Via 3quarksdaily, here is Richard Skinner (“poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer”) elaborating on Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously. I would argue that they should take him seriously because much of what he says is true, but that’s not Skinner’s take.
Skinner suggests that Dawkins is arguing against a straw-man notion of God (stop me if you’ve heard this before). According to the straw man, God is some thing, or some person, or some something, of an essentially supernatural character, with a lot of influence over what happens in the universe, and in particular the ability to sidestep the laws of nature to which the rest of us are beholden. That’s a hopelessly simplistic and unsophisticated notion, apparently; not at all what careful theologians actually have in mind.
Nevertheless, Dawkins and his defenders typically reply, it’s precisely the notion of God that nearly all non-theologians — that is to say, the overwhelming majority of religious believers, at least in the Western world — actually believe in. Not just the most fanatic fundamentalists; that’s the God that the average person is worshipping in Church on Sunday. And, to his credit, Skinner grants this point. That, apparently, is why Christians should take Dawkins seriously — because all too often even thoughtful Christians take the easy way out, and conceptualize God as something much more tangible than He really is.
At this point, an optimist would hope to be informed, in precise language, exactly what “God” really does mean to the sophisticated believer. Something better than Terry Eagleton’s “the condition of possibility.” But no! We more or less get exactly that:
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by ‘God’, have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as “God is ultimate reality”; or “God is the ground of our being”, or “God is the precondition that anything at all could exist”, and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you’re not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over – God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
The trouble is not that such sophisticated formulations make our eyes glaze over; the trouble is that they don’t mean anything. And I will tell you precisely what I mean by that. Consider two possible views of reality. One view, “atheism,” is completely materialistic — it describes reality as just a bunch of stuff obeying some equations, for as long as the universe exists, and that’s absolutely all there is. In the other view, God exists. What I would like to know is: what is the difference? What is the meaningful, operational, this-is-why-I-should-care difference between being a sophisticated believer and just being an atheist?
I can imagine two possibilities. One is that you sincerely can’t imagine a universe without the existence of God; that God is a logical necessity. But I have no trouble imagining a universe that exists all by itself, just obeying the laws of nature. So I would have to conclude, in that case, that you were simply attaching the meaningless label “God” to some other aspect of the universe, such as the fact that it exists. The other possibility is that there is actually some difference between the universe-with-God and the materialist universe. So what is it? How could I tell? What is it about the existence of God that has some effect on the universe? I’m not trying to spring some sort of logical trap; I sincerely want to know. Phrases like “God is ultimate reality” are either tautological or meaningless; I would like to have a specific, clear understanding of what it means to believe in God in the sophisticated non-straw-man sense.
Richard Skinner doesn’t give us that. In fact, he takes precisely the opposite lesson from these considerations: the correct tack for believers is to refuse to say what they mean by “God”!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions – if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
It’s a strategy, I suppose. Not an intellectually honest one, but one that can help you wriggle out of a lot of uncomfortable debates.
I’m a big believer that good-faith disagreements focus on the strong arguments of the opposite side, rather than setting up straw men. So please let me in on the non-straw-man position. If anyone can tell me once and for all what the correct and precise and sophisticated and non-vacuous meaning of “God” is, I promise to stick to disbelieving in that rather than any straw men.
Update: This discussion has done an even better job than I had anticipated in confirming my belief that the “sophisticated” notion of God is simply a category mistake. Some people clearly think of God in a way perfectly consistent with the supposed Dawkinsian straw man, which is fine on its own terms. Others take refuge in the Skinneresque stance that we can’t say what we mean when we talk about God, which I continue to think is simply intellectually dishonest.
The only on-topic replies I can see that don’t fall into either of those camps are ones that point to some feature of the world which would exist just as well in a purely materialistic conception, and say “I call that `God.'” To which I can only reply, you’re welcome to call it whatever you like, but it makes no difference whatsoever. Might as well just admit that you’re an atheist.
Which some people do, of course. I once invited as a guest speaker Father William Buckley, a Jesuit priest who is one of the world’s experts in the history of atheism. After giving an interesting talk on the spirituality of contemplation, he said to me “You don’t think I believe in G-O-D `God,’ do you?” I confessed that I had, but now I know better.
