Moved Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion

[Jarhyn]

FWIW, I find most of this discussion, out of context, to be fruitless. Is it the Christian God whose existence is being disputed? Or just an arbitrary Creator?

Without specific properties, a Creator God is a meaningless abstraction. Or just a grammatical convenience, much like "It" in the English sentence "It is raining."

Well, the people arguing are arguing specifically over Omnimax creators, creators who only ever intend to do the one most perfect thing anything can do or intend whatever that happens to be.

I could, myself, as a dirty, unwashed pleb create a cellular automata system that itself supports abiogenesis and evolution, but it's not like I invented those things, just an environment where they see instantiation. I would have made an instantiation of them.

As discussed up and down from the OP and back, there is no apparent intelligence required for that, as evidenced from the fact that an idiot like me could do it.

 

[Swammerdami]

Well, the people arguing are arguing specifically over Omnimax creators, creators who only ever intend to do the one most perfect thing anything can do or intend whatever that happens to be.

I'd never heard of "Omnimax"; googled yesterday and got a page of pointers to something else completely. But adding "word meaning" or such shows the definition: Omni of Omnis, or whatever.

But IIUC, this might imply that -- as Leibniz writes -- the Best of all Possible Worlds was created. I have nothing further to contribute to that debate (beyond my preference for Tegmark's approach); But do wish to note that, in the words of The Prophet, some sorrow may be a prerequisite for joy:
[one can appreciate the almost poem-like prose here without endorsing any misconception.]

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

 

[bilby]

You fundamentally fail to understand what we mean by "creation".

Nah, he's just equivocating. Understanding is irrelevant, all that matters here is to obscure the facts, in order to defend the ongoing ignorance of the most gullible members of his imagined audience.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Then why do you say that other things we can do must be the act of an intelligent entity and can't happen naturally? "Created" can be natural or by the act of an intelligent entity.

You're gonna have to show me where I said that. Use the quote function.

I can show you plenty of places where I said the opposite. (Want me to quote me?)

Humans are natural. They can copy/mimic the act of deliberate creation/causation.

Moved - Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion

An interesting article in the Washington Post adds momentum to the RNA world theory. Self-replicating RNA has been created in a lab. The copies made are quite similar to the original, which has apparently been a stumbling block to earlier efforts. We are inching forward to the creation of life...

iidb.org

 

[Loren Pechtel]

...there are oodles of examples of order emerging without a designer being very apparent.

'Emergence' of the gaps.

We make an issue about it because whenever scientists fill in a gap that your side was pointing to you now claim two gaps. The thing is there will never be a continuous line because we don't have perfect data.

 

[Lion IRC]

Then why do you say that other things we can do must be the act of an intelligent entity and can't happen naturally? "Created" can be natural or by the act of an intelligent entity.

You're gonna have to show me where I said that. Use the quote function.

I can show you plenty of places where I said the opposite. (Want me to quote me?)

Humans are natural. They can copy/mimic the act of deliberate creation/causation.

Moved - Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion

An interesting article in the Washington Post adds momentum to the RNA world theory. Self-replicating RNA has been created in a lab. The copies made are quite similar to the original, which has apparently been a stumbling block to earlier efforts. We are inching forward to the creation of life...

iidb.org

Created.
Great.
Another win for Team Creationists

I'm applauding the fact that they (humans) deliberately 'created' the event.

 

[bilby]

Then why do you say that other things we can do must be the act of an intelligent entity and can't happen naturally? "Created" can be natural or by the act of an intelligent entity.

You're gonna have to show me where I said that. Use the quote function.

I can show you plenty of places where I said the opposite. (Want me to quote me?)

Humans are natural. They can copy/mimic the act of deliberate creation/causation.

Moved - Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion

An interesting article in the Washington Post adds momentum to the RNA world theory. Self-replicating RNA has been created in a lab. The copies made are quite similar to the original, which has apparently been a stumbling block to earlier efforts. We are inching forward to the creation of life...

iidb.org

Created.
Great.
Another win for Team Creationists

I'm applauding the fact that they (humans) deliberately 'created' the event.

You are fooling nobody except yourself. Maybe not even him.

 

[Lion IRC]

FWIW, I find most of this discussion, out of context, to be fruitless. Is it the Christian God whose existence is being disputed? Or just an arbitrary Creator?

It's fruitless insofar as atheists are all...like...
Yabbut, that deliberate cause/creator doesn't prove Christianty.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument isn't an argument for Transubstantiation, Infant Baptism, Supralapsarianism, OSAS, Immaculate Conception...

