A well-formed system aligns all variables so that anything outside an acceptable result fails loudly, so noticeably that it becomes painfully obvious something unexpected occurred outside the tolerances of the designed system. There is gravity in a well-formed system that keeps everything operating in a well-tuned manner; so much so that if something resists that gravity, it becomes obvious. When it operates correctly, it all flows as expected, and each variable answers a need or asks for a need to be met to maintain the system’s harmony. What happens in a well-designed system: inconsistencies emerge naturally when viewed holistically.
If we apply this to life, do we see it as something that speaks loudly as something carried forward by a bottom-up design without any purpose, a totally undirected series of occurrences that molded itself without any outside involvement at all, or something so well designed that we can spot something anomalous at a glance?
@KellyJay saidSo if God designed us, who designed God?
A well-formed system aligns all variables so that anything outside an acceptable result fails loudly, so noticeably that it becomes painfully obvious something unexpected occurred outside the tolerances of the designed system. There is gravity in a well-formed system that keeps everything operating in a well-tuned manner; so much so that if something resists that gravity, i ...[text shortened]... involvement at all, or something so well designed that we can spot something anomalous at a glance?
@KellyJay saidIf we were not well designed in a finely tuned operating systems why would a doctor expect to see specific numbers on various tests? What possible reason would there be for blood work, checking a pulse, and listening to a heart? We are fearfully and wonderfully made, not the product of pond scum over millions of years.
A well-formed system aligns all variables so that anything outside an acceptable result fails loudly, so noticeably that it becomes painfully obvious something unexpected occurred outside the tolerances of the designed system. There is gravity in a well-formed system that keeps everything operating in a well-tuned manner; so much so that if something resists that gravity, i ...[text shortened]... involvement at all, or something so well designed that we can spot something anomalous at a glance?
@KellyJay saidLet's see you prove that. So NOBODY designed god, a force quadrillions of times older and larger than our universe and no start, no beginning no end.
God was not designed as the first cause; He always was, is, and will be.
Right.
If you believe that, I have a GREAT bridge for sale CHEAP.
@sonhouse saidI believe there is a first cause that did not need to be caused, and the alternative is an endless progression of cause and effect that never started but is. Which is to say it always was, is, and always will be. Which of those two do you want to argue for and against?
Let's see you prove that. So NOBODY designed god, a force quadrillions of times older and larger than our universe and no start, no beginning no end.
Right.
If you believe that, I have a GREAT bridge for sale CHEAP.
@KellyJay saidIt doesn't matter if all eight billion humans professed serious belief in god, YOUR god, not those pretenders like Islam or Jaynes or Hindu's, we would not generate a god.
I believe there is a first cause that did not need to be caused, and the alternative is an endless progression of cause and effect that never started but is. Which is to say it always was, is, and always will be. Which of those two do you want to argue for and against?
Your belief does not make a god either, you just life your life as if there were such a being totally believing what MEN wrote in your bible. Just a BIT of circular reasoning going on here.
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@KellyJay saidThis thread, like the other one in this forum, I hope to return to sometime next week.
A well-formed system aligns all variables so that anything outside an acceptable result fails loudly, so noticeably that it becomes painfully obvious something unexpected occurred outside the tolerances of the designed system. There is gravity in a well-formed system that keeps everything operating in a well-tuned manner; so much so that if something resists that gravity, i ...[text shortened]... involvement at all, or something so well designed that we can spot something anomalous at a glance?
You use two terms: well-designed and well-formed. The latter has a mathematical definition, specifically in the areas of propositional and predicate logic; the former seems to do with product or software design in areas such as business and computer science.
In any case, you seem to be presenting your old arguments in a new dress (that being, I think, that life was designed by an intelligence for some purpose), which could be useful if it helps make your arguments more rigorous and precise. Only the definition of a well-designed system seems to accommodate the notion of a "purpose" to a system.
Putting aside the terminological hair-splitting, I would say that your last question in the OP seems to present a false dichotomy: either life arose from totally undirected processes (it's unclear if "undirected" is to mean random), or it arose as a result of deliberate, intelligent design. Implicit in your wording is that the "bottom-up" approach can have no purpose, whereas the "top-down" approach must be purposed.
I would say that life is not something that was planned or designed prior to whatever we mere mortals might hypothesize is a first cause. If the basis of reality is mental, and Mind is eternal (i.e. exists outside of time), then it is the workings of consciousness itself that determines what unfolds in reality. Since I'm fairly certain you would say the Christian God is a conscious entity at the very least, we are probably in agreement there.
But let's set aside all scripture and received wisdom and honestly ask what properties an undifferentiated field of consciousness may possess. Put yourself in a sensory deprivation chamber, forget all your memories (just imagine it—this is a thought experiment), forget all your worries, to-do lists, and everything else. Your mind is empty of all thought forms, all emotions, and all sensory input signals. There's no sense of you even having a body. What is left? There is still "something," and that "something" would be indistinguishable from the "something" that I'd arrive at were I to undergo the same emptying process. Indeed, we would each become identical to Mind itself, because Mind is all there is, with all senses of separation that we encounter in the everyday world being wholly illusory.
