creationists' do, is intellectually bankrupt.
Complex structures, symmetry, crystalization, chemical reactions, oxidations, etc, etc, are well understood, to be completely natural.
No 'creator' required.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
That "only" is an assumption. It presupposes that we know all there is to know about the universe. That is not only a non-scientific claim, it is also very arrogant... and almost religious.
The fact is, we don't know the entire extent of the universe's "sentience", and given the choice between believing whether it's superior or inferior to our sentience, I'd say it's more logical to believe that the greater intelligence that contains our minds is superior to our intelligence.
To claim otherwise, would be very anthropocentric in my opinion.
Sorry... my bad. I've been a troll long enough on msg. boards to have not made that noob mistake. Thanks for the fix.
When somebody says there's so much wrong with a text that they can type a lengthy critique but won't because of xxxx... it usually means they don't have a single coherent criticism to make.
We don't really need quantum phenomena to visualize energy-matter duality. E=mc2... look it up.
I won't respond to the rest of your post because it'd be like trying to hit a fart with a baseball bat. There's nothing here but your garden variety ad hominems and the stench of unearned arrogance.
She didn't have any insights into quantum mechanics, rather an insight into how our mind works and the nature of what we call "self-awareness". And she's more than qualified to comment on that.
True. It's not. It's more of a "logical" argument than a scientific/rational proof.
I didn't question the concept of energy-matter duality. What I meant was that in order to explain quantum phenomena without mathematics, a lot gets lost in the translation, to the point where you can interpret it to explain God or whatever you like. AIG has much more eloquently formed responses on this subject.
You also came along as troll at first glance with the huge block of text. I didn't read the whole thing because it was difficult, and I apologize for jumping to conclusions. It's quite common for this forum to get paste and run answers.
I'll spend some time and criticize the OP in time, but I personally dislike the poetic style it is written, it has the stench of used car salesmanship.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Sorry about the absence of breaks. It's fixed now. I'd really like to know what you think after you've read the whole thing.
You are talking about material distinctions here between water and air. That distinction harkens back to seventeenth century science. Today we KNOW for a FACT that not only are the oxygen in water and air the same but that there's a continuous ongoing exchange of not just oxygen, but numerous other elements across the boundary we define as surface of the water. The exchange depends on the pH, temperature, pressure and other environmental factors. Change the temperature of the room and you'd change the oxygen content of the water. Basic chemistry.
Similarly, we KNOW that there's not a lot of difference between hydrogen and oxygen themselves. There are places in the universe where matter is probably going from an oxygen form to a hydrogen form right now.
The assumption that we fall within a special category of very complex structures that only can sustain consciousness, is really just an assumption... and a pseudo-religious one at that.
Even if it is true that only a certain category of very complex structure allows for consciousness to arise, but IT IS AN ASSUMPTION, NOT A FACT OR A SCIENTIFIC CLAIM BUT AN ASSUMPTION, THAT THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT FALL WITHIN THAT CATEGORY. This assumption is not only anthropocentric and arrogant but it is also an assumption that can never be tested, hence cannot even be called a scientific theory.
For me, it's much more logical to assume that the universe that hosts our brain, is at least as intelligent as our brains.
How well do you know the universe? You sound like Max Born in 1928 telling the world that "Physics as we know it will be over in six months".
We don't know the universe. We can only make that claim when we are able to predict every natural phenomenon that will even happen. Far from it. If we don't know why the universe is expanding faster everyday how do we know it isn't doing that just because it feels like it?
We don't really know the bounds of the intelligence of the universe. I say it's more logical to assume they are at least as expansive as our intellect.
What do you define as intelligent, and what makes it more logical to assume that it is as intelligent as we are? Occam's razor says that it is not.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
This style of writing puts me on the defense, it's as though you are trying to hide the fact that you are short on substance by dressing it up. Anyways, that's just my opinion and not relevant to what you have to say.
I'm willing to work with you on this one and imagine some sort of construct of energy that would form the basis for consciousness, but how can you assert for a fact that this is the case? this is nothing but a baseless assertion. How do you know it is a diamond and not a pyramid? why does it have to be any shape at all? This is what I meant by using macro terms to define quantum events. It's like trying to explain 'spin' with a bowling ball.
