Think about the universe for a moment: everything in it is completely and utterly logical. There are physical laws to keep everything in its place. Everything from the design of molecular structures to genetics in organic life on Earth is extremely sensible. Hypothetically, if a group of modern engineers came together (assuming no knowledge of our universe) and decided to design a universe and its laws and had the means to do so, the result might be something like what we have now. The question I am posing is, does intelligent design require an intelligent creator? Or is the universe we are a part of simply a result of things sort of striving for an equilibrium? I for one do not believe in a creator in the sense of a "God" figure, but it is also very hard to think that something with such incredibly sophisticated and logical design simply created itself. Or perhaps it is only that we percieve it to be logical, because we are a part of it, and we cannot imagine any other way. I've heard somewhere before that we can't ever really make anything up, because the confines of what we could "dream up" are limited to what we already know. Any thoughts?

Stephen Wolfram would say that simple rules give rise to staggering complexity if implemented algorithmically.

I would say that whilst my thoughts concur with yours, I would introduce the 'credibility' of the 'system' as being the cause for its existence, whether 'created' or 'occurring'.
Any 'incredible' 'system' would have failed and decayed or evolved into a credible sytem for it to continue as it seems to have done.
Perhaps 'surviving' would be a better word than 'incredible'. By credible I mean it is capable of working.
[This final rambling is due to the fact that I hold the system to be incredible by default, almost].

Regarding 'new ideas', I would say that we can have new ideas, but that they are always built on existing ideas.

I agree with you on this Bill,

all ideas are based upon existing ideas, but when you traverse back in history the "original" ideas humans came up with were "borrowed" and then "copied" from the natural surrounding environment.

So does this infer that nature is the real inventor, or is it just that it has been around for quite some time before turned up ?

The idea of God as a creator fitted the intelligence of the time,a man made pipe dream the idea that humans could create something similar is a man made hash pipe dream.
btw You cannot have a group of engineers who didnt know the (known) rules of the universe as you have to understand some if not all of them to become an engineer.

Life is the creator of life : just ask yourself where you came from
"hint" your mother "end hint"
the universe started with one spark it was void of life just think how long it took life to get a hold of this planet.
Life is as Bill said, surviving. Nature tries every route available to create life. Some times it succeeds and sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes other parameters affect life to such an extent that it almost destroys everything, but life is a survivor. Somehow it always finds a way. It took over 63 million years for us to appear after the last time nature took "a kicking", but here we are, and now due to male orientated self righteousness we think we are gods, capable of anything and everything. Maybe ina few million years of evolution we might achieve something like what we now think a god is capable of, but right now, all we can do is destroy.

Ah well, back to the drawing board I suppose gentlemen.

As for the need for intelligent design to have an intelligent creator, ask yourself this one question : When a four year old child draws a picture that you can clearly see what it depicts, as you hang it on the fridge door with pride and those terribly tacky magnets, do you question the intelligence behind it ?

Whatever you are having, have a good one.

-J-

[COLOR=purple]Hello people...im making my way into this new fourm...but i must tell you i find it kind of complicated im trying to understand the order of things here..if any cares to inform me i would greatly appreciate it!...i need to know how the post work...and how to actually post so forth and so on...i thank you in advance for your gracious cooperation. i can be reached at [email protected]

u may find this interesting

http://pub207.ezboard.com/flettuceinnforou...opicID=13.topic

the link above goes to the following:

I love how articles like the one above dumb everything down so much to make it palatable to the vast public. For me, such dumbing down just leaves a bad taste in my mouth..

One piece of advice I sometimes give to creationists is that it's rarely a good idea to base an argument on a failure of imagination.

The arguments for a monotheistic creator god from biology are thoroughly debunked in Richard Dawkins' 1990 book The Blind Watchmaker.

Rick comments:

Rick, how familiar are you with the concept of emanation?

To the extent that I understand the concept, it makes sense, to me. It also fits in with the unitheistic concept of G-d, which I presently hold.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/emanatio.htm



Table of Contents
* Definition and Distinctions
* Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Greek Phases
* Philo and Early Christian Doctrine
* Pseudo Dionysius, Scholastic, and Mystic Doctrine


Definition and Distinctions

The concept of emanation is that all derived or secondary things proceed or flow from the more primary. It is distinguished from the doctrine of creation by its elimination of a definite will in the first cause, from which all things are made to emanate according to natural laws and without conscious volition. It differs from the theory of formation at the hands of a supreme artisan who finds his matter ready to his hand, in teaching that all things, whether actually or only apparently material, flow from the primal principle. Unlike evolution, again, which includes the entire principle of the world, material and spiritual, in the process of development, emanation holds to the immutability of the first principle as to both quality and quantity, and also in the tendency of the development evolution implying one which goes from less to more perfect, while emanation involves a series of descending stages.

