Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

I believe we were created in the image of God, the supreme intelligent Creator.  Your conjecture is to assume that intelligence, together with conscious awareness and conscious choice, is just an accidental by-product which occurred during the dissipation of energy in this universe.

Your 'accidental' further betrays your hopelessly poor thinking.

[Alan Burns]

Your 'accidental' further betrays your hopelessly poor thinking.

How can anything emerging from an initially lifeless, aimless, Godless universe be anything other than accidental?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The point I was making was that intelligence is an observed phenomenon of this planet, not of the whole universe.

But it's a non-point. We just don't have the technology to know whether intelligent life exists elsewhere, though there are some interesting hypotheses about Dyson spheres that suggest that it might:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dyson-megastructure-mystery-deepens

Torri was claiming that evidence for intelligence as a natural phenomenon was everywhere.

What he actually did was to explain that all we can observe tells us that complexity emerges from simpler components, and that intelligence fits that model perfectly well. You can speculate about a top down intelligence all you like, but that creates many more questions than answers.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I believe we were created in the image of God, the supreme intelligent Creator.

And I believe that unicorns like a nice garibaldi biscuit with their tea. See, the thing is we can each believe anything we like, however incoherent, non-cogent and un-evidenced the claim. The problem though is that your claim and mine are for epistemic purposes the same - they're just assertions.

Your conjecture is to assume that intelligence, together with conscious awareness and conscious choice, is just an accidental by-product which occurred during the dissipation of energy in this universe.

Wrong on (at least) two counts.

First, it's not an "assumption" that consciousness emerged naturally. To the contrary, that's what the evidence-based model tells us.

Second, "during the heat dissipation of the universe" fails to grasp that entropy decreases when energy sources enter a non-isolated system.

Apart from that though...   

Oh, and by the way:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[Gordon]

How can anything emerging from an initially lifeless, aimless, Godless universe be anything other than accidental?

Leaving aside the hyperbole, such as 'Godless universe, your use of accidental is sloppy since it has different uses: you need to clarify what you mean by it.

[ekim]

If 'Logos' (which sounds like an example of reification) is proposed as the necessary precursor of 'intelligence' there is then the issue of the precursor of 'Logos' to address: presumably 'Logos' advocates would claim 'Logos' was a special case so as to avoid the regress, which sounds like termites all the way down approach to me.

In addition, such an approach doesn't address the potential incremental aspect of emergence.

What I was suggesting is that Logos is Intelligence rather than a precursor, the word 'intelligence' being used in the sense of its Latin origin i.e. choose between.  In the John Gospel where it says 'In the beginning was the Logos' suggests to me, the beginning of the creation process rather than before the beginning and was no more a special case than gravity, but I would guess that it is special in the sense that it perhaps applies to life forms rather than lifeless forms.  I would suppose that the incremental aspect of emergence would be thought to arise from repetition of a trial and error approach with an intelligence driven feedback loop monitoring success and failure and optimising the result.  Perhaps complexity of life forms is intelligence driven.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

What I was suggesting is that Logos is Intelligence rather than a precursor, the word 'intelligence' being used in the sense of its Latin origin i.e. choose between.

You can suggest that choice-making is the precursor of intelligence, but choice-making itself must have come from somewhere. It’s not a particularly big stretch though to imagine, say, a relatively primitive species “choosing” to move toward or away from a light source according to its photosensitive receptors’ responses to sunlight and shadow. 

In the John Gospel where it says 'In the beginning was the Logos' suggests to me, the beginning of the creation process rather than before the beginning and was no more a special case than gravity, but I would guess that it is special in the sense that it perhaps applies to life forms rather than lifeless forms.

Well, there was no telling what the iron-age authors had in mind when they wrote it but it seems reasonable to assume they were trying to make sense of the world to the best of their abilities within the bounds of the limited knowledge available at the time.

I would suppose that the incremental aspect of emergence would be thought to arise from repetition of a trial and error approach with an intelligence driven feedback loop monitoring success and failure and optimising the result.

Sort of. Billions of trials for sure, but no “optimising” in the controlling sense you suggest. To take the example above, if the species “chose” to move away from direct sunlight in the heat of the day and thus didn’t get frazzled, eventually its successors would have that function embedded at the genetic level.
 

Perhaps complexity of life forms is intelligence driven.

No. You can’t use intelligence to choose to be more complex.

Complexity incidentally isn’t necessarily functional. Ferns for example have many more base pairs of genes than we do, not because they’re all put to use but rather because they’ve been around a lot longer and so have had much more opportunity for mutation, most of which is functionally redundant. 

[ekim]

You can suggest that choice-making is the precursor of intelligence, but choice-making itself must have come from somewhere. It’s not a particularly big stretch though to imagine, say, a relatively primitive species “choosing” to move toward or away from a light source according to its photosensitive receptors’ responses to sunlight and shadow.

