It's official: God didn't create universe
- Thread starter Kreskin
- Start date
I think that's where you go astray, it's the same place you went astray and I began to disagree with you in the "So what does happen when you die" thread (which I WILL get back to eventually...
), offering unfounded speculations as facts, as when you claimed a tree has consciousness.
Define God. That's the problem here. And Stephen Hawking has lost his freakin' mind in the last 5 years or so. He's no longer a reliable source for anything. All he does is sit around and wonder about alien life forms and worry about the messages we're sending extra terrestrials with our radio signals. All right Hawkins, in 30 million years, when the messages get there, the retaliation from the angry aliens is going to be quite severe. I'm trembling right now, just thinking about it.
Here's the thing about Hawking though; he might be the smartest guy on the planet but he's making a BS opinion out of nothing just like the dumbest guy on the planet would. He can never actually know enough to make that opinion because the information is not knowable. It's irrelevant what he thinks. His opinion is just that, an opinion, when it comes to this.
I wouldn't bet the farm on that. Anybody watching what passes for entertainment these days, or watches the news, would quickly see that humans can be pretty aggressive and hostile, and that's the message we're broadcasting. Whether anyone's listening, or has managed to decode the signals, is another matter, but Hawking's right about this much at least: that IS what we're broadcasting.
Oh, for sure. I don't disagree with that at all. I just lost interest in the guy because he's obsessed with this garbage. That and I really just don't care. Intelligent and enlightened are not synonymous. Obviously you need a measure of intelligence to be enlightened but there's no amount of intellect that guarantees enlightenment. I don't think the guy is enlightened at all.
Oh shut up.
You guys never even started on the realization that if in the beginning, there was nothing, *including* not even rules of physics, meaning there were no rules of physics to say that something cannot come out of nothing.
I bet you never even prayed... http://tunes.digitalock.com/dreamweaver.mp3
You guys never even started on the realization that if in the beginning, there was nothing, *including* not even rules of physics, meaning there were no rules of physics to say that something cannot come out of nothing.
I bet you never even prayed... http://tunes.digitalock.com/dreamweaver.mp3
I think that's where you go astray, it's the same place you went astray and I began to disagree with you in the "So what does happen when you die" thread (which I WILL get back to eventually...
I understand it's a pretty wild statement about reality and I don't treat this as a dogma. That's how I view the world and it works for me, (and I might very well change my view in the future) but I understand why you'd think differently. To me, it makes more sense to understand consciousness as being a spectrum and not something that suddenly appears out of nowhere. With a more traditional definition of consciousness, you must draw the line as to what is conscious and what isn't, and I'm sure you can agree this is a very hard thing to do.
Is a 2 year old conscious? Is a newborn baby conscious? Is an embryo conscious? Where and when exactly does consciousness appear?
When you view consciousness as simply being the inner subjective dimension of one ''holon'' (see link), I find it easier to answer these questions, the answer being that consciousness IS the state of subjective being and this state exists at all levels of reality, in the same way the objective state does. It doesn't suddenly appear at one stage of matter's evolution into very deep and complex forms (insects, reptiles, mammals etc.). The evolution and complexity of this ''subjective state'' corresponds to the evolution of matter into complex forms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holon_(philosophy)
Here's a useful analogy. The colours we see are just a thin portion of a spectrum. Similarly, one can understand consciousness as it is typically understood as just being a thin layer of a much, much larger spectrum that is mostly invisible to us. It's with this type of image in mind that I'm willing to say a tree is conscious. It's just that there's absolutely no way for me to imagine what this consciousness might be like because it's so far away from my framework of existence.
Consider sleeping states and waking states. When you wake up, you might say ''ah! NOW I am conscious''. You can even say this when you emerge out of a daydream. But our awareness is active in all those states, it just functions at different levels and ''wavelengths'' (figuratively and literally speaking). If it wasn't active we wouldn't wake up when hearing unusual noises. Some part of us IS aware, even in the deepest and dreamless sleep. If I pour boiling water on you while you're in deep sleep, I'm pretty sure you'll wake up, because you have some sort of constant ''body'' awareness. It is very subtle from a waking mind's point of view, but I don't see any sense in denying reality to these alternate states of being.
Now I do understand there is a huge leap between our ''body awareness'' and my supposed awareness of an atom. But the point is that consciousness is clearly not something that you can put a little box. There a different levels and states of consciousness and the question is... where do you draw the line. I choose no line at all in my metaphysical understanding of the world. But from a scientific point of view, I understand that we need to draw lines. It's useful to differentiate an amoebas awareness from a human's because there is clearly a difference. We certainly can draw lines in the spectrum.
http://tunes.digitalock.com/hammersong.mp3 <-- sound track
How many of you neurons think your only reason to be good is because there's a God who will hammer you if you are not?