Emanation doesn't conflict with mystical gnosticism, but one can't rule out illusion (as the source of emanational ideas) as consciousness itself emanates from the brain. One problem with gnosticism is its resemblance to megalomania in its certainty of truth.

Emanation also doesn't seem to add any explanation, but implies more questions as to mechanism. The humanist view is that eventually people will know enough to be able to understand all the things about which we are curious. So any elements of theory that cloud the issues or don't add to understanding are to be avoided.

Your avatar image, by the way, appears to be unaccessible from this part of the world.

I agree.

There are many variations of Gnosticism though.

There is no compelling evidence for free will. Everything is achieved as part of ultracomplex reflex action. We are fooled into thinking that we have free will, just as we are fooled into thinking that food tastes good and red is a nice colour. There is no taste or colour. This is all a ruse to keep us going. Who knows why? Just to keep thinks ticking. Who says that we are so important that there has to be a reason that we have free will or that anything is real?

Ideas?

The only question I have for Hey Hey is if you believe this, is it with or against your consent?

Ha Ha!

I don't believe a thing I say.

The classic debate in theological circles that address free will and destiny is the Pelagius v. Augustine debate. Pelagius was a target or obsession of Augustine who tried unsucessfully to remove him from the Church on three occasions. It is my perception that Pelagius was a trained Druid in the weakened or watered down Celtic Christian Church at places like the Isle of Druids known as Iona. His later intellectual progeny is Eirugena which Bertrand Russell (apparently with no understanding of Iona or the Irish issue) credits as one of the shining philosophical lights during the Dark Ages.

Here is my take on the matter of Free Will and Destiny (which includes the concept of an intelligent creator in many respects).

As noted by Viktor E. Frankl there is choice and one very basic choice we all have - to die rather than cater or go along woth the system. I therefore likely support the Arian Gnostic perspective that we are endowed with FREE WILL. But how free is it or are we really? Augustine is the nexus of the Original Sin dogma and I certainly side with the Gnostics who say (like Socrates) that there is only one SIN that separates us from 'What IS' (G_d) and that is IGNORANCE.

Ignorance of the science practiced by Druids (that included the affecting of the wind and rain as demonstrated by St. Columba who you will find acting as the Arch or high Druid at the Synod or Council of Drum Ceatt) is what we are talking about. I have been involved in affecting the wind and rain and I have had many other experiences that my skeptical mind had some difficulty understanding. I will never know it all (ALL THAT IS = G_d).

This science allows an adept to attune with collective consciousness and the energy in fields that surround us even if we are in a so-called vacuum as science now does prove.

what is 'freedom'?
when I can't get what I want, I feel 'restricted'. When I can get what I want, I feel 'free'.

'Freedom' is how I feel when I achieve satisfaction of my need(s), not some abstract quality of being able to generate arbitrary effect.

We are not free to choose what we need because the act of choosing is itself motivated by need. In this sense, need is the cause of action. We are causally motivated.

A 'free will' is simply the quality of a mind to economically generate satisfaction of need, with greater 'freedom' being equivalent to greater economy of effort in generating satisfaction.

But R the B,

You say "As noted by Viktor E. Frankl there is choice and one very basic choice we all have - to die rather than cater or go along woth the system. I therefore likely support the Arian Gnostic perspective that we are endowed with FREE WILL. But how free is it or are we really? Augustine is the nexus of the Original Sin dogma and I certainly side with the Gnostics who say (like Socrates) that there is only one SIN that separates us from 'What IS' (G_d) and that is IGNORANCE."

But choice can be achieved by a robot. We "select" a route to go through the facilities endowed upon us by evolution and practiced through complex reflex action.

And your position would be that evolution is designed by a creator who knew what your choice would be - rather tautological methinks. Nope I think that one went out with the dinosaurs when it comes to philosophical thinking. There is an old ideology that we are just thought in the mind of a higher being which has growing possibility in the current science and if you were to use that construct you might get somewhee with it. Still all in all we are destined to be affected by many forces but we have FREE WILL - this is a well known and understood esoteric principlle which I find no flaw in.

what is 'freedom'?
when I can't get what I want, I feel 'restricted'. When I can get what I want, I feel 'free'.

'Freedom' is how I feel when I achieve satisfaction of my need(s), not some abstract quality of being able to generate arbitrary effect.

