Richard Dawkins

[paradox]

This creationist vs atheist argument is such effin bullshit. this is the same type of dualistic thinking which has kept us trapped in ignorance & misery for thousands of years. things aren't black & white, the ultimate questions of existence can never be comprehended from a finite, dualistic perspective. All this BS only gets in the way of direct experience, free from interpretation & intellectual masturbation.

I havn't read The God Delusion but i've seen some of Richard Dawkins documentaries & while he's obviously making very good points, IMO he's as much as a deluded fucktard as the hardcore creationists. i simply find it pointless & boring.

[chilli]

This creationist vs atheist argument...

Yeah, actually this is getting pretty off topic! Baphomet or and anyone else if you'd like to continue the creation vs evolution discussion, would you mind starting a new thread please?

[baphomet]

Yeah, actually this is getting pretty off topic! Baphomet or and anyone else if you'd like to continue the creation vs evolution discussion, would you mind starting a new thread please?

CBF, back to dorkins. Sorry bout going off topic but I really didn't see it as being that far off topic, I just thought I was going with the flow. I am still learning forum etiquette.

Edited July 24, 2008 by baphomet

[nabraxas]

Dawkins’ most convincing anti-God argument is the complexity argument — that any God who controls the Universe must be more complex and difficult to explain than the Universe itself.

This is only true if you believe in a God who controls the path of every electron and the fall of every sparrow. However, a God who set the Universe in motions and guides it from time to time is not very complex.

Thinks of it this way. Let’s say I start an avalanche in the mountains. Thousands of boulders crash into the town below. According the Dawkins, a thousand boulders means at least a thousand people throwing them. But it was only one person doing something simple.

Suppose, in the future, we were to figure out how to start evolution on a lifeless planet. Occasionally, we would go in and adjust. Change some genes, wipe out a useless creature, save a good one. It doesn’t even take God to do that. Because comparatively simple acts — starting life, adjusting a gene — become massive complex operations once the machinery of evolution grinds them.

We see complexity growing out of simple process in nature all the time. In fact, the entire fucking universe is the outgrowth of a set of very simple principles. From crystals to nebulae to galaxies of billions of stars to life itself, we see dazzling complexity being guided by very simple, sometimes singular events.

So yes, a God who makes sure that the gravitational constant is always the same is too complex. But a God who laid down the laws of the Universe and set them in motion does not have to be very complex at all.

The apotheosis of this line of reasoning is Dawkins’ argument against prayer, in which he says that God hearing our prayers would require he be the most sophisticated computer ever built. This is a *slight* exaggeration in the age of the internet and Moore’s Law. But is also assumes that God and humanity are two different things. The entire idea of an immortal soul is that it is a piece of the divine within our flesh. I don’t need a sophisticated computer to sort and interpret the millions of signals I am receiving from my body every day. My brain is sufficient to take care of that, without my higher brain functions even being aware of it.

I’m not advocating a religious view here. I’m just saying that Dawkins, like most dogmatic atheists, fails to understand that there are ways of thinking about God that are different from the fundamentalist garbage. Ways that incorporate science. A simple God who creates a Universe on simple principles. He evolves with it, growing more complex. His own divine spark begins to grow in the form of evolving life.

There are other ways to think. Other ways to go. Yes, it is time for us to put away some of our myths and legends. But it’s not yet time, if it will ever be, to assume that we know everything. That there is nothing beyond the physical world. We just don’t know that much yet. Maybe, we never will.

http://michaelsiegel.net/?p=860

[Hagakure]

re: intelligent design

 

boom. headshot.

re: Nabraxas' post

Dawkins, to be fair, is attacking the god represented by the abrahamic religions. you can move the goal posts but remember that once you cross a certain point the goal starts getting bigger again.

a low impact god that sets things in motion and doesnt control anything it seems to be stripping back the definition to the point where it is a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe. at what point does it really just come down to semantics with one group calling it god and another calling it nature and physics?

the western concept of God is loaded with the concept of some sentience and i dont think there is any evidence for such sentience existing. if its some unknown force that everything flows according to why reinvent the wheel, just get into taoism which isnt as tainted by these anthropomorphic western concepts.

[The Dude]

Nice write up sublime crime!