Without specific properties, a Creator God is a meaningless abstraction. Or just a grammatical convenience, much like "It" in the English sentence "It is raining."

An alien lifeform could have deliberately caused life on Earth. The universe could be a computer simulation. You can pick whatever placeholder 'cause' you like. It's not so much an abstraction as it is a distraction.

The question is - caused or uncaused?
Deliberate or accidental.

 

[Elixir]

Yabbut, that deliberate cause/creator doesn't prove Christianty.

Nobody said that. Except you.
It’s kinda fun watching tie yourself in knots of disingenuousness.

Deliberate or accidental.

Seems like it’s ALWAYS False Dichotomy Day in Christendom.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yabbut, that deliberate cause/creator doesn't prove Christianty.

Nobody said that. Except you.
It’s kinda fun watching tie yourself in knots of disingenuousness.

You obviously missed Swammerdami's valid point about this discussion being fruitless to the extent that its not about "the Christian God".

Folks push back against arguments from First Cause because they think it's trying to smuggle in biblical theism.

Deliberate or accidental.

Seems like it’s ALWAYS False Dichotomy Day in Christendom.

Or....you could just say what other options are on the table

 

[Elixir]

You obviously missed Swammerdami's valid point about this discussion being fruitless to the extent that its not about "the Christian God".

Personally I know the so-called discussion is fruitless. I’ve watched Creos dig themselves in to their armored bunkers for decades. You will leave this discussion self-satisfied that your “faith” has survived the slings and arrows of atheism’s greatest warriors. Others will leave bemused by the cuteness of the Creo’s naive delusion. Nobody will be converted to or from anything.

Or....you could just say what other options are on the table

Vis a vis WHAT? The apparent fact that the universe exists?
Besides deliberate and accidental? How about acausal? I know god is a fine placeholder for that, too. How about illusory? Sorry, that doesn’t leave much room for your superstition. Point is, your false dichotomy is just that.

 

[Swammerdami]

Have I mentioned my "typing aphasia"? I'll be typing at the message-board and notice that I've written the wrong word, a near-homonym or a more distantly related word. "Vowels" where "values" was intended is an example.

When I composed the post Lion IRC quotes here, I proofread it (as I must do) and noticed I had substituted a different word where "abstraction" was intended. I chuckled to myself, found the substitution fitting, and almost mentioned this weirdness in a footnote.

FWIW, I find most of this discussion, out of context, to be fruitless. Is it the Christian God whose existence is being disputed? Or just an arbitrary Creator?

It's fruitless insofar as atheists are all...like...
Yabbut, that deliberate cause/creator doesn't prove Christianty.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument isn't an argument for Transubstantiation, Infant Baptism, Supralapsarianism, OSAS, Immaculate Conception...

Without specific properties, a Creator God is a meaningless abstraction. Or just a grammatical convenience, much like "It" in the English sentence "It is raining."

An alien lifeform could have deliberately caused life on Earth. The universe could be a computer simulation. You can pick whatever placeholder 'cause' you like. It's not so much an abstraction as it is a distraction.

The question is - caused or uncaused?
Deliberate or accidental.

The "typing aphasia" substitution I had made was "distraction" for "abstraction." Coincidence? You be the judge.

 

[Lion IRC]

You obviously missed Swammerdami's valid point about this discussion being fruitless to the extent that its not about "the Christian God".

Personally I know the so-called discussion is fruitless.

And yet, here you are.

You will leave this discussion self-satisfied that your “faith” has survived the slings and arrows of atheism’s greatest warriors.

That's quite the drama you have going on there in your mind. I come to these discussions unconcerned for my own conviction that...

"...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall separate me from the love of God..."

Or....you could just say what other options are on the table

Vis a vis WHAT?

I said deliberate or accidental.
You said false dichotomy.
Why did you say false dichotomy if you don't even know what the dichotomy relates to?

How about acausal?

You mean accidental?

You can't mean uncaused or ...never started happening because nobody would be sitting around wondering how life (or the universe) got started if it had always been there.

 

[bilby]

FWIW, I find most of this discussion, out of context, to be fruitless. Is it the Christian God whose existence is being disputed? Or just an arbitrary Creator?

It's fruitless insofar as atheists are all...like...
Yabbut, that deliberate cause/creator doesn't prove Christianty.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument isn't an argument for Transubstantiation, Infant Baptism, Supralapsarianism, OSAS, Immaculate Conception...

Or, indeed, anything. It's a dumb and irrational argument that depends on fallacious and illogical "reasoning".

Without specific properties, a Creator God is a meaningless abstraction. Or just a grammatical convenience, much like "It" in the English sentence "It is raining."

