If You Are Certain God Exists Why Prove It?

[abaddon]

Still looking for a means of measuring complexity.
And an explanation. When is something TOO complex to be an unguided result?
And, how? How does that work? What sort of experiment would one craft to prove that an unguided process with a billion years to attempt it, cannot ever reach a complexity level of X units-of-complexity?

Ten thousand monkeys typing random letters for a hundred thousand years and accidentally coming up with a Shakespearean Sonnet is not "complexity".

You're asking...how can I tell the difference between the monkey's unintended output and the real thing. But that's not the test of whether the Sonnet is real or a fake/fluke.

You might as well ask the monkey if it can tell the difference. (Hint - no. It can't.)

Why isn't a sonnet written by monkeys complex? Merely because they didn't intend to write it? But if it's a sonnet then it's a pattern - 14 lines of 10 syllables each in iambic pentameter and divided into three quatrains then wrapping up with final rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.

That's a notable amount of complexity even if there was no one around who could read it.

I'm trying to puzzle out the distinction of "the real thing" versus "fake/fluke"... What is a "fake" sonnet? One that isn't comprehensible to its maker (the monkeys)? Your analogy seems to intend that the sonnet is meaningful but not recognizably meaningful to its maker (the evolutionary process). But, it must be recognizable as meaningful to someone or why call it a "Shakespearean sonnet"?

The problem is that it's a loaded analogy. You tossed in a poem to "stack the deck" about how something that's meaningful to literate minds cannot happen randomly. Well, no it can't happen if (by fiat again) you decide minds don't evolve and that some minds won't evolve literacy.

So the distinction "real thing" versus "fake/fluke" makes no sense that I can tell.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Still looking for a means of measuring complexity.
And an explanation. When is something TOO complex to be an unguided result?
And, how? How does that work? What sort of experiment would one craft to prove that an unguided process with a billion years to attempt it, cannot ever reach a complexity level of X units-of-complexity?

Ten thousand monkeys typing random letters for a hundred thousand years and accidentally coming up with a Shakespearean Sonnet is not "complexity".

I ask for a means of measuring complexity. Like, you know, scientific means of establishing a threshold of can/cannot happen, or marking degrees of complexity. I get an example of what complexity ISN'T... but not much of any 'Why' it isn't.

You're asking...how can I tell the difference between the monkey's unintended output and the real thing.

No, Lion, that is not what i am asking. Pretty much exactly NOT.
We have life. We think it developed into modern diversity by a series of steps. WHETHER OR NOT A DEITY WAS INVOLVED, we still thing the evidence we have collected shows the steps that were taken.
This is 'real.' Life is real. Diversity is real. You talk as if you have some sort of bigoted view that it's only 'real' if it was intended, designed.
Not my question.

Someone in thus thread assures us the steps did not happen and could not happen...because complex.

So, could someone define the term, and present "too complex" in a meaningful manner. Not list examples you do and do not accept. Or is this just an emotional appeal to "whoo-dang lookit all the niggly bits in there!"?

 

[Keith&Co.]

So the distinction "real thing" versus "fake/fluke" makes no sense that I can tell.

Real = designed.
Fake = spontaneous.

....in magic-world, anyway.

 

[abaddon]

So the distinction "real thing" versus "fake/fluke" makes no sense that I can tell.

Real = designed.
Fake = spontaneous.

....in magic-world, anyway.

Yeah I read too much into it. Gotta remember we're talking creationism here.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So the distinction "real thing" versus "fake/fluke" makes no sense that I can tell.

Real = designed.
Fake = spontaneous.

....in magic-world, anyway.

Yeah I read too much into it. Gotta remember we're talking creationism here.

Apparently if we didn't come from the Great Woo, we're all fakes.

 

[Lion IRC]

I ask for a means of measuring complexity. Like, you know, scientific means of establishing a threshold of can/cannot happen, or marking degrees of complexity. I get an example of what complexity ISN'T... but not much of any 'Why' it isn't.

You're asking...how can I tell the difference between the monkey's unintended output and the real thing.

No, Lion, that is not what i am asking. Pretty much exactly NOT.
We have life. We think it developed into modern diversity by a series of steps. WHETHER OR NOT A DEITY WAS INVOLVED, we still think the evidence we have collected shows the steps that were taken.
This is 'real.' Life is real. Diversity is...

But Keith aren't you missing the forest for the trees?

Isn't there (ontologically) a material/objective/real difference between the deliberate - intelligently designed - output of William Shakespeare and the accidental fluke output of the infinite monkeys?

What is 'complex' about the illusion of unintended design?

abaddon rightly intuits that there IS a category error in the making (but he can't quite put his finger on it) because we can't place the sand dune and the sand sculpture in the same category. If we DO, then words like 'complexity' become meaningless. Everything and nothing are simultaneously 'complex'.

