God of the gaps argument

[reggieM]

The analogy to software assumes the thing that you’re trying to demonstrate (that DNA has a designer).

All examples of human language – which is what you are comparing DNA to – are designed to communicate ideas from one mind to another. DNA does not communicate anything – it’s a series of patterns that produce effects.

I think you could find examples of software language, for use in engineering or even just in personal computing, where the language is designed to communicate ideas from the human mind (the designer) to the machine. Indirectly, you could say that it is still from one mind to another mind, because “the machine” decodes the software based on rules created by the human designer.

But I don’t think its assuming what it intends to prove. It’s just an analogy based on how human langugage, or code works. Where we see functional code, then there’s an intelligence that created it and intelligence that decodes it and uses it.

DNA is a patterned sequence that produces effects – but isn’t that what we would call something like ASCII or any software code?

 

[AntiTheist]

I think you could find examples of software language, for use in engineering or even just in personal computing, where the language is designed to communicate ideas from the human mind (the designer) to the machine. Indirectly, you could say that it is still from one mind to another mind, because “the machine” decodes the software based on rules created by the human designer.

Yeah, but that’s an analogy between language and sofware now. The machine doesn’t “decode” and “understand” software in the same way that we understand language.

When we call software a “language,” we’re just using that analogy to help us understand the process.

You’re getting all mixed up with these analogies. Just because a thing shares some properties with another thing doesn’t mean that it shares all properties with them, especially a property that is in contention (in this case, having an intelligent creator).

A software isn’t language, and language isn’t DNA. Those things resemble each other in some ways, but you are building false analogies by trying to equate these things.

Start by what we can observe: we have molecules that, when arranged in certain pattern in living things, produce a certain result. This, in and of itself, is not terribly surprising. We would expect different combinations of molecules to result in different effects.

Without resorting to analogies, how does that demonstrate that intelligence needs to be involved, especially when we already have a perfectly plausible method for how such patterns can be selected for by environmental pressures?

 

[lemondiesel]

Ok, but I think the biggest problems are with the origin of DNA and also how it could change in time.

Well, let’s try and iron out those problems!

With the origin, we could have a chance assembly which gives meaningful code. But meaningful to who?

It is a meaningful code to whoever gives it meaning. Remember, all of our knowledge is based on perception through our senses. Our perception of our DNA is that it contains a history of genes for our complex life. We gave it meaning, because those certain sequences are the reason we look the way we do, and even act the way we do.

Two problems – the chance assembly, and determining meaning.
Chance is very difficult to imagine in this case.

How is chance? Picture this in a different scenario. A star first forms by fusing hydrogen and helium. These are the starting elements. So we begin with H and He. Overtime, as pressure and heat rise, we see He atoms form into C and O atoms. In heavier stars, we see the creation of the heavy elements, all the way up to Iron.

Now, use this same kind of scenario towards DNA. What I am getting from your post is that you think DNA is too complex to just have ‘developed’ by chance. Can you say the same thing about a solar system? They start with basic elements, and end up very complex! (Notice I say solar system and not universe )

Knowledge of God is found in metascientific facts, in ourselves and others, in philosophy and religion, in beauty and in the Source of all knowledge…

You are listing things that are subjective and will vary differently according to the perspective.

Languages contain patterns, signs and symbols… Natural patterns do not contain language, signs or symbols.

Languages come from a mind, but they do not need a mind to receive.

Yes but those natural patterns are what forms language, gives us the signs and symbols. Language is the interpretation of these natural patterns from the observers prospective. In a sense, natural patterns are the starting block for language.

 

[_Locke]

If the frontiers of our ignorance are expanding further and further, and that is clearly the case), then God is drawing closer and closer to us and is therefore continually advancing. We find God in admitting how little we know, not in boasting about the wisdom that we pretend to have.

You’ve intentionally left out the most meaningful part of the quote so that you can take offense.
_Locke_:

“…how wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, letter to Eberhard Bethge, 29 May 1944

What Bonhoeffer was trying to say is that it is wrong to trivialize God by using him as explanation for things we don’t understand, not “boasting about wisdom we pretend to have.” (ridiculous reggieM, how do you come up with this stuff?)

 

[tonyrey]

Knowledge of God is found in metascientific facts, in ourselves and others, in philosophy and religion, in beauty and in the Source of all knowledge…

You seems to regard everything as subjective except material objects. Do you regard yourself and your thoughts as subjective? Is your statement “things…will vary differently according to the perspective”?

 

[edwest2]

Well, let’s try and iron out those problems!

It is a meaningful code to whoever gives it meaning. Remember, all of our knowledge is based on perception through our senses. Our perception of our DNA is that it contains a history of genes for our complex life. We gave it meaning, because those certain sequences are the reason we look the way we do, and even act the way we do.