For people in this camp, I think their real mistake is to take a stance or feeling they have toward the world and interpret in conventionally religious language. Letting all that go is both more philosophically precise and ultimately more liberating.
Honestly, what I would most be interested in from you, Sean, is a follow-up post about what kind of difference between materialism and “sophisticated belief” you would consider “meaningful, operational, this-is-why-I-should-care.” It strikes me as so odd that this is a question that plagues you. Surely issues such as free will, creativity, life-“meaning,” etc. all have very different responses depending on whether you believe in a strictly materialist, reductionist world, or a world that includes a spiritual side to reality. If anything, the reason there doesn’t seem to be a difference is because most materialists aren’t “intellectually honest” about the implications of their own philosophy. If they truly believed in a merely physical universe in which free will is an illusion and things like good music and wedding vows have meaning only insofar as they provoke chemical responses in the brain–then I would think they’d live their lives a bit differently (if they could find a point in living it at all). Instead, even the most diehard materialist still act in everyday life as though personal will, ideas, love, grief, art, etc. are all very “real” and are more than the sum of their material parts and causes. What is this universe you can imagine which consists of “just a bunch of stuff obeying some equations”? Does it have human beings in it, and if it did, how would they know it, and if they knew it, why would they care enough even to bother talking about it?
Quasar9 wrote (in bold, #113):
It’s obvious that something of Newton, Einstein, Descartes survived in the form of an infectious brain pattern we call “knowledge” or “laws of physics”. For Einstein, we even carry along many of his personal preferences (summation convention, “Gedankenexperiments” about elevators, and so on).
So your statement that nothing survives death is clearly shortsighted.
Jason Dick wrote (in different posts):
In the case of computers, the program is not the machine. Similarly, there is a dynamic state of human bodies we call “life”, and most of us would admit that our memories, our beliefs, our interests are not entirely determined by the body itself. At the very least, they appear largely influenced by contacts with others, personal experience, and so on. So definitely, the program is not the machine even for humans.
That does not prove that the soul exists, just that your argument is weak.
Let me finish by pointing out that Christian belief is not about an immortal or immutable soul. That would not be too shocking. In the Catholic creed, the exact words are “eternal life” and “resurrection of the body”. The first one means that it’s not just immortality, it’s eternity, which I guess is at the very least a completely different perception of time. The idea of eternity is not an invention of theologians, it’s based among other things on “before Abraham was, I am”. The second one derives from the fact that Jesus appeared to his disciples in the flesh, not as a ghost.
I don’t even need computers to prove that reasoning wrong. Let me rewrite what you said in a different context: “If there is any part of that broadcast that survives the destruction of the radio receiver, then that broadcast must necessarily also survive any partial damage to the radio receiver. If it doesn’t survive the damage, then [the broadcast] certainly can’t survive the destruction of the radio.”
The point I’m trying to make is that you implicitly use in your reasoning that very thing you are trying to demonstrate (i.e. the one-to-one identity you start with between “me” and “my body”)
This example only proves that the brain is a highly redundant system. Computer clusters occasionally exhibit cluster split brain if you sever the right cable at the right moment. That certainly does not prove that the program (web server/consciousness) is an emergent property of the computer/body it runs on.
We know from our daily experience that our bodies are designed for largely autonomous behavior. I can drive while thinking about something different, I can talk while I prepare a meal, and so on. That does not make me two. But that makes the notion of resurrection relatively nonsensical, except if you see it as resurrection of the body. As transfiguration highlights, this does not mean that this will be exactly the same kind of body. Who knows, maybe it will be a reconstructed virtual body in some giant computer in a distant future, maybe that’s what the Bible is really talking about 🙂
Read about how God’s throne is the ‘Precession of the Equinoxes’ and it’s four quadrants are the four horses of the Book of Revelation. It makes sense if you give it a chance. The seven stars are pole stars on this Great Clock in the heavens. See Gisus.org for more insights.