We are not free to choose what we need because the act of choosing is itself motivated by need. In this sense, need is the cause of action. We are causally motivated.

A 'free will' is simply the quality of a mind to economically generate satisfaction of need, with greater 'freedom' being equivalent to greater economy of effort in generating satisfaction.

Economy relates to NEEDS and those who are needy will never be FREE.

Gibran says it this way: 'There are those who as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance to the air, these are the cchildren of God and through them he smiles upon the Earth.'

I say that man, in theory absolutely and in practice potentially, has free will. I would like to settle this old debate once and for all. Anyone who says we are not free, please make me a list of those things that we are unable to will, right now. Thank you.

of course it sounds absurd to say that we are not free. After all, how else to explain our sense of intentionality in acting? Conversly, it sounds absurd to say that choice is acausal when so many choices can be predicted based on circumstance.

the key is that we erroniously assume a dualism of intention, with a 'free will' that is essentially unconstrained but also is inexorably directed into transforming a world of constraints. Are we imprisoned into the set of choices which are sensibly related to our world of constraints? or are we free to choose our way through such a world?

perhaps we simply seek a preferred feeling, and thus our choices are guided by non-rational motives toward a feeling.

Freedom is felt, not thought

Dear Dan

What does not being able to will something have to do with free will? If one's WILL is strong enough does that provide the force of Destiny? Nah - I am sure you did not mean that. But that is possible and it is the operating principle of INTENT.

Crowley's LAW (The only LAW) according to him, is all about WILL though he says so long as it hurt none he was not really inclined that way. The law of the Magi (Three LAWS) which applies is Scrire, Potere, Audere, Tacere. That is translated as KNOW, Will, Dare, Keep Silent.

I will that Dan agree with me in all things, immediately. If this wish comes to pass, does that mean that I am God? Maybe. Hell must freeze before it has time to thaw out.

By the way, according to Dante, the lowest depth of hell contains a river of ice in which the devil stands chained, with Judas in his jaws, knawing on him forever.

I agree with Lindsay in his last post here in all items except the first. Man does not currently understand very much, let alone all things. Homo sapiens, even though he possesses the greatest intelellect yet discovered, is really kind of a dim bulb in the grand scheme of things.

The anthropomorphing urge of ego and man is a never-ending source of amazement to me. Even atheists do it when they say the things you are saying about HSS and his intellect.

Given that before the water was found all over our solar system including on moons and this is thought to be central to the formation of life in universe. Given that the 'experts' had theorized that at least 100,000 higher or more advanced species of life existed in just the known universe at that juncture. Given that we can extrapolate or geometrically explode the number upwards due to water being a necessary co-efficient in their calculations. Given that we say the universe is 14 BILLION years old and we are a relatively new solar system with about 6 Billion years of existence in some form and life is at most 4 Billion years old here - HOW on earth (or anywhere) can man's ego say HSS is the highest form of intellect?

I think that definitions of words are translated according to the personality, the cycle of action-experience-impression-desire or the human belief system.
I also think that the idea of Free will would be understood at different levels of consciousness.
Just as the sanskrit language can be translated into different meanings by someone who can tune into the original thought at higher levels of consciousnesss than someone who might try to translate the language by their own personal impressions of the words, or someone who might not experience God would try to interpret the Bible by their own belief system rather than the direct experience of knowing God or the person who wrote it, "Free will," will have a different meaning.

"Thy will be done, not my own" would be in recognition of the ego's will and a greater will of universal Consciousness or God, and freedom of choice to accept reality or create it through the illusiory structure of beliefs.

This would clarify the idea of Free will to the alignment of will to Universal Consciousness or to Ego and that freedom of choice.

The undisciplined mind can jump from one idea to another in total freedom of thought.

If the mind is not filled with the experiences of action leaving an impression which would lead to a desire what would the mind experience or desire?
It is said, the only thing the mind would experience is the stillness of consciousness experiencing itself. However consciousness by its nature is also active.
The awareness of that activity is not comprehended by the intellect but it is by the heart or the soul suggesting the comprehension of reality at a deeper level than the ego's reality which is learned through the cycle of the external a-e-i-d of the senses.

The mind can align itself with anything and project any reality based on choice.

Oh I see - you say the absence of something you can see with your eyes is proof of your need to believe something also not in evidence. The owl sees more than us - does that mean what the owl sees does not exist.

Actually science is quite capable of determining the necessary ingredients for life to be created and there is ample proof of many things related thereto.

It reminds me of the first presentation of the phonograph to the Paris Academy of Sciences - the sergeant at arms rose up and throttled the presenter as he cied 'ventriloquist'.