How is chance? Picture this in a different scenario. A star first forms by fusing hydrogen and helium. These are the starting elements. So we begin with H and He. Overtime, as pressure and heat rise, we see He atoms form into C and O atoms. In heavier stars, we see the creation of the heavy elements, all the way up to Iron.

Now, use this same kind of scenario towards DNA. What I am getting from your post is that you think DNA is too complex to just have ‘developed’ by chance. Can you say the same thing about a solar system? They start with basic elements, and end up very complex! (Notice I say solar system and not universe )

You are listing things that are subjective and will vary differently according to the perspective.

Yes but those natural patterns are what forms language, gives us the signs and symbols. Language is the interpretation of these natural patterns from the observers prospective. In a sense, natural patterns are the starting block for language.

I’ll have to write fast. My baloney meter is starting to overheat.

Human Beings did not self-construct. OK? Brains don’t self-upgrade. Got It?

DNA does not self-construct and does not self-upgrade.

Natural patterns is a meaningless statement. A handful of sand is not to be compared to a single human cell.

Peace,
Ed

 

[coolduude]

Language, according to Wikipedia, has several definitions.

1.)

A mental faculty, organ or instinct

One definition sees language primarily as the mental faculty that allows humans to undertake linguistic behaviour: learn languages and produce and understand utterances. This definition stresses the universality of language to all humans and the biological basis of the human capacity for language as a unique development of the human brain.[4][5] This view often understands language to be largely innate, for example as in Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammar or Jerry Fodor’s extreme innatist theory. These kinds of definitions are often applied by studies of language within a cognitive science framework and in neurolinguistics.

2.)

A formal symbolic system

Another definition sees language as a formal system of symbols governed by grammatical rules combining particular signs with particular meanings. This definition stresses the fact that human languages can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings. This structuralist view of language was first introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure. Some proponents of this kind of view of language such as Noam Chomsky defines language as a particular set of sentences that can be generated from a particular set of rules.[6] This view of language is commonly used in formal logic, semiotics, and in formal and structural theories of grammar - the most commonly used theoretical frameworks in linguistic description. In the philosophy of language these views are associated with philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, early Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski and Gottlob Frege.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language#Sounds_and_symbols

And, according to Merriam-Webster:
Merriam-Webster:

b (1) : audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs (2) : a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings (3) : the suggestion by objects, actions, or conditions of associated ideas or feelings <language in their very gesture — Shakespeare> (4) : the means by which animals communicate (5) : a formal system of signs and symbols (as FORTRAN or a calculus in logic) including rules for the formation and transformation of admissible expressions (6)

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language

I think DNA can rightly be called a language.

 

[lemondiesel]

I think DNA can rightly be called a language.

Scenario:

The universe is made up of many different thing. Galaxies, Solar systems, Suns, Planets, Meters, Gas, etc. All of these, everything, makes up the universe.

DNA is made up of many genes and proteins. Everything working together makes DNA.

Our human bodies composed of many parts and organs. Together they create the body.

These things would exist without language, they just are.

But it takes cognitive thinking and language to describe those things. Language developed to describe the many parts to make up the whole. We give words to represent each part, and then one for the whole. Language can rightly be called DNA, because it pre existed long before.

 

[coolduude]

Scenario:

The universe is made up of many different thing. Galaxies, Solar systems, Suns, Planets, Meters, Gas, etc. All of these, everything, makes up the universe.

DNA is made up of many genes and proteins. Everything working together makes DNA.

Our human bodies composed of many parts and organs. Together they create the body.

These things would exist without language, they just are.

But it takes cognitive thinking and language to describe those things. Language developed to describe the many parts to make up the whole. We give words to represent each part, and then one for the whole. Language can rightly be called DNA, because it pre existed long before.

All of this is correct, but it is what you are not saying that is making the difference here.

It takes cognitive thinking and language to make those things.

God is the thinker, DNA is His language.

 

[edwest2]

Scenario:

The universe is made up of many different thing. Galaxies, Solar systems, Suns, Planets, Meters, Gas, etc. All of these, everything, makes up the universe.

DNA is made up of many genes and proteins. Everything working together makes DNA.

Our human bodies composed of many parts and organs. Together they create the body.

These things would exist without language, they just are.

But it takes cognitive thinking and language to describe those things. Language developed to describe the many parts to make up the whole. We give words to represent each part, and then one for the whole. Language can rightly be called DNA, because it pre existed long before.

If I left the parts for a bicycle out in the open for a billion years, they would not assemble themselves.

God bless,
Ed

 

[lemondiesel]

All of this is correct, but it is what you are not saying that is making the difference here.

It takes cognitive thinking and language to make those things.

God is the thinker, DNA is His language.

I already said this.

Cognitive thinking and language give those things existence, because they just are. The universe, DNA, and life pre-existed cognitive thinking and language. They were non existent until we came along, recognized time, and put everything in history.

