How do you plan to measure complexity?

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

No. That is not what I’m referring to, here. Look up “linguistics performative speech act.” friend.

SSDD. If you what that means.

SSDD. I’m not seeing understandable sentences in what you write.

That is not the question. It is NOT an explanation.

Actually… it is. It’s not what you want… but it’s an explanation. Big difference, apparently.

 

[Sophia]

Actually… it is. It’s not what you want… but it’s an explanation. Big difference, apparently.

Just like the explanation for the cancer that grew in her liver was the result of her attitude, that she did not “love” herself.
Or that the constellation of the stars at the time of his birth was the explanation for his basic personality.
Or that the explanation for the lack of success of the alchemist (turning iron to gold) was that he did not wait for the lucky configuration of the stellar objects.
Or that the explanation for pile-up on the interstate was due to lack of attention of the guardian angels.

So many “explanations”! Are they all valid?

 

[Gorgias]

Just like the explanation for the cancer that grew in her liver was the result of her attitude, that she did not “love” herself.
Or that the constellation of the stars at the time of his birth was the explanation for his basic personality.
Or that the explanation for the lack of success of the alchemist (turning iron to gold) was that he did not wait for the lucky configuration of the stellar objects.
Or that the explanation for pile-up on the interstate was due to lack of attention of the guardian angels.

All of these are empirically falsifiable.

God isn’t.

But hey… nice try.

 

[Darryl_B]

I place the level at nature. Nature is perfectly able to replicate itself but at the same time nature is entirely incapable of replicating itself outside the constraints.

I will explain. Nature produces offspring, but nothing within that nature is able to insert new nature, and produce more nature.

So to answer your question I plan to use a ruler.

 

[rossum]

All of these are empirically falsifiable.

God isn’t.

But hey… nice try.

Certain claimed properties of God are falsifiable. For example:

“Furthermore, I tell all of you with certainty that if two of you agree on earth about anything you request, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” – Matthew 18:19

That claim is testable. It has been tested and has failed the test: Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer.

That is not a disproof of the existence of God, but it is evidence that God does not always answer prayers, as claimed in Matthew.

rossum

 

[Sophia]

All of these are empirically falsifiable.

God isn’t.

But hey… nice try.

Really? How can you attempt to verify / falsify that the pile-up was NOT caused by the inattention of the guardian angels? Or any of the other “explanations”?

Those claims are not falsifiable even in that particular instance… definitely not in general. Maybe there is an invisible elf in Mr. Smith’s basement who is the explanation for the rain. Of course the claim that God said “let there be light… and there was light” cannot be verified or falsified either. And yet you consider that a valid “explanation”, while you discard mine on the basis that they cannot be falsified. Can’t you stay consistent even for the duration of a few sentences?

Also I said nothing about God, I was asking about the concept of “explanation”. The question about the “let there be light” is just a reference to what God allegedly said (what language did he use? And who was there to record it?). Sorry, I cannot reciprocate your compliment “nice try”, because your attempt is definitely not a “nice try”.

Rossum also gave an excellent response to your current claim. Here is another one, John 14:13 “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Observe the words: “whatever you ask in my name”; it is not qualified an any manner. It refers to any and all requests for intercession (even asking for a million bucks). But even if you ask something kind and loving, like: “please help this suffering child, our powers are insufficient to help” - and if nothing happens, it will falsify the claim about God and Jesus. It would not falsify God or Jesus, only the claim about them.

 

[Dan123]

If someone wants to say ‘X is complex’ you’re completely right, if someone wants to say ‘no natural process could have created X’ that becomes a scientific claim. Personal lack of understanding doesn’t make something too complex for nature.

 

[FiveLinden]

What material thing, exactly, do the words in the OP represent? Please provide images so I can understand. Alternatively. lease post in other threads more closely related to reality.

 

[Bradskii]

And the corollary?

‘That is so simple that God wasn’t required’.

The terms simple and complex are relative. They can both be used by different people to descibe the same thing. What looks simple to you might look very complex to me. And I would imagine that nothing is complex to God.

So how do we get an objective reference for these terms so we can objectively say if they are simple or complex? And how do we know, even if we agree on a reference, that it is fixed and that at some future point we wouod all agree that it is actually quite simple?

 

[Bradskii]

But the matter of complexity as being discussed in this thread is a scientific concept which is being used by IDers to claim that some parts of existence did not evolve naturally but were specifically designed (in comparison to other parts). By an (ahem) intelligent designer.

So ‘it looks complex to me’ doesn’t get us very far in deciding if these guys are right ot not.

If we land on a distant planet and we see a structure that could be entirely natural or intelligently designed then asking for opinions won’t give us any answers. It’s the same here.