You also can't see your soul and you DENY it exists. But despite that you would find few that can argue against the science now in place dealing with how the soul works. (ESP and what is called paranormal) Would you like to deal with Jung or any of the many threads here that address how it is physiologically proveable. (Tiller, Emotu, Third Eye and Thalami - Lorie and Gazzaniga et al, or all the others)

Yes, you can find many proclaim there is no such thing - but they cannot refute the actual replicable experiments or show any fraud therein. I refer to Shermer and Randi specifically as regards things like The Afterlife Experiment or the work of Laszlo and all so many postings here from myself and others like Meta.

No you did not say that it is true. That is my summary of your listed (proclamations) three options.

About 30 years ago I reviewed the available information on what was called the UFO phenomena. I concluded at that time that there were two possible hypotheses. The first that the phenomena could be accounted for by Jung's psychological explanation. The second was that the Earth was being visited on a regular basis by about 100 intelligent space traveling species.

Since that time, the alternatives have been narrrowed somewhat. If there really are space travelers, there should be some physical evidence, like space ship wreckage or space civilization artifacts. The absence of this evidence leaves the first hypothesis to be the more likely.

Dear Rick

You were dealing with ET - oh!


Well on that point we should start another thread. I thought you were addressing the sentient intellectual prospects that science has definitively proven.

But if you wish to address the issue of UFOs (which there are many well documented cases - see the Jay Or David Rockefeller arranged investigation - I will post an excerpt if you really wish to go into tis on its own thread) you should address the mode of transport and the physicality thereof. SETI is lame - they do not travel as sub light speed or they would have to be almost immortal. Thus the likes of Sagan an his support of it was a farce and it was a boondoogle from the get go unless there was another purpose behind it. Sagan is also noted by Professor Morowitz for the same myopia in his Dragons of Eden Glassary of terms which leaves out such things as consciousness or soul. (See my thread on Re-discovering The Mind here).

Rick, check what I wrote Sep 03, 07:32 PM about G-d as being the all powerful and infallible computer.

Further to this, I wrote to Warren Farr http://www.unitheist.org/ He and I dialogue in a couple of forums.

Farr, to this--parable of the infallible computer--I add: If the time ever comes--perhaps, 10,000 years...I hope is it less...from now--when one of our ancestors finally brings into being a powerful and infallible computer, with the precise answers to all our questions, we will then experience what it means to really know G-d, in a personal way.

IN THE BEGINNING, G-D WAS UNCONSCIOUS BEING

Without prejudice, here's a thought: Could it be that consciousness and/or self-awareness, as we know it--I equate it with spirituality--is a relatively new natural phenomenon?

Could it, also, be that in the beginning of all that we now know, and experience, individually and collectively, all was part of that unconscious being? In other words, all that is was, like the single cell in a mother's womb, rolled up in the collective unconsciouosness to which I give the name G-d?

Then--And who knows when it first happened?--our first ancestors entered into life, as we know it. They, entered --perhaps in more than one part of the globe, or the universe--as male and female beings to begin the process, as co-creators with G-d--that which is total, universal, unconscious and all encompassing being--in developing, for good or ill, the gift of consciousness.

Farr, and others, feel free to take this thought and treat it in anway that comes to you. Feel free to dismiss it as nonsense, to question it, to add to it, what ever.

Getting over computational limits - can you not link whole discrete computers and expect emergent properties? One of these might be god-like powers! This might be a bit like combining minds in some way (how?) as a means of expanding consciousness.

Also, theory often says that the explanation is either this or that, when the reality (!?) might be some hybrid (loose definition here). This might be how we need to approach the search for extraterrestrial life - no plants or animals but some hybrid, but not quite. And todays theory does not always become tomorrows definitive answer. Most often it becomes tomorrows new or modified theory. Theory does not = or > Fact. Reaching the limits of computational power through scale limitations, for eg, discount a movement away from utilising equipment based purely upon matter.

It's not an issue of intractability, it's a matter of incomputability. It's difficult to argue with mathematical proof.

God or no god. Some supra natural power is around us all the time. If it was not for it, the system would have collapsed since long.

If somebody wants a proof, just go and practice meditation.

As far as the argument on whether we are free goes..

I would say, like some of you already have.. In the indsutrialised world, we are as free as a bird in a golden cage..

You don't believe me ?

Just jot down things you would do which will make you truly happy.. and more.. do meditatation. You will realise that many of our needs are futile to which we are now enslaved..

Don

BTW, what does the following, at the bottom of the page I am reading, mean?