You're using the phrase "grand symphonies of our consciousness and souls" as if the soul is a priori. Soul is a meaningless term. What is a soul?
You could easily imagine consciousness to be like RAM, to stick with the computer analogy. The program runs as long as the computer is on, when you turn the computer off, the energy itself doesn't cease to exist, but the coherency does.
I'll leave it at this for now, though there is much more that I would like to type, it is not for lack of material but in order to keep the exchange somewhat manageable.
Edit: typo
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
If I told you that my CPU has a graphics chip and a math processing unit, what would be the simpler assumption, that my CPU can perform graphics and mathematical operations or that it cannot.
What if my CPU had a self-awareness processing unit? How is that different?
I was borrowing from computer science... decision nodes are drawn as diamonds in flowcharts. That's what I was referring to. When I say decision diamond, I mean the simplest binary node; the fundamental unit of logic. You can call it a decision rhombus if you like
By soul I meant to refer to the characteristics of our intelligence which are more hardwired and not in as constant a state of transition as our consciousness.
I think the RAM analogy is good. You need energy to maintain the coherence, as soon as the energy is gone, the coherence falls apart. But coherent energy leaves its marks on the universe... like sound waves or other electromagnetic waves. The mark is indelible. Information once created, can never truly be lost. It can change shapes, but it cannot be lost.
I'd be against labeling anything intelligent the way creationists do.
True. A creator is not required.
We also don't understand The Process. We have some inkling about some small aspects of it... crystallization, chemical reactions etc. but how deep the process really runs... and what's at its very foundations... we don't know. I mean isn't our decision making process a result of chemical physical reactions too? If we call our actions intelligent then who are we to say the actions of the universe are not intelligent.
I tend (for some odd reason) to go with what we know, anything past that is hocus pocus. When the stars line up to tell me to fuck off I might take notice.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Now that's not entirely true. You don't KNOW FOR A FACT for instance that there is no god, yet you call yourself an atheist.
I know the biblical god is not real and I have seen no evidence supporting any other celestial being.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
And likewise absence of evidence is not ..evidence, lol.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
True, there's no empirical evidence either way. All we have to go by is logic.
And real logic requires some evidence.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
Gods in general are a human idea and as limited as we are I doubt we have touched on the real possibilities but I wouldn't assume anything at all beyond what we do know.
I might play with some idea's but that's all they are. My favorite idea is that the universe is a small part of a whole of something else possibly something living but in it's self the universe has no mind other than us in my "idea".
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
No.
That equivocation has been debunked. You cannot 'prove' an a priori based on naked assumptions, using any 'form' of reasoning, and assume you have better than 50/50 odds of being correct/incorrect.
It's completely dishonest to say that it's 'logical' that there are any gods, or that these assumptions are known to be the creators of anything, much less the universe, the earth, and all that's on it.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Who said anything about 50/50 odds? It's not an equivocation, you just constructed a straw man for yourself to knock down.
How is it dishonest?
LOL. Is there something wrong with being religious?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Awww, STFU.
I debunked your bullshit claim of the equivocation of 'using logic' when the 'inputs' into your formula are NOT based on anything but assumptions.
IOW, you're using terms interchangeably, trying to 'project' that you are doing some 'heavy intellectual' contemplation, when really you are not.
You are 'fantasizing'.
I did. Duhhh...
All you clowns do the same act. Because none of you are very fucking bright, or educated.
All of your 'theories', 'arguments', 'proofs' are patently stupid, for the simple reason that anytime you have an assumption, the odds of 50/50 come into play.
The assumption becomes a 'kingpin', meaning that if the assumption turns out to be false, anything that was built upon that assumption, was futile, because the conclusion you were building to was going to be contingent on that assumption.
Just saying so, does not make it so.
I proved that it is an equivocation.
Simple.
Because you are trying to cast the aspersion that you are doing something intellectual, when you are not.
You are 'posing' as an intellectual, instead of a 'fantasizer'
We cannot 'get ahead of ourselves', in terms of knowledge. We can only make 'guesses'. Some are 'educated' guesses, and some are 'wild' guesses.
So, saying you are using 'logic' is a misnomer.
You are just guessing 'wildly'.