The suggestion was that choice making is intelligence and so the primitive species used primitive intelligence to make its response to light and shade.

No. You can’t use intelligence to choose to be more complex.

Complexity incidentally isn’t necessarily functional. Ferns for example have many more base pairs of genes than we do, not because they’re all put to use but rather because they’ve been around a lot longer and so have had much more opportunity for mutation, most of which is functionally redundant.

I wasn't quite meaning that.  More that intelligence becomes more pervasive within a more complex organism and the more primitive intelligence within a single cell harmonises with that within other cells to create a unity rather than fights with them.  It may appear as a complexity of cells but is a simplicity as a harmonious organism.
 

[Gordon]

What I was suggesting is that Logos is Intelligence rather than a precursor, the word 'intelligence' being used in the sense of its Latin origin i.e. choose between.  In the John Gospel where it says 'In the beginning was the Logos' suggests to me, the beginning of the creation process rather than before the beginning and was no more a special case than gravity, but I would guess that it is special in the sense that it perhaps applies to life forms rather than lifeless forms.  I would suppose that the incremental aspect of emergence would be thought to arise from repetition of a trial and error approach with an intelligence driven feedback loop monitoring success and failure and optimising the result.  Perhaps complexity of life forms is intelligence driven.

Sounds then like 'Logos' is synonymous with the inherent intelligence of a species such as our own and that the ancients responsible for the Bible conflated biology that they were, understandably, fairly ignorant of with some sort of divine element.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sounds then like 'Logos' is synonymous with the inherent intelligence of a species such as our own and that the ancients responsible for the Bible conflated biology that they were, understandably, fairly ignorant of with some sort of divine element.

While there may be a word for what you are trying to convey it is not the Logos principle of either Christianity or Greek philosophy.

Such ignorance is understandable in the general population but less forgivable for someone setting themselves up as a public pontificator of religion.

[Gordon]

While there may be a word for what you are trying to convey it is not the Logos principle of either Christianity or Greek philosophy.

I'm simply following up the intelligence reference in earlier posts, and of course the two uses of 'Logos' you mention are very different - but since you raise this perhaps you can elaborate of the meaning and implications of 'Logos' from your perspective.

Such ignorance is understandable in the general population but less forgivable for someone setting themselves up as a public pontificator of religion.

You mean, of course, that I'm asking you guys to explain yourselves.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You mean, of course, that I'm asking you guys to explain yourselves.

Happy to put you straight.

[Gordon]

Happy to put you straight.

Super - when do you plan to make a start?

[ekim]

Sounds then like 'Logos' is synonymous with the inherent intelligence of a species such as our own and that the ancients responsible for the Bible conflated biology that they were, understandably, fairly ignorant of with some sort of divine element.

More or less, yes, but bearing in mind that this is only my version, other brands are available.  It was perhaps their biology ... bios meaning 'life' and logos 'intelligence', intelligence within life.  As both of those principles were a mystery possibly they were given divine status.  From memory, I believe there is something similar in a strand of Hindu philosophy where, within the creative process, there was a trinity of principles involved.  One was Rajas which represented expansion and action, the second was Tamas which represented stability, resistance, inertia and at the apex of the triangle was Sattva representing intelligent balancing and equilibrium.   It uses Rajas to stir Tamas and Tamas to stabilise Rajas, a bit like in the process of metabolism, perhaps, which can be seen as the harmonious relationship between anabolism and catabolism.  When it is severely unbalanced a person can go hypo- or hyper-. 

[Alan Burns]

But it's a non-point. We just don't have the technology to know whether intelligent life exists elsewhere, though there are some interesting hypotheses about Dyson spheres that suggest that it might:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dyson-megastructure-mystery-deepens

Scientists and astronomers seem very keen to discover any signs of life on other planets, but we have no substantial evidence to date.

It just struck me that most scientific investigations have naturally been focussed on this planet which is abounding with life.  If a Creator did set up environments and systems to promote the development of life forms on this planet, any scientific observations which are solely focussed on this planet will merely be observing what has been purposely set up.  So your conclusions about emergence may not apply elsewhere in the universe, which would suggest evidence of God's interaction with this planet.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Super - when do you plan to make a start?

In terms of your apparent ignorance of the term, here might be a good place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

[Gordon]

In terms of your apparent ignorance of the term, here might be a good place:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos

Already read this - I asked you for your perspective on 'Logos', since you previously referred to different views.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Already read this - I asked you for your perspective on 'Logos', since you previously referred to different views.

Already read this? How does that square with your obvious confusion of what Logos is in terms of Greek and Christian thought.

I can't recall you asking for my perspective but it is related to both Greek and Christian understandings...which you claim to have already read.

Since you appear to have misunderstood the Wikipedia article... what chance has my perspective got?
 

[torridon]

Scientists and astronomers seem very keen to discover any signs of life on other planets, but we have no substantial evidence to date.