An alien lifeform could have deliberately caused life on Earth. The universe could be a computer simulation. You can pick whatever placeholder 'cause' you like. It's not so much an abstraction as it is a distraction.

The question is - caused or uncaused?
Deliberate or accidental.

The only answer that doesn't entail a logical contradiction is "uncaused". Maybe that implies "accidental"; Maybe it just implies "eternal".

If it's "caused", the question remains unanswered, and just transfers to whatever "cause" you are positing.

 

[bilby]

Folks push back against arguments from First Cause because they think it's trying to smuggle in biblical theism.

That's one, very well justified, reason to push back.

It's not the only, or the best; People ALSO push back against arguments from First Cause because they are shit arguments that demand faulty logic.

 

[Elixir]

And yet, here you are.

Yes, Lion IRC. It is an entertainment medium.
It is no more purposeful or directed than evolution itself!

 

[Lion IRC]

Creating it in the lab is natural.

You fundamentally fail to understand what we mean by "creation". "Creation" in the usage you prefer does not apply here.

I understand that you want to use a nuanced definition. Knock yourself out.
Create doesn't mean create it means didn't create...
I'll stick with a good old fashioned dictionary definition.

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
verb
1. bring (something) into existence.

You are discussing "creation through the provision of an evolving system with a designed single degree of freedom, such that there is a single, known and knowable outcome."

OK
But create still means create.

This "creation" in a lab is "creation through the provision of an evolving system with a WIDE degree of freedoms such that there is no single, known, knowable outcome for the purposes of determining a the range of outcomes for that initial state."

OK
But create still means create.

One is turning a dice face up and saying "the number is 5" and ascertaining from this distribution that a 20 sided dice always == 5, and the other is actually throwing it in the box, turning the box in a way controlled by the nuclear decay of some radioactive shit, and seeing that the result is an unpredictable value between 1 and 20.

Um...OK
You're losing me a little with the ...unpredictable values of a 20-sided dice thingy but create still means create.

It's just an observation of "what happens when this stuff is configured this way". It's not creation in terms of wanting a result, just acceptance of whatever result is observed.

If it's "not creation", it's not creation.
No argument from me about that claim.

In short, lion, you are conflating two different definitions of the word "create".

Um...no. I don't have two different definitions.
Did I mention that? Create means create.

If I DID have two different definitions THEN I might accidentally conflate them.

There have been scientists who have done "special creation" in a lab vis a vis designing a whole cell and it's DNA and letting the chemical system progress through metabolic cycles,

Special creation is fine by me.
No problem with that.
Its only when someone says its a form of creation so special that it suddenly means the opposite of creation.

...but this is more a validation of the statement that there is nothing magical, no soul that humans cannot create or force into existence.

How many times do I have to say it. I dont think it's magical or supernatural when humans create something.

...under controlled conditions.
...in a lab
...with expectations and predictions about what will happen

It was done to answer a different question than this.

The experiment of the OP was to see if the chaos and environment of the earth supported abiogenesis.

You mean... to see if they could deliberately recreate the ingredients and conditions which the bible refers to where God says..."let the earth bring forth".

technically, we didn't create the outcome, we created the initial condition, a condition which was apparently invented by chaos, not by planning.

This sounds self-contradictory.
But I get it. You have a nuanced definition of 'create'.

It was that condition that was then observed "creating" the outcome, with our hands fully away from the tiller of that ship.

Your invisible hands?
The ones that caused it without having caused it?

"...in the beginning there was a ship. Nobody created the ship. Its a ship launched by nobody. It has a tiller but you can't see the invisible hands guiding the ship."

And we know this because actual ship builders in a lab recreated the exact same sort of ship.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You mean... to see if they could deliberately recreate the ingredients and conditions which the bible refers to where God says..."let the earth bring forth".

You forgot the rest of the sentence... the alleged grass and fruit-bearing trees that were allegedly created before the sun was allegedly created.

 

[Elixir]

You mean... to see if they could deliberately recreate the ingredients and conditions which the bible

… doesn’t specify whatsoever. But which existed because the Bible …

refers to where God says..."let the earth bring forth".

Who transcribed that when god said it?

What conditions were those, and could they occur naturally?
Why do you assign authoritative value on the subject of origins, to a book that doesn’t offer any more actual information on the subject than the word “poofery”?

 

[Learner]

What Jarhyn said.

Creating it in the lab is natural.

Then humans are natural. Duh.

Natural then facilitates the ability for humans to purposely think in the mind, creating things for their personal interest. I suppose then by the language when God does it on a collosal scale, aptly then it's super duper natural.