Scientific Argument for a Creator?

[Shadylookin]

No. God could be simpler. And the rest of your argument falls away. I would contend that god is so simple and basic that it is all that is Real. Complexity is a mask of impermanance and change that hides the oneness of all existence. Science, through QM already tells us that the differenciation that we see is not real and only quarks and leptons exist.

Science cannot ever prove there was a creator. It might be able to prove that there was a moment of creation, but not a creator. The word "creator" implies an extra-unversal being that is separate from the universe. Making the univrese more complex while seeking its origins is going in the wrong direction in my opinion. Go simpler.
Yes you are right here. Something does "just exist". There is only one Reality. For convenience we call it god. God alone is.

I suggest not. Try again.

something can not create anything more complicated than oneself/resources. Your seemingly pantheistic views have no logic behind them. Quarks make up atoms and atoms make up molecules and molecules make up us. quarks, atoms, molecules, and you are real. Only if your a pantheist, the rest of us just call the universe the universe. calling the universe god does not refute my arguement just that you seem to lack the western concept of god

 

[Birdjaguar]

something can not create anything more complicated than oneself/resources.

Why not? A sperm and an egg create a human. From the tiny "point" of the big bang the universe was created. Am I not more complex than a sperm cell?

Your seemingly pantheistic views have no logic behind them. Quarks make up atoms and atoms make up molecules and molecules make up us. quarks, atoms, molecules, and you are real.

What is not logical? We are just quarks/leptons. Nothing more (as yet). Are you saying that there is more to people than quarks and leptons? What would that be? Where did it come from?

Our brains only allow us to perceive the gross forms of matter and not the quark reality behind it. To the best of our current scientific knowledge quarks & leptons are the most basic elements of matter. All matter breaks down to that level: you, me, the rocks and my pet cat. I think that you are the one who is not being logical.

the rest of us just call the universe the universe. calling the universe god does not refute my arguement just that you seem to lack the western concept of god

I did not call the universe god. I said god alone exists and is Real. The universe is a product of our limited perception. And within the confines of our perception we can do science and learn all about our universe, but nothing more. Does your argument only apply to a western concept of god? Which western concept of God BTW?
If that is so, then your case is rather limited in its use and application.

 

[Trade-peror]

just a counter argument to the "everything isn't perefect" arguemnt, who says God had to create everything perfect? with perfection in every being you couldn't maintain proper blance, i see everything being imperfect as an attribute to ID, evolution should have weeded these flaws out

This is a very interesting line of thought. I usually hear that evolution, comprising random mutations that gradually build on to or weed themselves out of organisms depending on the advantage of the mutation, would allow for imperfection since the mutations are random. In addition, the mutations take time to be weeded out, and thus errors are spotted more easily in our narrow time-frame of observation.

On the other hand, I would tend to think that an intelligent designer would not allow flaws to be built into his products, if the intelligent designer were as omnipotent as portrayed in many religions.

I am also curious as to what "balance" would be disturbed by perfection in every being.

 

[Birdjaguar]

just a counter argument to the "everything isn't perefect" arguemnt, who says God had to create everything perfect? with perfection in every being you couldn't maintain proper blance, i see everything being imperfect as an attribute to ID, evolution should have weeded these flaws out

What is your concept of god?

 

[Plexus]

To answer your question simply: no.

You cannot even accept the possibility of a god, Sims?

 

[Fifty]

Our brains only allow us to perceive the gross forms of matter and not the quark reality behind it. To the best of our current scientific knowledge quarks & leptons are the most basic elements of matter. All matter breaks down to that level: you, me, the rocks and my pet cat. I think that you are the one who is not being logical.

I did not call the universe god. I said god alone exists and is Real. The universe is a product of our limited perception. And within the confines of our perception we can do science and learn all about our universe, but nothing more. Does your argument only apply to a western concept of god? Which western concept of God BTW?
If that is so, then your case is rather limited in its use and application.