Using his own logic and reasoning to cut down his whole argument is gold. If semantic reasoning in that method is the way to convince unempathetic academics than well done. If I were to tell dawkins how wrong he is it might be more of a rant...

Dawkins makes the very arrogant assumption that a tunnel vision, sharply focused, and highly specialised form of thinking about reality is the result of a 'raised consciousness'. The linear systematic thought process of a trained monkey, or even the brute force of super computers, will never 'feel' the truth of spirituality or connection to the divine, that a laterally thinking human mind can.

Somebody with their head up their ass, running about talking about 'raised consciousness'. At first glance you can see he's full of shit. I find the man to be somewhat of a fuckwit in his tv programs where he'd 'debunk' mystical realities experienced by the open minded smiling faces around him by way of childish belittlement and ridicule, as most likely a defence mechanism from believing in anything else but his own idea.. now with many words behind it to validate its truthfullness. Especially to him having invested so much into his own mythology.

Seriously though, talking to a much more enlightened individual about transcendent states he picks on his english mistakes and semantic errors as proof of their 'charlatanism'.. miscontruing totally different ideas from that said, with the ridicule filter magnetising his perception to any way he can make fun of peoples spirituality, even if it means making up the evidence.

Finger pointing at the silly appearance of people enjoying a spiritual life isn't proof of their connection to each other and god not existing. It is funny seeing him use the words 'blindness'.

I cannot think of his Polemics as anything else but the harmonised effort of the collective unconscious to focus global human attention on one individual and one idea... and how the self evident self contradicting irony of all he says and does proves the self reflective self similarity of it all. Only skewed and reversed and showing the truth through that which is said, but never itself being uttered. Such is the ingraspability of the TRUTH

He consoles only himself and other such isolated egos, as his cold and dark persona consumes any 'falseties' he can hunt down. Feeding his own sense of self righteousness. Never transcending his own logical labarynth.

For all his self congratulating knowing he is superior to the ignorant masses, he will be left behind. You rather be right? or be happy? The Mystery of not knowing.. and accepting this truth is much more realistic and enjoyable than frantically expanding on models that try to claim some kind of superhuman knowledge of unseen realities beyond us by merely discounting them.. The pathetic actions of a control freak, needing to know with certainty, that which no one knows.

hmm spinning the idea on the head.. maybe not Mr. Dawkins intention, Everything.. ie: god, is a self created delusion. It is a step between forgetting and remembering the self, dreaming and waking, and in such a permanent limbo, nothing is ever fully known, nothing can be said to be true, hence EVERYTHING can be agreed upon as a delusion, a self imposed distraction from reality in its totality (which as an ego cannot be experienced). For life there is the need for a schism from self to create relativity and friction and all that fun stuff. A self imposed delusion for the love of it. The idea of falling down.. or tripping on our journey from a to b, is to get back up.

Maybe there is some real food for thought in the Dawkins Bible if one can intuit the real meaning between the self contradicting words.. kinda like the old testament.

[The Dude]

Hagakure.

the beauty of this taoist life force as you call it, is it's perception by every individual is.. just that, individual. However anthropomorphisms are projected collectively. How one interacts with the all, can be inert and lifeless.. a cold mechanistic existence, or through myths, it is characetured. making a personal idioscyncratic sense that is also harmonised into a transcendant understanding also. Truisms we can agree on.

The holographic.. 'sense' of this new meaning infused reality seems to make understanding 'the bigger picture' much simpler in a sorta abstract interconnecting parables sort of way.

Regardless of the semantics, or the way we wish to dress the source with our own symbols. The timeless source is forever the same and it reveals our own truths to us all, through us all.

hmm i forget what im agreeing with / disagreeing with. oh yeah, the easterbunny is real i tell ya!

Edited July 25, 2008 by The Dude

[chilli]

the western concept of God is loaded with the concept of some sentience and i dont think there is any evidence for such sentience existing.

Says the inexplicably sentient being.

________________________

I was wondering where you got to El D, thanks I needed my fix.

I really want to get more deeply into this, but I'm still sick for some fucked up reason, can't concentrate or think straight.