The huminculus observer/onlooker surely needs a frame of reference to distinguish between the intelligently designed object and the fluke/fake.

 

[abaddon]

abaddon rightly intuits that there IS a category error in the making (but he can't quite put his finger on it) because we can't place the sand dune and the sand sculpture in the same category. If we DO, then words like 'complexity' become meaningless.

Yeah we can if the category is "pattern". So, no, it does not make the word "complexity" meaningless.

You presented a lame analogy. You stuck a sonnet into the analogy because they are meaningful to people, to create a fake conundrum about monkeys writing it. We're supposed to go "but monkeys cannot make a meaningful sonnet!" But given time they can make a pattern of marks that amounts to a sonnet (if a human sees it). If you want meaning to be part of the problem of complexity, then you have to tell about the mind that assigns meaning to the pattern of marks. We know of human minds that do that, but no others.

Could weather form rock or sand into a human-like shape? YES! But it's not a human shape until someone looks and says "Oh, a human shape". So don't tell about how evolution can't make a sculpture until after you include sculpture-makers into your argument.

 

[abaddon]

That^^^ doesn't have the semblance of an owl until a human comes along and says "wow that looks like an owl!"

What's the difference between it and a real owl? Answer: the real owl has additional complexity which is made by a selective process over a huge period of time. But that additional complexity in the real owl does not coincide with additional intention. There's evidence of the selective process, no evidence of intention. It's not needed to explain owls.

Feeling incredulous about that is just someone not factoring in how a selection process over HUGE amounts of time can result in that amount of complexity. Does a vital spark enter the body at some point and change it from being a chemical machine into a living being? Is that a meaningful distinction? What vital spark other than the cellular and physiological processes?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Still looking for a means of measuring complexity.
And an explanation. When is something TOO complex to be an unguided result?
And, how? How does that work? What sort of experiment would one craft to prove that an unguided process with a billion years to attempt it, cannot ever reach a complexity level of X units-of-complexity?

Ten thousand monkeys typing random letters for a hundred thousand years and accidentally coming up with a Shakespearean Sonnet is not "complexity".

You're asking...how can I tell the difference between the monkey's unintended output and the real thing. But that's not the test of whether the Sonnet is real or a fake/fluke.

You might as well ask the monkey if it can tell the difference. (Hint - no. It can't.)

Why isn't a sonnet written by monkeys complex? Merely because they didn't intend to write it?

Hey wait a minute. Don't Creationists claim that things are too complex to have evolved? So if a thousand monkeys could type Shakespeare sonnets, without intending to, and that isn't complex, why is evolution so implausible?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Why isn't a sonnet written by monkeys complex? Merely because they didn't intend to write it?

Don't Creationists claim that things are too complex to have evolved?

Yes they do, but this rule only applies to things that are not magical. You'd think that magical things like gods and souls and spirits must be awfully complex, more complex that our little world anyway. But our little world needs magic to make it work because it's too complex to work without magic.

I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

 

[Learner]

Why isn't a sonnet written by monkeys complex? Merely because they didn't intend to write it?

Don't Creationists claim that things are too complex to have evolved?

Yes they do, but this rule only applies to things that are not magical. You'd think that magical things like gods and souls and spirits must be awfully complex, more complex that our little world anyway. But our little world needs magic to make it work because it's too complex to work without magic.

I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

I'd say to the question... things are too complex to be continously "lucky." Creationsists don't rule out evolution (small g, small-scale ) entirely.

 

[abaddon]

Yes they do, but this rule only applies to things that are not magical. You'd think that magical things like gods and souls and spirits must be awfully complex, more complex that our little world anyway. But our little world needs magic to make it work because it's too complex to work without magic.

I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

I'd say to the question... things are too complex to be continously "lucky." Creationsists don't rule out evolution (small g, small-scale ) entirely.

Too complex to be understood therefore consistently misrepresented, and magical answers preferred because those come easier to some kinds of minds.

Where does a notion like "continuously lucky" come from?

 

[skepticalbip]

Yes they do, but this rule only applies to things that are not magical. You'd think that magical things like gods and souls and spirits must be awfully complex, more complex that our little world anyway. But our little world needs magic to make it work because it's too complex to work without magic.

I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

I'd say to the question... things are too complex to be continously "lucky."

Only if you wrongly assume that evolution is goal driven. Since evolution is not goal driven then there is no "luck" involved.

Creationsists don't rule out evolution (small g, small-scale ) entirely.

This makes no sense at all. If there is evolution then there is evolution, so over extremely long time scales an extreme diversity of life that nicely fits its environmental niches will be the result.

 

[Learner]

Yes they do, but this rule only applies to things that are not magical. You'd think that magical things like gods and souls and spirits must be awfully complex, more complex that our little world anyway. But our little world needs magic to make it work because it's too complex to work without magic.