Hi Christophe de Dinechin,
clearly things survive death in our universe, whether thoughts or works of art, or children and DNA, even the atoms and molecules of which one is composed of – whether you become worm food or are cremated – ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
The surviving death – the afterlife, resurrection into an afterlife or reincarnation as a pig ready to be fattened and turned into sausage meat – is a little harder to prove and/or disprove.
Skinner’s view seems less “sophisticated” than “sophistical”.
Wow — Great post and discussion.
I think God would make a difference if it provided an explanation for things a materialist worldview can’t explain. Of course, the “god of the gaps” strategy has a horrible record. Still, there are candidates for phenomena which may represent permanent/intractable gaps: I would list the existence of first-person experience, and the real existence of possibilities. We can posit a speculative metaphysics which can explain these (it’s my amateur hobby), but if you’re honest about it, I doubt this kind of philosophizing can get you to religious beliefs of the usual sort. Your last point, Sean, about the mistake in using traditional religious language in this kind of philosophical discussion is a good one and thought-provoking for me.
Best regards,
– Steve Esser
Hello all
some people wanted to continue this discussion, so
my email is cern73 at gmail
best regards
mohammad
I will try to briefly outline what (or who) God is by a process of triangulation from philosophy, biology, and history of religions.
First, philosophy. Distinguish between “philosophy of science” and “philosophy of scientists.” Philosophy of science is the study of science by philosophers (who usually are not scientists). The philosophy of scientists consists of the formal or informal metaphysics of practicing scientists. The philosophy of science and the philosophy of scientists are related, but not the same. The philosophy of scientists is more important because it undergirds the success of science. The main assumption of the philosophy of scientists today, deriving most powerfully from Newton, is that purpose and meaning are not useful categories when it comes to formulating or testing scientific theories. The worth of this assumption is borne out by experience. However, it must not be forgotten that this is a metaphysical assumption, not an observation or a scientific hypothesis. Of course, in actually doing science, scientists do value and use categories such as truth, beauty, and so on. There is, therefore, a tension or even a contradiction between the thinking of scientists in doing science, and the philosophy of science which assumes the purposelessness of Nature. Why is this? Because scientists use categories that are _inherently_ more powerful than those that can belong to scientific theories or tests. This is related to various limitations of formal systems: scientific theories and tests are, or can be modeled by, formal systems. Scientists must model Nature as a formal system (or abstract machine), but they must inevitably reason about Nature using categories that are more powerful than that model, and there is _no way_ (this follows from physical limits on inference systems, see D.H. Wolpert) to empirically decide whether this reflects an actual transcendence (as Penrose, e.g., claims) or whether it merely reflects a limitation on self-reflection that projects itself as a myth (as finitists assume). At any rate, in this context, God is the assumption that the transcendence of categories in scientific reasoning over the categories in scientific models is an actual transcendence, not an apparent one.
Biologically, religion can be considered from the social standpoint as the ultimate institution of identity, and from the individual standpoint as a process on a spectrum ranging from “creative thinking” through “schizophrenia” to “possession, out of body experiences, mystical experiences.” From the biological point of view, on the mechanistic assumption God is the instinct that drives humans to ritualize and valorize identity and which consciously manifests as religious experience, or on the transcendental assumption God is the transcendental reality that grants authentic identity and who appears in religious experience.
In the history of religions, God is not a necessary category. Buddhists and Taoists do not use it. In the history of religions, God is the cause of religious experience as felt or interpreted in personal terms. But in my view, non-theistic religions suffer from paradoxes of impredication, e.g. Buddhists postulate “the emptiness of emptiness” which I believe is impredicable (takes too long to fully explain here). In my view, theism does not suffer from impredicability.
Because different religions have critically different theologies and histories of God, and because all predate or violate critical thought, it is clear that no religion is epistemologically priviliged, and that therefore the common or surface meanings of their doctrines are in fact empty, or even idols. This proves that religious experience does not actually carry its own interpretation. The interpretation is socially constructed, and this process of construction is creative and therefore absolutely depends upon individual thought. In this view, God is the transcendental reality that is the “force of the question” in religious thought, just as the categories of thought actually used by scientists (beauty, simplicity, truth, etc.) reflect the “force of the question” in scientific thought.