You will say 'No, I'm not', but saying it, does not make it so.
I'm telling you, you are. Because you are.
Because you are making assumptions based on nothing but a fertile imagination, not on any evidence.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I am talking about structural differences in the way the oxygen is bound to other oxygen and to hydrogen atoms. Every different combination of atoms has different properties.
Hydrogen has very little solubility in water.
Yes, there is an exchange of oxygen between the gas and the liquid, and some of the oxygen that goes into the liquid water reacts with the water to form hydroxyl radicals ( OH- ). But it is then in yet another form, with different properties. It is a different substance, a different compound.
A small proportion of water molecules dissociate into hydroxyl radicals and hydronium ions ( H3O+ ).
To concentrate on the commonalities of different substances ( hydrogen and oxygen gas and liquid water, hydroxyl ions and hydronium ions) while treating the differences as unimportant is to seriously misunderstand the science.
They are very different in every respect. Hydrogen has one electron and one proton per atom, oxygen has 16. Hydrogen normally forms positive ions, oxygen forms negative ions, which is why they have an affinity to combine into water molecules. There is no spontaneous transformation between hydrogen and oxygen.
Our Sun does form oxygen from hydrogen, via some intermediate steps, under conditions of high temperature and pressure, with the net release of a lot of energy. To reverse that would require the input of an equivalent amount of energy, so is not going to happen 'spontaneously'.
It is a scientific observation. The vast majority of complex structures that we see display no sign of any kind of consciousness.
It is a naked, unsupportable assumption, based on ignorance.
Apart from anything else, the inter communication between most of the universe, limited to the speed of light, is going to take billions of years, making for only a few thoughts since the Big Bang, and parts far enough apart that they will be flying apart at greater than the speed of light, will have no communication with each other, so cannot form part of a single 'consciousness'.
The universe is mostly chaotic and random, so has nothing like the structure of a brain.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I thought you were referring to intelligence as in consciousness, or rather self aware, are you equating a computer's ability to process data with human self awareness? If so, is an abacus self aware? and if not why not?
Occam's razor simply states that when two hypothesis are presented that are equal in every other respect, such as:
1) the universe is sentient
2) the universe is not sentient
The hypothesis that makes the least naked assertions is usually the correct one. Or the one most likely to produce a logically valid argument.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
We validly call ourselves Atheists, because it simply means we do not believe in a God or Gods.
That's it.
There has no requirement for 100% certainty, although I am as close as could be to being 100% I have seen zero evidence pointing toward a God. Note: I am not referring to things we can't explain, that is the fallacy of God-of-theGaps. I am referring to evidence that could only be explained by an omnipotent infinite sentient being. Every 'miracle' or manifestation in the Bible could equally be explained by finite but very advanced alien life-forms.
No FACTUAL knowledge can be known with 100% certainty.
Absence of evidence of a being that is supposed to be omni-present and intervening to some degree in the affairs of human society is most definitely evidence of absence.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Hey, Zeus, where art thou?
Another 'intelligent' theist presents a Seagull argument for God.
He comes in, makes a lot of noise, shits on everything and leaves... Oh well.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Aww... someone didn't get laid another night... It's ok. Shout at people on the internet if that's what you need to get through the day.
I make no assumptions... I just ask one question based on scientific assertions. The scientific assertions are about the nature of "self-awareness" (i.e. it is a perception more than a reality) and the nature of the universe (everything is made of energy). If you don't understand these assertions it's ok. I don't think you are qualified to understand them... but just because you don't have an education doesn't mean the assertions are not scientific.
I don't try to make any projections, but I can see how to someone with limited education as yourself everything I write might sound intellectual.
Again, you are talking about other things that other people say... building straw men of various kinds. I am not interested in what creationist retards have to say and your opinions of them and their arguments do not concern me. But keep ranting if it makes you feel better.
Where? When? You have quite a fertile imagination for an atheist.
No. Trust me on this one. I would know about the aspersions I am trying to cast.
I can see how my educated pondering may seem like wild guessing to you, because you most probably have no education and are incapable of understanding fundamental scientific assertions.
oooh... bold letters. That must make your argument right... right?
I just have a life and a job... but I'll respond to all the comments here. Soon.
Sorry, Chump.