Do you really think if there is no God it is license to be the a-shole you secretly always wanted to be?
What if the test here is to see if we do what God did when he found himself sentient wondering what to do next?
With no proof of God, yet still so many people keep wishing things to be the way we imagine He would have them be.
That means that's how we want it to be.
How about if we just be it that way anyway?
How many of you neurons think your only reason to be good is because there's a God who will hammer you if you are not?
Do you really think if there is no God it is license to be the a-shole you secretly always wanted to be?
What if the test here is to see if we do what God did when he found himself sentient wondering what to do next?
With no proof of God, yet still so many people keep wishing things to be the way we imagine He would have them be.
That means that's how we want it to be.
How about if we just be it that way anyway?
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Yes, there are varying levels of awareness. And it's difficult to recognize what is truly aware or conscious. It could appear as though a plant's movements toward sunlight could constitute a form of consciousness. It would appear an amoeba's movements are also conscious and deliberate. I agree that there are varying levels of awareness and it is difficult to qualify where that line is drawn.
What we do know though, is that, if consciousness was a 'something', then it must qualify as matter or energy. An if science could identify distinctly what that type of energy that was and harness that energy, then one could effectively control the conscious states of all beings. In which case, it could (admittedly this is a slippery slope) also be argued, that an omnipotent being - like a God - can exist to influence the conscious states of all other beings in some sort of deterministic fashion.
Lots of ifs and coulds and woulds, yes, but if consciousness can be controlled, then that seems like a +1 for the God camp.
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Does the number two have matter or energy? Not that I know of, yet I don't deny its existence.
What about Pythagor's theorem? What is that made of? Surely not matter... Can it be described in ''energetic'' terms?
Does the concept of acceleration have matter or energy? You need energy to accelerate, but the concept itself is made of ''nothing''.
What about a poem? What is that made of? Of course, it's made of words, symbols and metaphors. And they are all made of letters. But these letters are just symbols of phonems. They're made of nothing, yet they exist right?
Does something necessarily need to qualify as energy or matter to exist?
'Something' needs to qualify as energy or matter to exist as something. I think it's a semantical thing, but the term 'existence' does not automatically imply 'something'. Both something and nothing do exist. So, I completely agree with you that a concept, while it may not have a physical property on its own, can still have a meaning or significance.
I think for every day language, calling a concept like that, a 'something' is just fine. In a metaphysical or ontological sense, I think it would be more appropriate to call it 'nothing'.
All things exist. If it is anything, from a noun to a verb, it exists in some context. There's nothing that doesn't exist.
Perhaps Gawd did create our universe 13.6 billion years ago. Perhaps Gawd was dusting, and she sneezed creating the big bang!
I just think it's silly to debate existence. The something/nothing debate is an easier one to have.
Well nothing is nothing, imo. I can see how it can be treated like something even if it is still nothing. Like, when I think of 'outside the universe' if there is such a possibility, I think it's infinite nothingness. That makes it sound like something, even though it's not.
Grammatically, the word "nothing" is an indefinite pronoun, which means that it refers to something. One might argue that "nothing" is a concept, and since concepts are things, the concept of "nothing" itself is a thing. This logical fallacy is neatly demonstrated by the joke syllogism that contains a fallacy of four terms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing#Language_and_logic
Grammatically, the word "nothing" is an indefinite pronoun, which means that it refers to something. One might argue that "nothing" is a concept, and since concepts are things, the concept of "nothing" itself is a thing. This logical fallacy is neatly demonstrated by the joke syllogism that contains a fallacy of four terms:
- Nothing is better than eternal happiness.
- A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
- Therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.
- Eternal happiness,
- A ham sandwich,
- Nothing-as-a-thing, which a ham sandwich is better than, and
- Nothing-as-an-absence-of-a-thing: 'no-thing' or 'not-some-thing', i.e., no entity exists that is better than eternal happiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing#Language_and_logic
Isn't all nothingness infinite? I've never encountered limited nothingness. Anyhow, the argument could also be made that the error in judgment is thinking eternal happiness exists, and is therefore, something and not equal to nothing. How could nothing be better than itself?
Well, questioning the validity of the first premise is besides the fact. The fallacy is based on the equivocation with 'nothing'. It could be pizza and a ham sandwich and the conclusion would be necessarily that a ham sandwich is better than pizza.
And that's just wrong.
And that's just wrong.