[woof woof woof]

i disagree with there being no god. science has not proved or explained everything yet.

anyway...... if you have been able to figure it out for yourself yet..... my suggestion is... treat everything únconditional love and understanding,...... i mean everything...... because everything is one,... as everything is energy..... so without, so withing.... etc etc etc........

[ThunderIdeal]

a low impact god that sets things in motion and doesnt control anything it seems to be stripping back the definition to the point where it is a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe. at what point does it really just come down to semantics with one group calling it god and another calling it nature and physics?

also, good to read your perspective dude since you seem to be familiar with the topic. i assumed he was better than that.

[Hagakure]

"the western concept of God is loaded with the concept of some sentience and i dont think there is any evidence for such sentience existing. if its some unknown force that everything flows according to why reinvent the wheel, just get into taoism which isnt as tainted by these anthropomorphic western concepts."

it seems this paragraph of mine wasnt clear enough so i will elaborate.

re: sublime

"Says the inexplicably sentient being."

im not saying sentience doesnt exist (i also dont think its inexplicable but there are dozens of threads in the spirituality forum about that). im talking about the concept of some higher being that is sentient in the same way we are. take a look at the bible or the koran. the god descibed is emotional and conscious in the same way humans are. i think this is the biggest flaw with the western concept of god.

back in the bad old days people didnt understand about water evaporating then coming down as rain, or tectonic plates bumping together to produce earthquakes, or lightning being produced due to buildups of charges. so rain is gods grace to help your crops, earthquakes and lightning is when god is angry.

clear anthropomorphism, attributing human characteristics to natural forces and inanimate objects.

nothing in nature so far suggests any higher sentience being responsible. god has simply been a place holder through the years. we cant explain it therefore god did it. irreducible complexity claims are the same as some dude thousands of years ago complaining that we cant explain the rain therefore god does it.

re: el dude

"the beauty of this taoist life force as you call it, is it's perception by every individual is.. just that, individual. However anthropomorphisms are projected collectively. How one interacts with the all, can be inert and lifeless.. a cold mechanistic existence, or through myths, it is characetured. making a personal idioscyncratic sense that is also harmonised into a transcendant understanding also. Truisms we can agree on."

let me be clear on my raising the topic of taoism.

while in the west the concept of God is a higher being in the east the concept of the tao is a lower being if not the lowest being, and at that, not really a being.

while the western concept of god is up in the sky looking down and controlling like a ruler the tao is said to be like water. it always sinks to the lowest point, yet without effort nourishes everything. in the book of Chuang Tzu there is a dialog between Chuang Tzu and some other dude where Chuang Tzu gives a series examples of increasingly lower standing where the tao is found with the final example being that the tao is found in shit and piss.

such explanations are probably not as important these days with our knowledge that everything is made out of the same kinds of atoms and the atoms in shit are the same as the atoms that make a holy relic. but it is still a potent example of the different ways you can look at the forces at play in the universe.

you can see it as something higher and controlling like a ruler or like a low, shapeless, nameless force that retreats from any type of higher status.

my preference, quite obviously, is the latter example. i especially like the science of emergence and complexity these days cause it feels like a very taoist kind of science.

re: woof woof woof

"i disagree with there being no god. science has not proved or explained everything yet."

science cant prove non existence. i cant prove there isnt an invisble dragon in your garage, i cant prove unicorns dont exist, that the loch ness monster doesnt exist or any other similar example. the best we can do is look at the evidence and see if there is any evidence for a phenomena. if tehre is no evidence for existance then why continue to believe in it? if evidence comes along should we adjust our beliefs? sure, but not until it does.

[The Dude]

re: el dude

"the beauty of this taoist life force as you call it, is it's perception by every individual is.. just that, individual. However anthropomorphisms are projected collectively. How one interacts with the all, can be inert and lifeless.. a cold mechanistic existence, or through myths, it is characetured. making a personal idioscyncratic sense that is also harmonised into a transcendant understanding also. Truisms we can agree on."

let me be clear on my raising the topic of taoism.

while in the west the concept of God is a higher being in the east the concept of the tao is a lower being if not the lowest being, and at that, not really a being.