As a theist, I take it that God is the hidden beauty that lures men and women in every questioning, through an instinctual mediation.
Asking for an operational definition of God is tantamount to having an experiment that proves the existence of God (that is what “operational” means). Given that believers tend to expect real actions (or inactions, for that matter) from people, including non-believers, I think it is very reasonable to ask for physical proof first.
Michael,
That is a verywell thought out outline, as are some of the other descriptions of religious function. I would argue that beauty isn’t the clearest isolation of the god factor. Beauty is a type of positive attraction, as opposed to the negative. This dichotomy of good and bad is the binary code for biological calculation. The most elemental forms of life have these essentially magnetic attractions and repulsions. What the real mystery is, is the awareness that makes this process something more then electro-magnetic forces. The atheistic assumption is that awareness is a property and function of advanced central nervous systems, but that doesn’t quite equate to a basic logical fact, that form follows function. Since our nervous system is form and its function is awareness. Religion falls for the same basic fallacy, in that it is continually wrapping itself in form in order to function.
The individual brain may be a locus of consciousness, but it is still a field effect, both internally in that there is no obvious point in the brain where consciousness originates and externally, in that what is perceived and acted upon, is external input and output. Given we are the product of billions of years of evolution, yet as individuals, our lives are very short, it doesn’t seem illogical to assume we are multiple manifestations of the same field effect. Evolution, civilization and all the complex details seem, in the big picture analysis, an effort to establish and project awareness onto an otherwise mindless existence. So far as we know, all of life are branches of the same biological tree and that dimple in the middle of your stomach is similar to the one on the top of an apple. It is not therefore, in the field of biology, far-fetched to think of life on this planet as one organism.
It is very easy though, given all the complexities, to miss the forest for the trees.
Neil B.,
Nope, not in the least. This argument utterly fails because we could not observe a universe any other way. It makes no sense to try to use this as a prediction, because no evolved intelligent life could ever observe a universe that wasn’t conducive to life.
But, what’s more, an omnipotent deity wouldn’t be restricted by the laws of physics (else proposing such a deity would be pointless), and as such an omnipotent deity could actually create intelligent life in a universe and environment that are not conducive to evolution. If that were the case with us, we would have a clear reason to expect a creator. For a more “down to Earth” example, we should not be surprised that we live on a planet like Earth, one that is extremely conducive to life, because it is only on planets like Earth that beings like us can evolve naturally. We would be forced, however, to consider the action of some form of intelligence if we found ourselves living on Mars.
So no, an intelligent creator doesn’t even predict that our universe should be conducive to life, as such a being could make life even in an inhospitable environment.
Hi Sean,
That is indeed a boring reply 🙂
I don’t think you can really claim that it (the Realm of Forms) ‘does not make philosophical sense’; rather, you are claiming that it falls into a category of things about which people argue about the reality. Of course, *everything* falls into this category, when looked at skeptically enough. The question, I think you would agree, is whether assuming the existence of something (e.g. other people, atoms, etc.) makes a description more sensible and consistent than assuming they are, e.g., all strangely coherent sense-impressions on a disembodied mind. Most platonists would, I think, hold that the realm of platonic forms is real for just the same reason as the physical world is: it (arguably) has things like coherence and objectivity.
Hi Sean,
As a previous poster said, “if you list every possible conception of God that you have a compelling argument against – God is not any of those”
More than that though:
If you list every possible conception of God that you have a compelling argument for – God is not any of those either.
Now, let’s get back to work!
Jason, you are confused about the role and importance of “sentient observers.” If you are some kind of realist, it really doesn’t matter whether they could be there or not to “observe” (unless you are into consciousness collapse of the wave function – are you?) You are supposed to be able to consider (use imagination, abstract reasoning) what could or could not exist, what the implications would be, etc. The idea that we “only have this world to work with” is false – we have ever world we can think about, like what would physics be like if there were two or four large dimensions (see my blog), and BTW life is unlikely if it has other than three large dimensions. What if for example, a really cool string theory comes along and says most universes can’t have life because the laws of physics would be wrong – are you going to say, they can’t even exist because no one is there to observe them? Don’t “things” observe each other anyway in a crude sense? One thought: how can you understand that you will die someday, if you can’t be there to note “I am now dead”? Even seeing others, doesn’t give the direct access to your own case.