Excuse the disjointed nature of what I'm about to say:

"all we perceive is the gross form of matter and not the quark reality behind it"

To use the viewpoint of a book I am reading (Peikoff's book on objectivism)
"If everything is made of quarks, then so are human beings and their parts, including their sense organs, nervous system, and brain. The pprocess of sense perception, by this account, would involve a certain relationship among the quarks: it would consist of an interaction between those that comprise external entities and those that comprise the perceptual apparatus and brain of human beings. The result of this interaction would be the material world as we perceiive it, with all of its objects and their qualities, from men to mosquitos. Even under the present hypothesis, such objects and qualitties would not be products of consiousness. Their existence would be a metaphysically given fact; it owuld be a consequence of certain quark-interactions that is outside a man's power to create or destroy. The things we perceive, in this theory would not be primaries, but they woudl neverhtelss be unimpeachably real. A thing may not be condemned as unreal on the grounds that it is 'only an effect'."

The universe is not a "product of our limited perception". The universe exists independant of our perception. We see a part of the universe through the means of our senses and cognition, whether that part is primary or not does not have any relavence and I don't really see how it points to a creator. The senses are valid.

You say "god alone exists and is real"

If the perception given by the senses is not true reality, then god being real or having a grasp of the real is impossible, because true perception then would be a perception gained without any means, because any means of perception are invalid in your reasoning because they are attained only through a certain means, even if that means is omniscience

edit: please let me know if what I'm saying makes no sense, I'm notoriously bad at articulating a point like this. I just started learning about reality as real, too, so I'm slightly foggy on the details.

 

[Birdjaguar]

On the other hand, I would tend to think that an intelligent designer would not allow flaws to be built into his products, if the intelligent designer were as omnipotent as portrayed in many religions.

Some questions:

Must the designer be intelligent?
Does the universe have a purpose? If the universe has a purpose, perhaps that purpose needs imperfection to be achieved.
Could all the flaws and imperfections be so only in our eyes?
Are the quarks that make up typhoid imperfect? Are the quarks in a rose any different than the quarks in poison ivy?
Are your questions constrained by limitations in your perspective?

 

[aneeshm]

The assumption behind the argument that "the universe conspires to create life , thus , it was intelligently created" has a flaw . The assmuption is that there is only oen universe . If there are many more , and it just so happens that ours is perfect for us , that does nto mean that it was intelligently created , it only means that this universe got lucky .

 

[Fifty]

The assumption behind the argument that "the universe conspires to create life , thus , it was intelligently created" has a flaw . The assmuption is that there is only oen universe . If there are many more , and it just so happens that ours is perfect for us , that does nto mean that it was intelligently created , it only means that this universe got lucky .

I guess this is where the watch analogy comes into play. Even among a whole crap load of watch parts in a box, if you find a watch that is intact it is still reasonable to assume it was created, right?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Excuse the disjointed nature of what I'm about to say:

"all we perceive is the gross form of matter and not the quark reality behind it"

To use the viewpoint of a book I am reading (Peikoff's book on objectivism)
"If everything is made of quarks, then so are human beings and their parts, including their sense organs, nervous system, and brain. The pprocess of sense perception, by this account, would involve a certain relationship among the quarks: it would consist of an interaction between those that comprise external entities and those that comprise the perceptual apparatus and brain of human beings. The result of this interaction would be the material world as we perceiive it, with all of its objects and their qualities, from men to mosquitos. Even under the present hypothesis, such objects and qualitties would not be products of consiousness. Their existence would be a metaphysically given fact; it owuld be a consequence of certain quark-interactions that is outside a man's power to create or destroy. The things we perceive, in this theory would not be primaries, but they woudl neverhtelss be unimpeachably real. A thing may not be condemned as unreal on the grounds that it is 'only an effect'."

Let's define Real (capital R): That which is permanent, unchanging.
real (little r): objects and effects within our universe and the universe (which is not Real because it is not permanent and unchanging)

The universe is not a "product of our limited perception". The universe exists independant of our perception.