while the western concept of god is up in the sky looking down and controlling like a ruler the tao is said to be like water. it always sinks to the lowest point, yet without effort nourishes everything. in the book of Chuang Tzu there is a dialog between Chuang Tzu and some other dude where Chuang Tzu gives a series examples of increasingly lower standing where the tao is found with the final example being that the tao is found in shit and piss.

such explanations are probably not as important these days with our knowledge that everything is made out of the same kinds of atoms and the atoms in shit are the same as the atoms that make a holy relic. but it is still a potent example of the different ways you can look at the forces at play in the universe.

you can see it as something higher and controlling like a ruler or like a low, shapeless, nameless force that retreats from any type of higher status.

my preference, quite obviously, is the latter example. i especially like the science of emergence and complexity these days cause it feels like a very taoist kind of science.

Just double checking the definition of anthropomoprhism, it is truly an inescapable tendency to project human characteristics. I remember once realising this when even cars seemed personalised with the windows as the eyes and the grill as their nose or teeth. Which.. is essentially true, the vehicle has us see through it's eyes, and the mechanics of it (like our body) has an air intake at the front

This kind of attribution I think may be in part an unconscious process of creating the world in our own image, the familiarity means comfort. At the same time, it may just be the reality that everything is everything. we are our environment, and as such we cannot escape ourselves from ANYTHING we interact with.

Peak psychedelic experiences propelled myself into a state of such hyperassociation that I could see personal human-like interactions with all the inert objects around me. a purely emotional state of total empathy, that using the scientific reduction valve of logic and reason.. is inexplainable. Or if explained away, the cause is drugs, the effect is a hallucinatory (read: fake)

sense of transcendence. But this personal knowing, will never leave a material proof of its existence, apart from ones own subjective memory.

"if tehre is no evidence for existance then why continue to believe in it? if evidence comes along should we adjust our beliefs? sure, but not until it does."

it is my personal experience that god (ie: the totality of all being) communicates to itself esoterically, through totally personal idiosyncratic hints / riddles / jokes etc. The proof is forever in the eye of the beholder and more of a case of 'do you get the joke?' rather than a god that must show himself explicitly to be seen.

In plain sight. connect the dots, read between the lines, whatever the case may be. When more was unknown mankind still had wonder. Industrial and then Technological revolutions mean "We've got everything down to a science" "Now I guess we know everything" such is the self certainty of our generation.

We are aware of the natural cycles now, and have sophisticated mathematical models to guess probability, to see the order within the chaos, we can reduce even the largest macrocosmic scales of chaotic movement into predictable pre-calculated and seemingly purely mechanistic processes.

However even in the depths of a concrete jungle with each individual isolated to themselves and our only connection to real life is now a tv screen, this electronic device, a inert object could shine a light of revelation, that all is connected, that there can be a deeper message even in lame tv sitcoms.. reminded me that not only is gods will made manifest in the seemingly chaotic will of the weather, but in the individual and collective wills of tv writers and the people watching them (the universe only exists to be witnessed by us). The connection can always be made, because everything is everything. However for that to be the case the mind must be seeking to see that. That too is selective filtering of reality, like all choices on how we choose to see things.

The polarity of anthropomorphised higher up deities and a life force within even the lowest of forms (in all forms) is that one describes an archetype that is a metaphysical form, that can only be revealed over time through multiple perspectives to be seen as a timeless transcendent being that we are influenced by. The life force I guess is more like the energy that is forever exchanged in physical processes to create a form. Energy + matter = form (ie: holy trinity) the forms.. the crown of magnets, those deities up there... I cannot say if we create them, or they us, but i highly doubt their inexistance.

Archetypes of the psyche, mother - nurturing, father - the law, Black void - greed destruction, entropy, light - divine spark new life etc... So these are very broad abstract ideas, that personified create a stronger resonance to ourselves and we see that our psyche.. who we are as people, is reflected through who we are as the environment we co-create. Dynamically effecting each other as self/other.

I was watching a non-newtonian fluid.. corn starch and water, creating these organic undulating shapes, when vibrations were applied to the surface. Some kind of non-liquid non solid state that swaps between the two because of air pressure... so anyway each of these molecules slots itself into the path of least resistance, going with the flow of a sound vibration. NO dna or life in this thing, and yet each little limb looking thing would undulate in the most lifelike of motions... out of a purely mechanical process.