We are not looking for a metaphysical answer. That’s the whole point of ID.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

Hi Deacon Jeff,
I agree with all you say in these posts. So do Bradskii, Sophia and others. ‘Knowledge of design’ is a theological, not a scientific concept. However, Sophia initiated this thread, and Bradskii, myself and others have joined in, because a certain class of Creationist claims that Design, and Complexity, really are, scientific, measurable, specifically “specified” quantities. Sadly, not one of the proponents of this class of Creationist have appeared on this thread to defend their claim. Instead, various representatives of other classes of Creationist have drifted in to remark that Sophia was asking the wrong question. She wasn’t. She was asking exactly the right question, but you are not the people to whom she asked it.

 

[Bradskii]

But it is in essence, at least to “IDers”, a metaphysical question. You can’t or at least shouldn’t expect a scientific answer to what others consider a metaphysical question.
[/quote]

No. The very existence of the ID movement is aimed at taking the meta out of the metaphysical. They were not allowed, by a court order, to present God as the designer of all things we see now (a metaphyscical claim) in direct contrast to evolution (a scientific claim). Not that evolution disproves God - it just disproves the idea of God that some people hold.

So they took God out of the claims they were making (as if anyone believed them…) and replaced Him with this mysterious Intelligent Designer. And then thought they could use science to prove design.

One of the aspects of this scientific enquiry was complexity. So the question being asked is: ‘If complexity is illustrative of design, then how do we define complexity’.

And saying ‘It looks designed to me’ doesn’t make the cut.

 

[Sophia]

From the judicial bench this is the most frightening words you can hear if you are the defendant. To hell with objectivity, to hell with reason… let subjective opinion prevail. To have a subjective opinion is unavoidable, but to elevate it to a standard upon which objective decisions are made is very scary. Fortunately that disastrous decision only lasted for nine years when Miller v. California overruled it.

As far as a personal opinion goes, you are quite correct. But as soon as someone comes out to the open
marketplace of ideas, then certain conditions apply. Fortunately the “opinion” of Marilyn vos Savant carries a lot more wright than the opinion of someone with an IQ of 70. And the difference is not based on personal preference, it is based upon the objective method to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Bah! The ID-ers, or creation scientists want to enshrine their opinion in the cloak of science. So they have to face the same type of criticism as any other scientific claim.

 

[o_mlly]

Of course reality is independent of our thoughts. However, reality has many facets .

And no facets of reality is less than real.

Let’s just look one thing, a physical object. Its “ mass ” is the same here on Earth, or on the Moon, or on the surface of the Sun, or in outer space. (You can measure the ‘mass’ objectively.) However, the “ weight ” is not the same. (In depends both on the ‘mass’ and the gravitational field where the object resides.) And the “ heaviness ” is definitely different, even on the same location. (It is continent on the mass, the gravitational field and the strength of the person who attempts to lift it.) Now comes the question: "is the complexity like the ‘mass’, or the ‘weight’ or the ‘heaviness’? You seem like to assert that it is like the ‘mass’, fully objective - though there is no objective mathematical value you can assign to it. I say that it is like ‘heaviness’, which has an objective part, and also the subjective assessment of it.

Once the accidents of location and strength of that which moves the mass are identified then the weight and heaviness of the thing are objective.

But the question is still the same: is the Mandelbrot set ‘simple’ or ‘complicated’?

Since one of the (name removed by moderator)uts is unreal (“c”), the outputs are also unreal. Remember, (PSR), “you cannot give what you do not have.” Mandelbrot set is neither simple nor complicated, rather it is unreal (but interesting).

 

[Dan123]

From the judicial bench this is the most frightening words you can hear if you are the defendant.

Seriously.

“I know a murderer when I see one”
“I know a child molester when I see one”
“I know a terrorist when I see one”

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

All of these are empirically falsifiable.

God isn’t.

Certain claimed properties of God are falsifiable. For example:

“Furthermore, I tell all of you with certainty that if two of you agree on earth about anything you request, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” – Matthew 18:19

That claim is testable. It has been tested and has failed the test

I would respond that your assertion is based on a misinterpretation of the passage. What has been tested is your interpretation of the passage. The interpretation failed.

That is not a disproof of the existence of God, but it is evidence that God does not always answer prayers, as claimed in Matthew.

I would argue that this isn’t what the passage is claiming. We can look at it from two perspectives: pure logic and the context of the passage.

First, from logic:
I would hope that, for the sake of argument, you would allow a few premises to be asserted:

• God is perfection and goodness itself
• God cannot contradict His own nature
• Jesus is (the second person of) God

With these in mind, something should become fairly obvious: God does not commit evil acts.