We are limited to our senses and the devices we create to enable us to gather data they cannot. That 's pretty limiting. What would we see if we could perceive what is Real, as defined above? Would the unverse exist? Would you exist?

You say "god alone exists and is real"

If the perception given by the senses is not true reality, then god being real or having a grasp of the real is impossible, because true perception then would be a perception gained without any means, because any means of perception are invalid in your reasoning because they are attained only through a certain means, even if that means is omniscience

This is not fully clear to me but I will take stab at an answer. Yes I mean that our perceptive abilities are insufficient to grasp Reality (capital R). They are perectly suited to understanding the universe. Reason will not get us past the barriers of time and space. The path to understanding existence is not reason. For you to be correct you must assume that logic and reason are our highest faculties and everything can be understood through them. I don't believe that.

edit: please let me know if what I'm saying makes no sense, I'm notoriously bad at articulating a point like this. I just started learning about reality as real, too, so I'm slightly foggy on the details.

It was a fine post.

 

[Trade-peror]

Must the designer be intelligent?
Does the universe have a purpose? If the universe has a purpose, perhaps that purpose needs imperfection to be achieved.

I would not be able to say whether the universe has purpose, but I would like to hear a possible purpose that requires imperfection to be achieved.

Could all the flaws and imperfections be so only in our eyes?

This is very possible. I suppose, then, the imperfections aspect of this argument should be reconsidered.

Are the quarks that make up typhoid imperfect? Are the quarks in a rose any different than the quarks in poison ivy?

Since I have not read this entire thread, unfortunately I do not understand the context of these questions. However, I would say that the answers are pretty irrelevant, since different organizations of quarks would produce the emergent properties that distinguish typhoid from poison ivy.

Are your questions constrained by limitations in your perspective?

This is also very possible. I am curious to hear from other perspectives.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The assumption behind the argument that "the universe conspires to create life , thus , it was intelligently created" has a flaw . The assmuption is that there is only oen universe . If there are many more , and it just so happens that ours is perfect for us , that does nto mean that it was intelligently created , it only means that this universe got lucky .

Why couldn't the universe be an accidental, whimsical, spontaneous or serendipidous creation of god? Could both sides be right?

 

[Uiler]

I guess this is where the watch analogy comes into play. Even among a whole crap load of watch parts in a box, if you find a watch that is intact it is still reasonable to assume it was created, right?

No, not really. If you have an infinite possible universes , it can be by pure chance that conditions were such that intelligent life was possible. It is the literal infinite monkeys typing out Hamlet. As to the small chances of it happening by luck - this is where the anthropic principle comes into play. We are in the universe where luck allowed intelligent life to happened because if it didn't, we wouldn't be here to question how intelligent life happened. In all the universes where intelligent life didn't happen, no-one notices them because there is no intelligent life in them to actually question why there is no intelligent life in them.

By the way, isn't this argument of the Intelligent Creator more a logical argument than a scientific one? I mean, how can you design an experiment to show that creationism is correct? This basically comes down to - life is complicated. Ergo there must be a creator. Or, since we don't know how it can come into being right now, it must be impossible. This shows the real difference between evolution and creationism. Evolution is a real scientific theory for which you can design experiments for and find scientific evidence for. It may end up being *wrong* in the end, but it is still something you can test. For example, in labs they attempt to create amino acids by replicating the conditions on primeval earth, seeing what happens with complex organic molecules on asteroids etc. They can look at fossil records etc. They can also see evolution occur in breeding farm animals (with humans instead of natural selection being the "choosing" element) and in bacteria. However, creationism - it is impossible to design experiments for.