I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

I'd say to the question... things are too complex to be continously "lucky." Creationsists don't rule out evolution (small g, small-scale ) entirely.

Too complex to be understood therefore consistently misrepresented, and magical answers preferred because those come easier to some kinds of minds.

Where does a notion like "continuously lucky" come from?

Sorry, to say briefly, No intention in anything in ALL of existence is lucky.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Sorry, to say briefly, No intention in anything in ALL of existence is lucky.

And again, that only makes sense if the result is compared to a goal.

If the universe just happened, then it could not have happened 'wrong,' so there's no actual point to being impressed that it turned out 'right.'

It just turned out. Full stop. No + or -.

 

[Learner]

Only if you wrongly assume that evolution is goal driven. Since evolution is not goal driven then there is no "luck" involved.

Ok then... how about "what are the odds?" Of course there's no precised number reference to scale the enormity but in context to a phrase often expressed like " How lucky we are to be here" etc. I thought you'd sort of agree here at least.

Creationsists don't rule out evolution (small g, small-scale ) entirely.

This makes no sense at all. If there is evolution then there is evolution, so over extremely long time scales an extreme diversity of life that nicely fits its environmental niches will be the result.

Saying it with umost faith and not actually seeing it (without ANY fossilsed transitional-inbetweens at all, for example) looks like a belief, because the numbers look plausible. Lucy fooled a lot of people.

Humans breeding, cross-breeding animals and plant life, resulting in the variations; I suppose included in small evolution. Done with intention for particular purposes.

 

[Learner]

Sorry, to say briefly, No intention in anything in ALL of existence is lucky.

And again, that only makes sense if the result is compared to a goal.

Not neccessarily. Like people finding they know there's something fishy going on at moogly's but they just don't know what it is.

If the universe just happened, then it could not have happened 'wrong,' so there's no actual point to being impressed that it turned out 'right.'

It just turned out. Full stop. No + or -.

Valid point.. to the suggestion... you're not making that claim (in bold).

(just joking moogs)

 

[skepticalbip]

Ok then... how about "what are the odds?" Of course there's no precised number reference to scale the enormity but in context to a phrase often expressed like " How lucky we are to be here" etc. I thought you'd agree.

The "how lucky we are to be here" question is assuming that 'we' were the goal of evolution. "We" are just one of many, many current life forms that is the result of evolution. "We" are no more 'lucky' than yeast, e-coli, wombats, etc. Something will be the result. How lucky is the planet Mercury to have no life forms? If you assume that sterility was the 'goal' then Mercury is damned lucky -- the planet Earth will be as 'lucky' in five +/- billion years from now.

This makes no sense at all. If there is evolution then there is evolution, so over extremely long time scales an extreme diversity of life that nicely fits its environmental niches will be the result.

Saying it with umost faith and not actually seeing it (without ANY transitional inbetweens at all for example) looks like a belief, because the numbers look plausible. Lucy fooled a lot of people.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Humans breeding, cross-breeding animals and plant life, resulting in the variations; I suppose included in small evolution. Done with intention for particular purposes.

The fact that humans have learned a bit of the mechanics of evolution and so can do some purposeful manipulation does not support your argument. If you actually understood gene manipulation then you would realize that it is a good argument against your position.

 

[Lion IRC]

So the distinction "real thing" versus "fake/fluke" makes no sense that I can tell.

Real = designed.
Fake = spontaneous.

....in magic-world, anyway.

Do you not accept that these cannot be in the same category?

Intentional / accidental.
Predictable / unpredictable.
Expected / spontaneous.
Designed/ undesigned.
Shakespeare / monkey gibberish.

 

[Learner]

The "how lucky we are to be here" question is assuming that 'we' were the goal of evolution. "We" are just one of many, many current life forms that is the result of evolution. "We" are no more 'lucky' than yeast, e-coli, wombats, etc. Something will be the result. How lucky is the planet Mercury to have no life forms? If you assume that sterility was the 'goal' then Mercury is damned lucky.

I included ALL life on this Earth in the lucky scenario.

Saying it with umost faith and not actually seeing it (without ANY transitional inbetweens at all for example) looks like a belief, because the numbers look plausible. Lucy fooled a lot of people.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Sorry was rushing it a bit. I was refering to your quote about extremely long time scales.

Humans breeding, cross-breeding animals and plant life, resulting in the variations; I suppose included in small evolution. Done with intention for particular purposes.

The fact that humans have learned a bit of the mechanics of evolution and so can do some purposeful manipulation does not support your argument. If you actually understood gene manipulation then you would realize that it is a good argument against your position.

Not sure how... but these are the things I like to know the answers to.

(perhaps discuss further.)