So, if this quote means what you say it means, then it’s telling us that you and I could sit down and agree to pray that Sophia be murdered in his sleep. Manifestly, that would be a horrible, evil, repugnant thing to pray for! But, if your interpretation of Mt 18:19 is correct, then it means that God is obliged to do it! Clearly, we have a paradox. (In fact, we wouldn’t even have to go through with praying for it: if the quote means what you say it does, then it already implies that God is promising to do evil – which is an evil act, and contrary to His nature!) In other words, your interpretation leads to a paradox and therefore, must be discarded as an inaccurate interpretation.

From context:
This passage is one in which Jesus gives his proxy of authority to the apostles. Earlier, in Mt 16, Jesus gave authority to Peter alone; here, He addresses all the apostles. The context is one of sin, forgiveness, and Church governance. The notion of “one or two others” is straight out of the Mosaic law (see Deut 19:15). Finally, the church as a whole has authority – the apostles are given authority to ‘bind’ or ‘loose’ in the resolution of the matter. In fact, the very sentence that you quote helps to support this interpretation (although the translation you’re working from obscures an important element): the Greek doesn’t say “about anything you request”. Rather, it says περὶ παντὸς πράγματος (“concerning any matter”). The word for “matter” here is pragmatos – or ‘pragma’ – and carries with it the notion of a legal case. Here’s another example in which we see ‘pragmatos’ in this sense:

(1 Cor 6:1) “How can any one of you with a case against another dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the holy ones?”

So, when taken in context, we see that Jesus is talking about the apostles’ authority in dispute resolution (which, naturally, includes prayer).

 

[Gorgias]

Really? How can you attempt to verify / falsify that the pile-up was NOT caused by the inattention of the guardian angels? Or any of the other “explanations”?

Because I can use empirical evidence (traffic cams, dash cams, eyewitness evidence) to prove that it happened because someone ran a red light, or was speeding, or didn’t react to the environment around him. Easy peasy.

The question about the “let there be light” is just a reference to what God allegedly said (what language did he use? And who was there to record it?)

Show me where the Church says that we must take that description literally, and you have a chance of making a case. (Hint: the Church doesn’t require us to take it literally. But, as a Catholic, you already know that… right?)

Here is another one, John 14:13 “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” Observe the words: “whatever you ask in my name”; it is not qualified an any manner.

Observe the context. It provides the ‘qualification’ you’re seeking.

Jesus is telling the apostles that they “will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.” In context, Jesus is telling them that if they pray to do the works He has done, He will grant their prayers.

Moreover, there’s a particular (and easily overlooked) caveat: they have to ask it in Jesus’ name! Now, as I pointed out to @rossum, are you really saying that Jesus meant that the prayer “Jesus, in your name, please kill such-and-such, even though he’s innocent” would gain His approval? If so, then your literalistic interpretations have reached their zenith. It can’t possibly mean that Jesus is promising to do evil, so it can’t mean what you say it means.

Now, you could continue to make that claim… but that would just make you look foolish.

 

[o_mlly]

… we see now (a metaphyscical claim) in direct contrast to evolution (a scientific claim).

Apparently you missed the scientific presentation.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[rossum]

I would hope that, for the sake of argument, you would allow a few premises to be asserted:

• God is perfection and goodness itself
• God cannot contradict His own nature
• Jesus is (the second person of) God

With these in mind, something should become fairly obvious: God does not commit evil acts.

Any God who orders the slaughter of entire cities and tribes, including all the pregnant women, and in many cases all the children as well – he allowed female Midianite children to be spared, but not the male children – cannot be described as “goodness itself” or is this another case where the words in the Bible do not mean what they say?

It seems to me that you are starting from the premise “The Bible is true”, and are looking around for some interpretation which will justify your premise. In Buddhism the relevant moral rule is “avoid injury to living things.” Your God does not follow that rule and cannot be described as good. He even used to demand animal sacrifice, which is contrary to the same rule.

Given that your first premise fails, then your logic is unconvincing. God, as described in the Old Testament, does commit evil acts.

rossum

 

[Gorgias]

It seems to me that you are starting from the premise “The Bible is true”, and are looking around for some interpretation which will justify your premise.

No. I’m starting from the premises “God exists” and “God is who He is said to be.”

In Buddhism the relevant moral rule is “avoid injury to living things.” Your God does not follow that rule and cannot be described as good. He even used to demand animal sacrifice, which is contrary to the same rule.

Ok… so, since Buddhism requires veganism, then by your definition no other ‘god’ can be ‘good.’ Got it.

Given that your first premise fails, then your logic is unconvincing. God, as described in the Old Testament, does commit evil acts.

So… given that the “orders of slaughter” are meant as a means to defend His people from other nations, then “pre-emptive strikes” are evil? Would the subsequent necessary self-defense be evil then, too?