As for omnipotence, that is not necessary (logically entailed) to the definition of First Cause. In any case, the fundamental problem of contingent existence, “selection” of possible worlds, etc, is more relevant anyway than details of what the world in particular could have been like. I note that the critics here of Davies either indulge in snark instead of failing to engage his actual arguments (similar to many of mine, most of which were similarly ignored), or they pick on a musing philosophical essay about inherently slippery concepts which isn’t supposed to be a formal argument anyway (the Templeton essay.)
What really cracks me up is people saying such and such is “meaningless”, but they don’t agree with it, believe it exists, etc. If something is truly meaningless, you wouldn’t even “get” it well enough to object. That phrase is just a sort of trash tool, and I have shown weaknesses elsewhere (like all the things we can’t verify that are perfectly comprehensible, like details of the unrecorded past, or even talk of what will happen long from now that is yet unverifiable and won’t be for us as individuals, etc.) PS: Positivism was such a hilarious crock, just consider that “axioms” aren’t either synthetic or analytic, nor is the very school-defining statement that all statements are either S. or A., etc. This was supposedly the flower of rationalism, I gather. My favorite no-clothes question always is “What is the operational definition of saying that things exist while we aren’t observing them.? Well?
In brief, you are letting post-modern/Wittgenstein philosophical defeatism and circumscription drag you down.
PK: No, there is no need to ask for an “operational” test for God, it is a retrodictive philosophical argument. Do you appreciate the irony that the arguments saying there should be such proof, why we should believe this or that or not, what is “meaningful” etc. are themselves philosophy and not scientific experiments – so, why should we believe them?
If you want to see how hairy prediction/retrodiction can get, in QM, check out this.
Dominic: where do you get support for those characterizations?
One problem in general: Most of those educated in science as such, think (why?) they are thus eminently qualified to do good philosophy. Well, it is clear that they aren’t as a rule. It is quite sophomoric, for example the complaint “‘Well if everything needs to be created, then who/what created God”? Yes, the schoolboy question, which is childish in the bad sense (shows naivety re a subject) instead of in the good sense (even a child sees there’s a real problem.) It has been appreciated for centuries that the issue of course is what if anything is self-sufficient, and whether this world is an example of such that a good thinker can frankly say “sure.” The good answer to the latter is no, as I have explained before (the particulars can’t be logically justified to have a special status like existence over other cases – like picking 2,214 to be made “hard” unlike other merely “platonic” numbers, etc.) One could even define God as, that which is self-existent and not contingent (understood after realizing this universe or any particular structure like it, or even collection of same, could not be), which means It can’t have a beard etc. (a particular feature) so It must be a sort of ultimate plenum, “the opposite of nothing” – c.f Hegel’s Absolute. Davies knew what he was talking about.
OK, I admit I just as much “get off” laying down really heavy metaphysics to drop jaws and impress, as take it seriously – but that’s a partial scoop on the argument such as goes among insider circles. And don’t call it “mumbo jumbo” – remember, if you don’t understand it, you can’t even say that much. Tough.
No, Neil, it is you who are confused. I never said anything about observation changing what is possible and what isn’t. The only thing I ever talked about is what we can conclude about the habitability of our universe. The answer is, quite simply, nothing. This is why the cosmological argument is nonsense, and it’s why any argument that the complexity of the universe implies a creator deity is nonsense. You simply cannot draw any logical conclusions about the mere fact of existence.
You seem to be misunderstanding the nature of consistent default positions. That is to say, when the evidence is lacking, we should have a default position as to what we should conclude. When it comes to a creator deity, such a thing must necessarily be so complex as to be extraordinarily unlikely, provided we have no evidence to point towards its existence. Thus, when you frame your definition of the creator deity in such a way that there can never be evidence in favor of its existence, you have automatically excluded it as being exceedingly unlikely.