The "something" that is left, if the emptying process is achieved perfectly, is indeed the basis of Mind itself—a pure sense of simply existing, or being. Now, I can't help but speak of there being a "next thing that happens," because our language needs time and tenses to do its job. What happens next? What can't happen? There is no "out there" to take cues from, since Mind is all there is to existence. Modeling consciousness as a continuously flowing stream, I'd say what can't happen is for Mind to instantly conceive of blueprints for complex systems such as a bacterium or plant. So will Mind instead operate randomly? Put yourself back in an empty state in that sensory deprivation chamber. Are the thoughts that will begin to form in your recently-blanked mind going to be unpatterned, like static on a TV screen? I'd say not! Your mind will grope about in the emptiness, I should think, but just as when one gropes in the dark with one's hands, your mind's groping will be purposed in some sense. You have a will, and your will will direct your groping. What will your will be hankering after, even if it doesn't know it because it doesn't know itself? Precisely that: to come to know itself.
Random-seeming (at certain scales), yet directed by the will, your mind's actions will naturally exhibit patterns, and since Mind with a capital "M" is eternal, every possible pattern exists as potentiality until such "time" as it is actualized by being conceived—or rather, experienced—by Mind. The Mind's will directs all thoughts, and thought-forms evolve to give rise to what we call physical reality. The universe and all life within it. Everything.
Reality is so amenable to mathematical description precisely because the willing of Mind is not random but patterned. In its undifferentiated state Mind is incapable of having intentions, and pursues a purpose (self-knowledge) purely instinctively, by dint of its will. The will is a drive, an urge that naturally arises from a state of awareness itself, because awareness of existing is not the same thing as understanding existence (i.e. the true nature of Mind). Such a drive is the engine of every unfolding pattern, including the laws of physics and biological evolution.
Aware yet not understanding, not understanding yet purposed, purposed because driven to understand, driven to understand yet driving without intention, driving without intention because not knowing its destination,* not knowing its destination because not understanding, not understanding yet aware. We come full circle, but in the journey all things unfold.
The journey is the purpose. Now that the will has arrived at mental structures capable of metacognition and deliberation—these things called humans—new ways to make the journey open up. Every form of life is a new tool for Mind to explore itself.
This became a very long post, after all. My my. But my point is that beyond your dichotomy there is a third option to consider: a reality created bottom-up that is superbly designed (according to our senses and sensibilities), but the design was arrived at step-by-step in a process that was not preordained by a conscious agent exercising deliberate intent. This is not metaphysical materialism, which sees death as a return to dust and oblivion. What I propose is a reality where death simply ends one's separation from a greater Whole that connects all things eternally. It is not the Christian afterlife, no, but more an idea that consciousness cannot be destroyed because consciousness is the ground of reality.
* I'm out of time, and so must simply concede this bit is sloppy. Undifferentiated consciousness lacks the structure to formulate intentions. Structures in Mind arise from cognitive associations, or relations, between thought-forms, just as a mathematician's knowledge of algebraic topology derives from cognitive associations between factual memories. Like a mathematician's knowledge, Mind comes by the ability to have intentions through a lengthy learning process—and even then Mind as a whole does not gain the ability, but rather only certain parts of Mind do, such as cats or humans.
@sonhouse saidI am talking about what caused it all, you are talking about me.
It doesn't matter if all eight billion humans professed serious belief in god, YOUR god, not those pretenders like Islam or Jaynes or Hindu's, we would not generate a god.
Your belief does not make a god either, you just life your life as if there were such a being totally believing what MEN wrote in your bible. Just a BIT of circular reasoning going on here.
@sonhouse saidAn eyewitness is an eyewitness; the truth of any story will not change simply because time has passed. It was carefully preserved with far more evidence than any other historical documents: the number of copies made at the time they were written, and how they were spread throughout the world and recopied into different languages over and over, so that if anyone did try to modify them, the changes would stand out. So time is a meaningless variable to use to dismiss scripture.
That is because you don't know what you are talking about, only what other MEN have told you in 3000 year old tales.,
@Soothfast saidI have worked with CPUs for over 20 years, and now the radios in radio cell towers. In both of those devices, information does not arise by accident; it is the result of deliberate design. We must engineer radios to transmit and receive specific signals, all within very tight constraints. Within the CPU, bits of data are processed with strict constraints and cannot move freely without absolute control; otherwise, the CPU’s output reliability would be questionable. If our inputs and information-handling processes result in missing, distorted, or misplaced data, uncertainties arise.
This thread, like the other one in this forum, I hope to return to sometime next week.
You use two terms: well-designed and well-formed. The latter has a mathematical definition, specifically in the areas of propositional and predicate logic; the former seems to do with product or software design in areas such as business and computer science.
In any case, you seem to ...[text shortened]... a whole does not gain the ability, but rather only certain parts of Mind do, such as cats or humans.
Well-designed processes that function as a pipeline for information; anomalies cannot hide; they stand out. That is because chance had nothing to do with this; order makes deviations very visible. Noise would be totally unclear signals that do not produce certainty one way or another, outside of showing noise is there, not information. The fact that uncertainty appears as an anomaly shows that we are not looking at an accidental system but one shaped by purpose, structure, and intent.
@KellyJay saidBut you can't answer the question who designed the designer
I have worked with CPUs for over 20 years, and now the radios in radio cell towers. In both of those devices, information does not arise by accident; it is the result of deliberate design. We must engineer radios to transmit and receive specific signals, all within very tight constraints. Within the CPU, bits of data are processed with strict constraints and cannot move f ...[text shortened]... ws that we are not looking at an accidental system but one shaped by purpose, structure, and intent.