If you are wishing to discuss creation, I would dip my toes in.

If I left the parts for a bicycle out in the open for a billion years, they would not assemble themselves.

Perhaps you did not understand my post. Everything makes up the UNIverse. You are the universe, because we are all parts that make up a whole. All the atoms in existence make up this whole, and every atom is the universe.

I could come along and rebuild that bike. The bicycle parts and I are the universe, every single atom is why we have cognitive thinking. This bicycle just assembled itself.

 

[buffalo]

All of this is correct, but it is what you are not saying that is making the difference here.

It takes cognitive thinking and language to make those things.

God is the thinker, DNA is His language.

Yup.

IDvolution - God “breathed” the super language of DNA into the “kinds” in the creative act. This accounts for the diversity of life we see. The core makeup shared by all living things have the necessary complex information built in that facilitates rapid and responsive adaptation of features and variation while being able to preserve the “kind” that they began as. Life has been created with the creativity built in ready to respond to triggering events.

Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth have the same core, it is virtually certain that living organisms have been thought of AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator endowed with the super language we know as DNA that switched on the formation of the various kinds, the cattle, the swimming creatures, the flying creatures, etc… in a pristine harmonious state and superb adaptability and responsiveness to their environment for the purpose of populating the earth that became subject to the ravages of corruption by the sin of one man (deleterious mutations).
IDvolution agrees with the constant teaching and understanding of the church, the latest in modern science and St Thomas and St Augustine.

IDvolution is the solution.

 

[AntiTheist]

If I left the parts for a bicycle out in the open for a billion years, they would not assemble themselves.

They would if metal could reproduce and undergo small incremental changes over very long periods of time that could be selected by environmental factors.

You’re making another false analogy here – now you want to compare non-living things to living things.

 

[coolduude]

I already said this.

Cognitive thinking and language give those things existence, because they just are. The universe, DNA, and life pre-existed cognitive thinking and language. They were non existent until we came along, recognized time, and put everything in history.

So DNA, stars, solar systems, galaxies, etc. did not exist until we came along and said they did? Flawed logic at its finest, I must say.

Also, how can something that is created ‘just be’? I find that a very hard concept to wrap my head around.

You are very mistaken, but I think it is because of ignorance, not arrogance. You just need some schooling

 

[lemondiesel]

IDvolution is the solution.

You can have anything you want be the solution! That is just it! No one should tell you what to believe or not to believe. We are all equal in the shadow of Existence. Make that Existence whatever you want it to be.

 

[coolduude]

You can have anything you want be the solution! That is just it! No one should tell you what to believe or not to believe. We are all equal in the shadow of Existence. Make that Existence whatever you want it to be.

Sounds very… Christian to me.

 

[buffalo]

You can have anything you want be the solution! That is just it! No one should tell you what to believe or not to believe. We are all equal in the shadow of Existence. Make that Existence whatever you want it to be.

My reality is that you do not exist.

 

[lemondiesel]

So DNA, stars, solar systems, galaxies, etc. did not exist until we came along and said they did? Flawed logic at its finest, I must say.

It may be flawed to many, but explain to me how any of those would exist without the cognitive perspective? It is like thinking “if a tree falls in the woods, who would hear it?” It just would happen. Oh well.

Also, how can something that is created ‘just be’? I find that a very hard concept to wrap my head around.

Exactly how God can ‘just be.’ I think the key rest with black holes and gravity. Maybe black holes are the pull of ‘nothing.’ The gravitational pull they put out breaks down existing matter into nonexistence, putting that matter into infinite space/time.

I think the singularities either are the center of Suns, creating nuclear fusion or the center point that black holes condense too. That’s just my imagination though haha.

You are very mistaken, but I think it is because of ignorance, not arrogance. You just need some schooling

Perhaps…

 

[lemondiesel]

Sounds very… Christian to me.

Without the heaven part. Check out my thread My Beliefs. I know you would provide excellent counter questions for me. (if you haven’t already)

My reality is that you do not exist.

Not until you experience me through your senses. I exist now because we are discussing on this forum.

But if I never came, would you know I exist? I just would though wouldn’t I?

 

[coolduude]

@ lemondiesel:

There is too much speculation in your posts. It seems that you hardly have a solid answer to anything.

Here’s how to prove DNA, stars, planets, etc. existed before we did:

1. The universe was created before we were around to say it did
2. Therefore, it exists and existed before we came around and said it did
3. Therefore, DNA, stars, planets, etc. existed before us. We, as humans, merely classified and organized it, discovered it, and learn about it. But it was there before us. Just ask the dinosaur fossils.

Exactly how God can ‘just be.’

As bad as this sounds, God is different. God can ‘just be’ because God is existence itself. He must be, for without Him, there would be nothing.

But this is getting off topic from my original question, so I suggest that if you want to continue this discussion, you start a new thread.