An answer to Sean’s question comes belatedly first:
The difference God makes, whatever it “is”: if responsible for all being, then to be grateful that you can at least exist, however imperfectly and with no clear notion of what “more” there may be. So then not a mere “stand-in” for the awesomeness of the world, but the why of it, and that can be appreciated too. I think that’s a consequence, but of course it’s whether you want it to be.
Jason, you still don’t explain why we can’t draw such conclusions, when you say “the answer is quite simply …” that shows you don’t really know how the “pro” position was framed and what to-the-point, in-kind rebuttals might be given. Like I said about the schoolboy question… And I really want to hear, why should our universe be like it is? Are you avoiding thinking about that? Why isn’t it different, how can the ultimate abstraction like “realness” be prejudiced in a particular way?
Of course we should have a default position when “evidence” is lacking (could you explain what you mean by “evidence”? Can a good argument be evidence, or only “findings”?) That default is best given by foundational reasoning into the question. You show, again, lack of study by saying such a First Cause would have to “be so complex….” – It need not have any parts or structure at all, indeed should not, in order to be that FC. (I keep getting the impression you don’t study my arguments in adequate depth, and believe me, I don’t just make it all up myself. I understand if you don’t have time, but if so, you can’t really appreciate it.) Look at the “quantum vacuum” – it has no inherent structure or parts, but contains the immanence of all the various particles that come out of it as virtual pairs (and sometimes detectable results – Lamb shift.) Your critique is like an earnest classical (in the broad sense of the term, incl. pre- modern set theory etc, not just QM and relativity) attempt to rebut the modern world – it talks past the modern, it doesn’t engage it. The modern left it behind.
I trust that clears things up. See also here.
Neil,
No, I’m not avoiding questions like why is our universe a certain way. What I’m trying to show is that certain ways of tackling those questions can give no coherent answers. It is, for example, a terribly interesting question as to why the entropy at early times is low, or why the vacuum energy density is tiny (if not zero), or why the physical laws appear fine-tuned. But any answer we make to these questions, if it is to be an answer at all, has to have some meaning. And positing a deity simply doesn’t have any, unless you can show, concretely, how your definition of a deity results in logical conclusions which are testable. A simple statement that a creator deity would be interested in producing a universe conducive to life, for example, is not only not a logical conclusion of the definition (the desire has to be assumed in the definition), but is untestable because no sentient life form can observe the converse.
Now, one might argue that the truth may be untestable. And this is entirely possible (and may even be likely). Of course, not all of the truth is untestable, and it makes no sense to give up now and stop looking for testable answers. After all, due to the simple fact that there are vastly more incorrect answers than correct ones, we’ll pretty much always be wrong if we try to assume a truth that isn’t testable, either directly or indirectly.
And finally, the “First Cause” argument for god is just so wrong on so many levels. It really comes down to what you mean by it. If you’re really intent on it having no parts or structure, then it makes no sense to call such a thing god in the first place, as it would have no intellect with which to select one universe over another, and most people think of a god as being an intelligent being. And if it has no intellect, then we might just be talking about a tunneling event or vacuum fluctuation. Why would anybody want to call something like that god?
Jason,
Intellect is mechanics and mostly classical mechanics. We don’t distinguish between what we are attracted to and repelled by in order to then make a decision. The decision is in the distinction. Intelligence is the process by which we order our world, but order isn’t necessarily conscious. A rock possesses some degree of order. A closed set settles into equilibrium. The real question isn’t that we are able to describe nature, but that we are able to perceive it in the first place. If God is defined as intelligence, why did it take so long for intelligent life to evolve? Presumably there is some elemental sense of awareness pretty far down the evolutionary scale and frankly there are a fair number of people who are about as susceptible to manipulation and being herded around as a bunch of cattle, so the notion of intelligence is relative. Hopefully our descendants will become more intelligent then we are, or there won’t be many. So the real question isn’t that nature is ordered, but that some of it is conscious. That consciousness is bottom up phenomena, not top down order. Did it begin spontaneously, or is it some eternal property that manifests when, where and how it can? We are not in a position to find out. The fact is though, that all life we are aware of does have the same root structure and it certainly appears far more concerned with propagating and preserving that source code then it is with the long term survival of any of its applications, no matter how smart or beautiful.