The best you can say for creationism is that "evolution hasn't shown a complete theory yet/they haven't been able to create the vesigaes of primeval life in labs yet so life must have been created". That's not a scientific theory. It could mean that the specific version of evolution, or theories of primeval life are wrong (though the idea of evolution are correct) or that simply experiments are not using the right conditions or they havne;t found the right fossils. It does not "prove" creationism in the scientific sense. If you think I am wrong, propose a scientific experiment which can prove creationism. It doesn't necessarily have to be something you can *do*. You can assume as many perfect conditions as possible. And yet you still can't propose one! As a scientific theory, creationism fails miserably.

Relativity gained support amongst the scientific community because of the failings of other theories to explain all observations. But, relativity could propose potential experiments to test if it was correct. I mean, even *string* theory which many scientists consider a toy because it can't propose any practical experiments can propose *non-realistic* experiments. With creationism you can't even do this!

This is why I strongly oppose teaching creationism in science classes. It is not a scientific theory! Sure teach the failings of current evolutionary theory but creationism is not a scientific alternative!

Finally, evolution does not necessarily produce perfect solutions. There are always evolutionary dead ends. This is because there is a case of "it's good enough". This is because more complicated structures evolve from less complicated ones which may not have been for the same purpose. Let's say you've evolved an eye. It's not perfect, but "it's good enough". If it's good enough, what is the driving force to start over again? If the problems with the eye is not enough to really affect the chances of survival or give advantages in mating, then what is going to "fix" the problems with the eyes? Nothing. Also as is the case with some inherited diseases, the genes for the disease provide protection against other diseases, which could be why they are maintained. It is basically a balance. Does the gene kill more people than it saves? And does it kill enough to really affect the population?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I would not be able to say whether the universe has purpose, but I would like to hear a possible purpose that requires imperfection to be achieved.

It's ten to twelve and Christmas will come early. This is a longer discussion than I can have tonight. So I will put it off for a day or so.

Since I have not read this entire thread, unfortunately I do not understand the context of these questions. However, I would say that the answers are pretty irrelevant, since different organizations of quarks would produce the emergent properties that distinguish typhoid from poison ivy.

The context is my recent posts. It bagan with Shadylookin saying that god had to be more cmplex than the universe to create it. I did not agree and started talking about quarks and leptons. We see the distinguishing characteristics of a rose and poison ivy, but at the quark level those disappear. You assume that the human perspective is the only one of significance. It's only ours. How does a fish see reality? Is it wrong? or just limited? A mole? A dog? Could god have a different one? What if god can only see quarks? Unless he puts on special glasses Maybe the real act of creation was the creation of quarks an leptons and from there things just took off.

What do we mean by "creation"? Do we all even agree on what that means? And then what is a creator? A thing? A process?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Merry Christmas to all and good night.

 

[Fifty]

Let's define Real (capital R): That which is permanent, unchanging.
real (little r): objects and effects within our universe and the universe (which is not Real because it is not permanent and unchanging)

We are limited to our senses and the devices we create to enable us to gather data they cannot. That 's pretty limiting. What would we see if we could perceive what is Real, as defined above? Would the unverse exist? Would you exist?


This is not fully clear to me but I will take stab at an answer. Yes I mean that our perceptive abilities are insufficient to grasp Reality (capital R). They are perectly suited to understanding the universe. Reason will not get us past the barriers of time and space. The path to understanding existence is not reason. For you to be correct you must assume that logic and reason are our highest faculties and everything can be understood through them. I don't believe that.

So if what is Real is outside of the universe (because the universe is obviously not under the definition of Real), then how can you assert that anything Real exists? It seems that Real in your sense is just a divination, and I'm wondering what your basis is for asserting that something Real exists. Is the God you talk about (and if I understand you correctly, you are defining God as that which is Real) simply the infinite existense asserted by atheists and theists alike? It seems that the atheist scenario of your "Real God" is the exact same as the theist scenario of your "Real God" only it seems more simple. I also question the reasoning behind giving the fact of existence existing the title of God? Hopefully this won't get lost through subsequent postings on this thread... I'm interested in your answer and I find this to be a good discussion

Merry Christmas by the way, and goodnight!

