The Council of Nicea

@moonbus said
Descriptive laws are not like normative laws. Normative laws have lawgivers; descriptive laws don't. You repeatedly confuse reasons and causes; you're doing it still.

You do seem to believe you know how the universe is put together and functions. This interpretation of the universe’s functional properties somethings you got from where?

It’s my experience when we see information controlling things with stop-starts, level monitoring, error checking, even duplication to a degree without running out of control it is due to a mind, not some mindless haphazard piece of chance and necessity.

Reasons things occur are wrapped around causes. Do you believe without a cause anything can/will occur, and once it does, isn’t the cause a reason? You are wrapping yourself into knots to avoid looking at mechanisms involved and how they came to be.

Reason why things occur and the causes are different but related. To use an example from John Lennox as he talked about water boiling, He described how the heat caused the water to boil with thermal-dynamics, but the reason it was boiling was due to he wanted some tea. One explanation does not void the other.

@KellyJay

when we see information controlling things with stop-starts, level monitoring, error checking, even duplication to a degree without running out of control it is due to a mind, not some mindless haphazard piece of chance and necessity.

If we are talking about a computer program, then all these things you see are really literally factually there, the controlling, the level monitoring, the error-checking, and so on. These processes are really going on because humans put them there. If we are talking about cells dividing, we interpret these processes as performing functions like controlling, level monitoring, and error-checking, but these are human metaphors. What is really going on is just a cell dividing, that's all, mindless causality, no intentions, no plan. DNA is not a set of instructions, it is not a blueprint for manufacturing a cell duplicate. These are all human metaphors, figures of speech. What is really going on is a cell dividing, pure causality, no reasons, no intentions, no plan.

When a chess player moves a pawn from e2 to e4, he does it for a reason. When a leaf falls, it doesn't do it for a reason. The same thing applies across the board: when an electron jumps orbits, it doesn't do so for a reason. When galaxies collide, they don't have reasons. Yet you see reasons for everything everywhere: 'God did it (for a reason).' You like a world dominated by magic because it makes some sort of sense to you. I don't need that kind of 'sense'.

@moonbus said
@KellyJay

when we see information controlling things with stop-starts, level monitoring, error checking, even duplication to a degree without running out of control it is due to a mind, not some mindless haphazard piece of chance and necessity.

If we are talking about a computer program, then all these things you see are really literally factually there, the con ...[text shortened]... ld dominated by magic because it makes some sort of sense to you. I don't need that kind of 'sense'.

Excellent post.

People tend to see only the bits they want to see. We write narratives that sound good to us, which incorporate some of the facts, interpreted a certain way, then act like the narrative is reality.

I don't think scientists are immune from this, but there is certainly more encouragement to correct errors in that community than in the typical religious community.

@bigdogg said
Excellent post.

People tend to see only the bits they want to see. We write narratives that sound good to us, which incorporate some of the facts, interpreted a certain way, then act like the narrative is reality.

I don't think scientists are immune from this, but there is certainly more encouragement to correct errors in that community than in the typical religious community.

Science is not immune to this, it is full of metaphors. The brain is not a kind of computer. The heart is not a kind of pump. The eye is not a camera obscura. The mind is not an inner theater with images projected onto a view screen. But we are easily led to think in these terms, and science itself often uses such metaphors to explain things, at least to laymen.

Yes, DNA is a double helix, that is reality. That it consists of instructions is a metaphor.

I will be the first to admit that science does not explain everything. There is no theory of everything and never will be. And even if there were, it would not explain why the theory was not devised a day sooner. I refuse to go down the path of giving up and saying 'we'll never understand this (the origin of life, for example), so Goddidit is the only possible answer.' That is capitulation.

What Kelly believes in is magic. He believes that God Harry-Pottered the universe into existence from sheer nothing by uttering a power word. This is no different from magic. It's Miss Hermionie Granger mumbling "wingasia levioso" and some object levitates.

@moonbus said
@KellyJay

when we see information controlling things with stop-starts, level monitoring, error checking, even duplication to a degree without running out of control it is due to a mind, not some mindless haphazard piece of chance and necessity.

If we are talking about a computer program, then all these things you see are really literally factually there, the con ...[text shortened]... ld dominated by magic because it makes some sort of sense to you. I don't need that kind of 'sense'.

I think you are still not seeing the big picture here, processes can do things like cause a falling leaf due to gravity, we can call that natural if you will, and still, there is order to that which is mathematically predictable. Our ability to monitor the universe and make sense of it all with precision isn't due to the haphazard nature of the universe, it's due to the design we see in it. I pointed out earlier that even the charge on an electron is part of the whole. The forces we see in the universe that keeps the universe from flying apart or collapsing upon itself are due to the highly fine-tuning of the forces in the universe and the mass.

We can read DNA, we are mapping it, so we can view the code, and can tell who it belongs to what DNA, we can read a menu, see the words and pictures and know what it is saying. Our computer programming knowledge and our language skill give us the ability to read and write so that we recognize intelligence at work even if we don't understand a language we can see and recognize one. We listen for sounds in outer space, and frankly here on earth, trying and find some that are not "natural' in occurrence, there is a difference between morse code and static. We monitor the oceans looking for things that are not naturally occurring but are man-made which we call human pollution, there is a difference between what is done with intelligence and what is naturally occurring, like leaves falling.

We see what is going on in life's genetic code, that it acts with precision on a level we cannot match, we see things in biology we cannot do, and we cannot recreate what we see even with all of our efforts and knowledge, and if we do, would that prove lives processes are due to mindlessness or a mind if we work it out?

We use metaphors to help us identify something in terms that make sense to help us understand something better, it is no small thing that when we say what is going on in life is a biological code causing things to start and stop, we see biological feedback loops that are used to monitor things, that life processes are controlled to do exactly what they are supposed to do or life can either become unhealthy or die.

We see code in life because we know what digital code and languages are and how functional instructions cause things to do specified work in a precise manner. What stops some from acknowledging that has nothing to do with what we see, only the worldview ramifications of that acknowledgment, you see it, you know the metaphor fits precisely, but then deny it as Dawkins does, you acknowledge its there, but refuse to call it for what it is.

“The beauty of biology, really, is the illusion of design,” Dawkins

The illusion is found when we see something, but refuse to acknowledge what is right in front of us, so we deny it, and say things like, it replicates, and that is that, refusing to look at it with a thought to how and why.