Intelligence is effect, not cause.
Neil,
You know very well by now that the “First Cause” is nothing. The only “thing” that need no cause.
🙂
Carl
If God is defined as intelligence, why did it take so long for intelligent life to evolve?
Good question John Merryman,
however that is no different from asking why did the universe (without a god) wait 13.7 +/- 0.2 billion years to create life (on earth)?
And when did biological life become intelligent – and now one has to lose oneself in defining at what point matter with or without ‘life’ is intelligent, and/or has consciousness.
As for human ‘memory’ –
are we bordering on, or entering the realm of science fiction?
Gamma Oscillations Distinguish True from False Memories
Oh, well, that is easy. Our region of the universe, circa 13.7 billion years ago, was extremely hot and extremely uniform. Before any life could form, the universe first had to cool off, and then we had to wait for structure to form. Once structure formed (galaxies and the like), well, we still had the problem that nearly all of the matter in the universe was in either hydrogen or helium, something that would hardly be conducive to life. So we had to wait until the stars processed some matter, and that matter made its way into new stars, enough so that there could be rocky planets and enough of the light elements to form life.
Once that happened, we had to wait some time longer for life itself to evolve, then for intelligence to evolve. So 13.7 billion years is no surprise at all. But it is worth noting that there may well have been other life that formed much earlier, in the denser regions of the universe where structure formed first.
Hi Jason,
describing a process is not the same as answering why a process is thus.
Put a seed in the ground and (under the right conditions) it germinates, does not tell us why the ‘right conditions’ are this or that, nor does it tell us the ‘why’ one seed produces apple trees, and another pears.
Why did or does the observable universe (the one we are IN) proceed a certain way. Where did the laws of physics as we know them come from – there are at least 10^500 different ways it could (or may) have gone – though it seems clear there is One set of laws that produced the ‘observable’ Universe we are in.
This Universe started randomly?, because it felt like it?, or because it had no choice?. And seems it is irrelevant to ask why it started ‘when’ it did, and not a hundred billion years later or a hundred trillion years before.
Jason:
I don’t see why you don’t think I can speculate what is reasonable for ultimate mind to “want” – I would think more mind, makes sense to me. If you are saying, I just pick whatever It wants to be what we’ve got, well – that’s a sort of motivational critique, rather than you explaining why it is inherently a bad pick for a starting hypothesis (which is what matters.) I think my notion makes sense “to begin with”, I can’t disprove or have proved to me, that I am just making it easy for myself instead of starting with a good notion.
A lot of the God argument is about “elimination” – I have said why the idea of this universe “just being here” and not others (and I don’t mean piddly variations of our physics, I mean anything at all like this – out of every way for any describable things to be and to happen) is absurd, and so on. So (making a long story short, but you need to study more of the history of the long story…) when you eliminate self-sufficiency, then “something else” is responsible. Plus I keep telling you, it’s retrodiction and not prediction (retrodiction is considered somewhat logically respectable.) As for it needing parts to have mind: that is a prejudice based on our case, it has mind in a timeless way holding all the ideas and their relationships, and is thus more than just the physical vacuum of our universe (restricted to our particulars, hence a “partial-plenum” instead of The Plenum.) Do I know? Heck no, and neither do you or anyone else. Of course we can’t prove it, you keep treating it all like science. Science is science and philosophy is philosophy, and we do what we can. It’s just like comparing apples and oranges.
BTW, I thank Sean for posting this subject question and everyone commenting here (including, or even especially, those who didn’t agree with me) because I really get a kick out of arguing about these way-up-there metaphysical bafflers, throwing around mystifying concepts and using “plenum” and “modal realism.” It is like getting to race at NASCAR for a fan. If it turns out God isn’t real (whatever that means) and/or I can’t take me with me, I at least had fun wrangling about it. (If IT does, will I get special goodies for trying to prove IT exists? I don’t want or believe in nasty punishments, but I hope I can be smugly superior, with a wry “told you so” gleam or whatever we can do, to whatever is left of those who “didn’t get it” – for a while, anyway. 😉