 

[Fifty]

No, not really. If you have an infinite possible universes , it can be by pure chance that conditions were such that intelligent life was possible. It is the literal infinite monkeys typing out Hamlet. As to the small chances of it happening by luck - this is where the anthropic principle comes into play. We are in the universe where luck allowed intelligent life to happened because if it didn't, we wouldn't be here to question how intelligent life happened. In all the universes where intelligent life didn't happen, no-one notices them because there is no intelligent life in them to actually question why there is no intelligent life in them.

By the way, isn't this argument of the Intelligent Creator more a logical argument than a scientific one?

My mistake on the logical vs. scientific point... for some reason I equate logic and science very closely, even though the distinction is obvious, as you pointed out.

As for your anthropic principle, I've heard it called a tautology (which would make it a logical fallacy if I'm not mistaken, I don't know formal logic). "x exists because if x didn't exist then we wouldn't be able to observe and come to the conclusion that x exists" doesn't sound logical to me.

 

[joacqin]

As to the complexity issue and the watch you talk about earlier. I had a friend who had a similar analogy about a car, if you ran into a car you think it is created and the parts havent just fallen together of themselves to create the car. My reply to that was that if it was raining car parts for billions and billions of years on every planet in the universe sooner or later they would fall together to create a complete car. Chance will prevail given sufficient time.

 

[Blasphemous]

Oh like these arguments?

Most of those arguments make illogical leaps to the conclusions that the writer wanted to get to.
Nevertheless, I will answer to the arguments:

"Everything has a beginning"
Everything within the universe appears to have a beginning, but the universe may be eternal. We will likely never know.
Anyway, even if we need an external first cause, having a deity do it doesn't really solve our problem. What is the deity's first cause? And why the heck does the deity of first cause care about us, anyway? Why should it matter if some external force started everything? Why does agreeing that some deity may have started the universe automatically mean that any religion is right?
Basically, I doubt a deity did it, and even if a deity did, it's unlikely that he cares about us, and even if he does, I would have no way of knowing which religion - if any - tells the right story about the deity and tells me what to do to win the deity's favor.
So, in conclusion, primary cause is a problem, but it's just as problematic if we dress up the solution in a good costume.

Physics + Astonomy:
As was already said, life developed in the universe, and it would not exist if it would not have adapted for this universe and this planet. Whoever thinks these arguments make sense apparently sees things backwards. The universe was here before life evolved, and when life evolved it evolved in this universe, to fit this universe's conditions.

Biochemistry
If it were so clear to biochemists that these thingies could never have been spontaneously created, I'm pretty sure these biochemists would have made sure that the theory of evolution is discredited and that everybody knows it. Science, unlike dogma, does not resist change, and so most scientists would have no problem refuting a theory. Thus, I doubt that this is true, it sounds like demagoguery.
It is also possible that some biochemists really do think there are things that are irreducibly complex, but just because with our current technology and understanding we don't know how they could have possibly been spontaneously created doesn't mean they really couldn't have. There are many things we may never know.

Biology
If you know what a computer is, you know what programming is, and you find a computer and find it's programming language, then you already know that an intelligent creature has created it because that's a part of what defines a computer.
So, essentially, this argument is only correct if a part of your definition of life is that it was created by an intelligent being.

Concoiusness
Again, just because we cannot yet understand how something can be, or how something can be created, doesn't mean it can't have been created like everything else, at random. The only reason to say this means you have a soul is that whoever claims this already believes you have a soul and just uses this argument as an excuse to claim that.

 

[Blasphemous]

It bagan with Shadylookin saying that god had to be more cmplex than the universe to create it.

I'm pretty sure he said that because that's the basis of the argument that he was refuting.
He was highlighting a very obvious inconsistency in this argument: if something cannot create something more complex than itself, and the solution to the universe is thus god, we automatically get an infinite line of more and more complex gods creating one another, meaning we solved nothing.