It just struck me that most scientific investigations have naturally been focussed on this planet which is abounding with life.  If a Creator did set up environments and systems to promote the development of life forms on this planet, any scientific observations which are solely focussed on this planet will merely be observing what has been purposely set up.  So your conclusions about emergence may not apply elsewhere in the universe, which would suggest evidence of God's interaction with this planet.

If God took special measures to facilitate life on this planet how come he forgot to institute a protective shield to protect the planet from bombardment by asteroids and comets ?  As it is, life evolves slowly, then bang, an asteroid impact resets everything back to zero almost with a mass extinction event.  Surely a protective shield would be high on a would be creator's to-do list ?

[floo]

If God took special measures to facilitate life on this planet how come he forgot to institute a protective shield to protect the planet from bombardment by asteroids and comets ?  As it is, life evolves slowly, then bang, an asteroid impact resets everything back to zero almost with a mass extinction event.  Surely a protective shield would be high on a would be creator's to-do list ?

Professor Branestawm and the Biblical god have a lot in common!

[Gordon]

Already read this? How does that square with your obvious confusion of what Logos is in terms of Greek and Christian thought.

I can't recall you asking for my perspective but it is related to both Greek and Christian understandings...which you claim to have already read.

Since you appear to have misunderstood the Wikipedia article... what chance has my perspective got?
 

I refer to honourable gentleman to my earlier post, quoted below, and look forward to his response.

I'm simply following up the intelligence reference in earlier posts, and of course the two uses of 'Logos' you mention are very different - but since you raise this perhaps you can elaborate of the meaning and implications of 'Logos' from your perspective.

[Gordon]

Scientists and astronomers seem very keen to discover any signs of life on other planets, but we have no substantial evidence to date.

There has been recent work on 'exoplanets', since it is only of late that planets orbiting other stars can be studied, where those that have similar conditions to this one (where life has occurred and evolved) are of interest. There is also interest closer to home, such as on Enceladus (subject of a recent thread on here).

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13885.msg673655#new 

It just struck me that most scientific investigations have naturally been focussed on this planet which is abounding with life.

This being the only one we have routine access to, currently.

If a Creator did set up environments and systems to promote the development of life forms on this planet, any scientific observations which are solely focussed on this planet will merely be observing what has been purposely set up. So your conclusions about emergence may not apply elsewhere in the universe, which would suggest evidence of God's interaction with this planet.

Which is begging the question: you seem to peddle fallacies with ease.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Scientists and astronomers seem very keen to discover any signs of life on other planets, but we have no substantial evidence to date.

Yes, though that’s hardly surprising given how only recently we’ve had the technology to find even clues of it, how limited that technology still is, and the colossal distances involved.   

It just struck me that most scientific investigations have naturally been focussed on this planet which is abounding with life.

Of course it has – it’s comparatively easy to find!

If a Creator did set up environments and systems to promote the development of life forms on this planet, any scientific observations which are solely focussed on this planet will merely be observing what has been purposely set up.

Focus on that “If” for a moment. If anything, then anything: if there are leprechauns, then there are pots of gold at the ends of rainbows.

How does that help you?

So…

That’s yet another non sequitur. The “So” doesn’t follow from the previous statement.

…your conclusions about emergence may not apply elsewhere in the universe,…

They may not, though the generalised phenomenon of emergence we see pretty much everywhere we do look in the observable universe suggests that it’s the most probable explanatory model for life elsewhere if such a thing exists at all.   

…which would suggest evidence of God's interaction with this planet.

And another non sequitur to finish. It would suggest no such thing. Rather all it would actually suggest if all your “ifs” turned out to be the case is that then we’d have just a “don’t know”. “Don’t knows” no more suggest your god than they suggest unicorns or hobgoblins. They’re just “don’t knows”.

By the way, as you still seem to have missed it:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE TERM “LOGICAL FALLACY” MEANS AND, IF YOU DO, DOES YOUR RELIANCE ON THEM IMPLY THAT YOU THINK THAT A FALSE ARGUMENT SOMEHOW BECOMES A GOOD ONE WHEN YOU HAPPEN TO LIKE ITS OUTCOME?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Already read this? How does that square with your obvious confusion of what Logos is in terms of Greek and Christian thought.

I can't recall you asking for my perspective but it is related to both Greek and Christian understandings...which you claim to have already read.

Since you appear to have misunderstood the Wikipedia article... what chance has my perspective got?

As you seem determined to be coy about what your "perspective" might be (though presumably it's one of the various options listed in the article) there's no way to answer that.

[Sassy]

On this thread, I am always pleased when the last post I read at that moment is not one of AB's! When the last is one of his, I have this sense of trying to fight my way out of an invisible trap or something similar.

Wishful, thinking on your part. If so secure in your beliefs, then there would be no invisible trap maybe your mind fighting the truth that you never had a satisfactory answer in the first instance.