It's Alive!

Reminded me of Daniel Pinchbecks experience on Ayahuasca where he experienced his biological thought process as purely mechanistic and dictated by the greater will of all things, more than a personal choice. The mechanisms of consciousness, seem to imply to me that proof of order and patterns and mechanisms within nature do not discount that there is a will behind it. But then we get back into Determinism vs Free Will.

As technical and complicated and all encompassing as we want our model of reality to be, it will never explain the fact we're living it. It is a semantic and intellectual bunch of wank discussing the truth of what must be a totally personal belief/doubt.

That there is life, means to me there is a soul, and a connection from everything to everything, in a very quaint old school religious sort of way. Be this dictated via some current cultural memes or cosmic archetypes written in the stars.

Edited July 26, 2008 by The Dude

[WoodDragon]

I'm posting this mostly as a thumbs-up for a bit of moral support for SC... I have a similar suite of questions (and a whole lot more!) that I spend much of my thinking time contemplating, and they never seem to easily resolve.

Unfortunately my typing speed is insufficent for my thinking speed to be able to participate on this thread in a dissection of these issues to the extent that I'd like to. It's more of a topic for a sweat-tent I reckon!

I will say that science is a powerful tool (and here I should declare my scientific background) that is misunderstood by most of those not so trained, and indeed by many who are. More grievously, it is a tool mis-used by most who are not trained in its use (Creationists being a classic example), and unfortunately also by some people who are scientifically literate. In this latter category I reluctantly place Dawkins with respect to several specific examples similar to SC's original speculations. Some things take a life-time or more to use properly, even for the best among us, and the 'tool' that is science can be one of those...

Further, science is 'constructed' to be pretty much reductive in its approach, and some questions are almost impossible to tackle in this way. It's a bit like looking down the wrong end of a telescope, if you think about it. Or to use another metaphor, if you look at the progress in defining pi, the fluctuations were great historically, but over time they homed in on the 'true' value - using a reductive/deductive process to peer at something like 'The Beginning' is probably akin to running the study of pi backwards...

Finally, here's a question I like to torment fundies with: if God is all-powerful, can he create a rock too heavy for himself to lift?

[Undergrounder]

Finally, here's a question I like to torment fundies with: if God is all-powerful, can he create a rock too heavy for himself to lift?

I think if you want to define a God that is somewhat logical, you need to do away with the tri-omni definition. It just doesn't make sense on so many fronts. I think there might be a push towards a definition of God that hasn't been falsified by science, namely God as creator, not as omnipresent being.

[nabraxas]

does anyone know of the anthropic principle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

"the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here."

Paul Davies - "The Mind of God"

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-God-Scientific-...l/dp/0671797182

[chilli]

does anyone know of the anthropic principle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Dawkins actually talks about this quite a bit in TGD. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he seems to consider it as supporting his approach, something like "yes it's highly unlikely we would be here asking these questions, but because we are here it must be true, so no need for God"

Paul Davies - "The Mind of God"

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-God-Scientific-...l/dp/0671797182

I just heard about this fellow the other day, Dawkins makes some slightly snide remarks about him in his book. There's a couple of his books at the local library, will check one out when I take this back.

*edit* oops, accidentally put some of my comments in the quote.

Edited July 27, 2008 by Sublime Crime

[Undergrounder]

There was an article recently in a philosophy magazine (i think) about these guys who wrote a book who think that the fact that we are self-aware is fundamentally important for the universe.

The problem i have with it is this... and few people understand what the hell i'm on about when i say this, but anyway:

Basically the fact that we're self aware is not a long-shot, it is actually inevitable. Because if we are asking ourselves the question of "why are we self-aware?" then by definition we must be self-aware. And in every possible universe where we're NOT self-aware, we're not asking the question. So the odds of us being self-aware aren't 1 in a zillion, they're a certainty, because in order to ask the question, we must be self-aware. If you happened to live in one of the other zillion possible worlds where by chance we didn't happen to be self-aware, you wouldn't know it, and wouldn't be asking the question.

Did that make sense? didn't think so. But i stick to it.

[The Dude]

There was an article recently in a philosophy magazine (i think) about these guys who wrote a book who think that the fact that we are self-aware is fundamentally important for the universe.