My wife is an atheist, and a nymphomaniac.
You mean you have evidence?
Fuck!!! Why didn't you say so Sherlock?
Ummm, there's more than just energy.
Deny, deny, deny...
Such a good lil' theist...
Nope.
Ya, that must be it...
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I guess I am a little addicted myself, I don't have a lot of free time, also being in a life/job situation, but this is the bulk of my 'entertainment' time. I also get to skim this site at work quite a bit.
Is your idea at the least inspired by the galaxy filaments pictures, which to me resemble neuron networks? I don't mean to fuel your argument, I think I've made my position clear in that respect, I'm just curious.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Self-awareness is both a reality and a perception. It is an aspect of consciousness, probably generated originally, at least in our case, by the 'mirror neurons' which help us model the reactions, perceptions, and likely decisions of others we are interacting with, to assist us in our interactions. For this to work, we have to have a concept of self as distinct from 'other', and a concept of the self-perception of the other, and in turn, their perception or modelling of our 'self ' from their point of view.
We can certainly experience the feeling of being 'outside our skin', but this has not been shown to correspond to more than imagination. At most, out-of-body experiences point to the possibility of a form of remote perception, which does not entail our core functionality being separate from our body.
Everything we have studied points to matter being essential for persistent, complex structure, which is essential for complex processes such as consciousness.
Energy bound into the form of matter particles is an essential for a complex reality. Without matter, we have formless emptiness.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I guess someone should have told that to Einstein when he was imagining time as just another axis in the space-time fabric or to particle theorists who see all matter as nothing more than a combination of quarks and leptons.
To not focus on the similarities is to miss the very point of science!
Are you trying to show off your knowledge of elementary school chemistry? Don't you see, that's all there is.. electrons, protons, neutrons. Don't you see how remarkable it is that you can remove seven electrons/protons from oxygen and get exactly hydrogen? That these two seemingly completely different elements are essentially nothing more than a different combination of the same elementary building blocks?
To not be in appreciation and awe of this fact is to basically ignore all post-1905 science.
Of course it won't happen instantaneously, it need not happen instantaneously. Who said it would happen instantaneously? Whether or not it ever even happens is irrelevant. All we need in order to change our perspective of the universe is the mere acknowledgment of the possibility that it can happen.
No. You can't even scientifically define consciousness... much less make a scientific distinction between the nature of the complex structures that do or do not exhibit this ethereal property called consciousness. If I am wrong, please point me to literature.
What you are doing is trying to judge and ascertain the nature of the complexity of universe by measuring it against/by using as a benchmark, the most complex structure you know of, i.e. your brain.
This approach is anthropocentric, pseudo-religious, arrogant, baseless and petty.
Before you start thinking about the universe you need to first make concession for the possibility that the universe is probably more complex, expansive, strange and unpredictable than you can even conceive of. Any other approach would be giving one-self too much credit.
If the universe is a brain it probably does not think the way you think it thinks. Stop trying to reflect. You are a non-entity in comparison to the universe.
Stop making generalized claims about the structure of the universe which cannot be verified or proven. You don't even know one percent of the universe.
I am not referring to a computer's ability to process data as self-awareness. I am merely explaining to you that self-awareness is just a program, an analytical algorithm or skill just the same as any other analytical skill. We have the most advanced version of this program amongst all the entities we know of. But make no mistake, it is a program, nothing more, nothing less. Already, scientists working in the area of developing self-aware robots are having remarkable successes coding this skill.
All I am saying is that if a part of a complex structure exhibits certain skills/capabilities/properties, the more naked assumption is that the whole must have those skills/capabilities/properties too. If you claim that it most definitely does not have those skills, the onus of proof lies with you.
True... there's no requirement for 100% certainty, but when you make a claim in science, there is a requirement for at least some statistical measure of certainty, say 95%.
Whether the universe is sentient or not, is a claim for which no statistical certainty can be assigned either way.
Atheists who claim that THERE IS NO GOD are making a claim as unscientific as anyone claiming the existence of God.
At least the claim that the universe is at least as intelligent is us, has some logical foundation... i.e. we are a connected, integrated, alive part of it.
I know I've won an argument when the other person starts telling me about their domestic life or generally has more emoticons in their response than words.