The problem i have with it is this... and few people understand what the hell i'm on about when i say this, but anyway:

Basically the fact that we're self aware is not a long-shot, it is actually inevitable. Because if we are asking ourselves the question of "why are we self-aware?" then by definition we must be self-aware. And in every possible universe where we're NOT self-aware, we're not asking the question. So the odds of us being self-aware aren't 1 in a zillion, they're a certainty, because in order to ask the question, we must be self-aware. If you happened to live in one of the other zillion possible worlds where by chance we didn't happen to be self-aware, you wouldn't know it, and wouldn't be asking the question.

Did that make sense? didn't think so. But i stick to it.

My head is imploding from that little logical paradox. So you are saying that the probability of anything happening as it HAS in our space/time continuum in our slice of the infinite potentials of reality.. is always a certainty because it did happen to us. If it didn't it wouldn't anyway.. some kind of everything happens for a reason, or everything that ever happened was pre-defined and certain to happen? because it did? Is this not a direct reference to our experience of the world being the manifested will of god? Because no other possibilites COULD happen to us, because this one did, hence we are bound to a predetermined path of awareness->self awareness, because otherwise we could have alternate potentials of being.. which if they didn't happen, dont even exist as a probability because what happened was a certainty already.

--Donny Darko flashback re: time travel via seeing the future, avoiding paradox as one is compelled to follow 'gods path' without the ability to branch into alternate potentials - hence maintaining the same timeline whilst still being able to have prescience of it.

Just thinking of personal experiences that seemed to bend linear time boundaries and the sense of wonder and amazement one feels. The fact we've found natural reasons and mathematical patterns to map the workings of god, does not eliminate will and consciousness from the equation. Statistics and Probabilities trip me out how a metaphisical entity of math can predetermine the real life frequency of events in time. It is a natural form or pattern across the unseen dimension of time, unseen without memory and foresight. So we can even model mechanisms that map the unseen forms of 'probability'.

All these new understandings are all well and good to see the surface level (with complex reasons) of what is happening, but without an emotional sense of wonder and amazement at the potentials of shaping reality through focused intent at self directing the natural forces of probability with our own minds, then it will be a matter of documenting our descent into entropy with little hope of revitalising our current state of being.

looking in hindsight everything was predetermined and 'meant to be'. Looking at the future, i believe we have a choice of direction because we are SELF aware now. We are no longer just passengers of the self, but we can see the SELF which in it's totality is comprised of INFINITE potential, which in hindsight will seem a certainty that was meant to be. as for right now.. I reckon we probably have a choice.

[MORG]

Basically the fact that we're self aware is not a long-shot, it is actually inevitable. Because if we are asking ourselves the question of "why are we self-aware?" then by definition we must be self-aware. And in every possible universe where we're NOT self-aware, we're not asking the question. So the odds of us being self-aware aren't 1 in a zillion, they're a certainty, because in order to ask the question, we must be self-aware. If you happened to live in one of the other zillion possible worlds where by chance we didn't happen to be self-aware, you wouldn't know it, and wouldn't be asking the question.

Your comments there are close to the way in which I understand the anthropic principle (mentioned a few posts back).

The probability of us being here, given that we are here = 1

But that's logical, and logic scares some.

The Dude: Wow! Sounds like Dawkins has really upset you. A strongly-worded perspective there.

[Undergrounder]

My head is imploding from that little logical paradox. So you are saying that the probability of anything happening as it HAS in our space/time continuum in our slice of the infinite potentials of reality.. is always a certainty because it did happen to us. If it didn't it wouldn't anyway.. some kind of everything happens for a reason, or everything that ever happened was pre-defined and certain to happen? because it did? Is this not a direct reference to our experience of the world being the manifested will of god? Because no other possibilites COULD happen to us, because this one did, hence we are bound to a predetermined path of awareness->self awareness, because otherwise we could have alternate potentials of being.. which if they didn't happen, dont even exist as a probability because what happened was a certainty already.

...

looking in hindsight everything was predetermined and 'meant to be'. Looking at the future, i believe we have a choice of direction because we are SELF aware now. We are no longer just passengers of the self, but we can see the SELF which in it's totality is comprised of INFINITE potential, which in hindsight will seem a certainty that was meant to be. as for right now.. I reckon we probably have a choice.

Kind of, but not really... what you describe sounds to me like determinism, which says that the path you took is the only one that you could have taken, that you had no other choice, and that 'free will' is just an illusion. I agree with that, but that's not what i was saying..

i can't explain it without going around in circles, but what MORG says about the 'anthropic principle' sounds like a similar concept...

If you ask the question "What are the chances that i am self-aware?", then that question FIRSTLY, NECESSARILY, implies that you ARE self-aware, because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to ask the question. So it's not like there are zillions of rocks also asking the same question, because they aren't conscious. Therefore, only self-aware things are able to ask that question in the first place. And so of course the answer is, the chances are 100%, because there is no possible instance of you asking that question if you weren't self-aware to begin with. If we HADN'T evolved to be self-aware, then that question wouldn't bother us one bit, we would be blissfully naive that a thing called "consciousness" never existed.

It just seems to me like talk of "the chances of life evolving" or the "chances of consciousness being created" are not viable thoughts. You or I aren't constantly thinking "oh shit, we are one of the 999,999,999,999 possible worlds where 'zoobleblip' (an exotic form of super-consciousness) didn't evolve", because we don't even know what 'zoobleblip' is, and we don't care if we don't have it.. Whereas if we were alive on planet ZORG, where 'zoobleblip' was an integral part of our lives, then we would count our lucky stars that we are 'zoobleblipalicious' and think that we were somehow special in the universe because of it.

[chilli]

But that's logical, and logic scares some.

Logic doesn't scare me, but I recognize it's limitations.

[Hagakure]

does anyone know of the anthropic principle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Paul Davies - "The Mind of God"

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-God-Scientific-...l/dp/0671797182

"Paul Davies - The goldilocks Enigma" has just landed on my lap and i remembered this thread.

anyone read it?

apparently it deals with the question of why the universe is right for life in some detail.

[Nobun]

"Be still and know that "I am God"

Everything is GOD'

You are' I am' a stone is'

All light in vibration' all in motion'

Is GOD'

Bliss'

Nobunoni +

[Nobun]

Wow !!

Edited August 27, 2008 by Nobun

[Nobun]

Wow' he he he'

the claim Dawkins makes in the heading of this section rests almost entirely on the reasoning that a God, in the sense of a being with mind that created the universe,

Unreal for sure'

It was MIND that created this universe' the concious thought/concept MIND of another universe'

All is in the MIND' the MIND of the universe'

Concious thought creates to move'

Motion' sound' light' atom' molecule' organism'

Movement in the void' of concept' created sound' sound created light/photon' photon created atom' atom created molecules' molecules created organisms' hence life'

The being/God that created all of this reflection was another universe'

Some folks have real wacked out ideas of creation'

Infinite' creation from still point' evolving' creating a reflection of itself'

Duality'

A singlurarty can in no way exist without it's own reflction'

So all is duality'

Simple'

Man's mind concept' of a being that created all of this' creates all of this'

all is in the mind' the mind of the universe as a whole concious being'

We have no mind of our own' we are ruled by emotion and universe conciousness'

God' is light in motion' light in vibration'

All is light in vibration'

Folks get paid money for banting these concepts'

The observer can change the observed' just by observing'

So the observer must be' in a state of being continualy observed'

Therefore non of this is real' only by of what you believe it to be' (ie the program you run)

Humanity is a complete being' never individual' the right parralel processor of the brain is conncted to the left series processor of the other bodies that make up humanity' all connected through concious' subconcious' higher conciousnss/universe conciousness'

Humanity the blood cells' the psychi Mind universe conciousness'

All a great beast' connected' right' left (duality) veil/mirror middle'' through the veil all is series' to our concept we are dualities arguement reflected' E'Go'

The right being the left hand by reflection' with a static state within a continual expression in the middle'

MIND !!

Bliss

Nobunoni +

Oh my'

These folks should take ceremony and get the plants to teach them of who and of what they are'

The two hemispheres of our brain' is the univers by reflection' all connected through psychi universe mind'

"I am GOD" (rotate pic through 90 deg)

Edited August 27, 2008 by Nobun