There's no specific reason to think it wasn't created. In fact, it seems more likely it was, which is my argument. — Qwex

Indeed. Take for example art, music and math, all of which, confer no Darwinian biological advantages.

Or take consciousness and self-awareness. It goes beyond bottom-up emergence or emergent properties of existence, in that, there are metaphysical constructs such as love, sense of wonderment, the will, colors, and so forth that confer little if any biological advantages for higher life forms (and other emotive phenomena). And if it does, one would have to argue for example, why lower life forms don't commit suicide or drive themselves out of extinction through environmental conditions. :gasp:

And so, in other words, top-down intellect seems more likely than bottom-up Darwinism.

I don't think it really matters if the universe was created or not, not to us humans anyway...

It would only be relevant if that would also imply that that God not only created the universe, but that he also created some sort of moral code for us to follow.

And so, even if it would be likely that the universe was created, the likelihood that that creation also came with a moral code specific for us humans to follow seems much much... much smaller.

But yeah people will keep discussing this until the end of times, as if it makes a difference for the point they actually want to make.

If you had specified, "This thing that we humans call 'the universe'...I might have agreed with part of your argument. But to suppose that what we humans conceive of as "the universe (everything that is)"...is actually "everything that is"...is preposterous.

On a relative scale, we humans know very little more about "everything that is" than an ant foraging in our backyards.

"Everything that is"...may always have been...always existed. (That seems to me to be the more reasonable guess.) And this thing we humans call "the universe" may be a very, very, very small part of "everything that is."

Just sayin'!

All right, God created the universe. Where does that get you?

I'm saying there is intelligent design, not suggesting God at all.

What I meant was like me saying not God, it's the subject taken seriously, in the title.

And so, in other words, top-down intellect seems more likely than bottom-up Darwinism. — 3017amen

The term "Intelligent Design" is usually taken as a reference to the top-down short-term creation described in Genesis. But based on current scientific knowledge, the universe did indeed emerge abruptly from an unknowable nothingness, and has taken billions of years to reach its current state of development (some estimate halfway to The End). So I have my own hypothesis of "Intelligent Evolution" (via "bottom-up Darwinism), that is based on Information Theory. It attempts to explain how Intelligent creatures have developed from the initial conditions of the Big Bang, which don't seem conducive to Consciousness : Intelligence In -- Intelligence Out.

The linked essay was written over fourteen years ago, and could be much more detailed if re-written today --- but then, it was just a layman's hypothesis (a hunch). BTW, it does assume an abstract axiomatic Creator God, or Enformer, to "design" the process of evolution, but not the final product.

Intelligent Evolution : http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf

Thank you kindly Gnomon! Quite unveiling. I did a cursory read and am curious. I will study it and report back.

As a (secular) retired mathematician, I think it prudent to keep an open mind on the subject of a non-religious notion of "intelligent design". Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis could be so described. The question that arises is, Can there be ID without a specific designer? Or is that an oxymoron?

Yes, I think it would be an oxymoron. For instance, I've been following Daniel Dennett's (positive Atheist) youtube debate's lately, and he is starting to use that exact term 'design' now, in his narratives. Yet he doesn't, can't, or denies any explanation of it. Go figure.

Even further, in my opinion, I think he's confused with his bottom-up theories, particularly as it relates to consciousness, self-awareness and phenomena. His books generally don't get good reviews for that reason. The reviews commonly refer to his theories as being random and rambling incoherent explanations as to the nature of things-that's not coming from me either. IMO, I think he's trying to make atheistic political statements rather than objective scientific one's.

If the atheist can actually make a human and create consciousness, case closed. In the meantime, the phenomenon of 'self aware beings' certainly not only suggests a metaphysical existence or will of sorts, but continues to provide for a sense of wonderment that causes us to think about things like art, music, math, philosophy, cosmology, love et al. all of which confer little to no biological survival value.

(I'm open to new ideas such as Dennett's, but he can't seem to get past the Kantian nature of the thing-in-itself, and is silent on the obvious clues that suggest ID is more likely than not.)

As a Christian Existentialist myself, I don't try to justify existence other than to search for both cognitive science/physical science clues to the extra ordinary or super natural. I embrace the mystery.

Likewise, we are back to Kant's mysterious/innate sense of self-awareness and human wonderment/judgement: all events must have a cause. And why should we care about that statement? What advantages and/or purpose does that have in the world of pursuing science and conscious existence?

I'm saying there is intelligent design, not suggesting God at all.
What I meant was like me saying not God, it's the subject taken seriously, in the title. — Qwex

Fair enough. We're going to need to know what you mean by "intelligent."

What really has to be known is...

...what people in this discussion mean by "atheist" when discussing the issue.

If they simply mean "someone lacking a 'belief' that any gods exist'" (a nonsensical meaning of the word in my estimation)...then...so what. If they are using that meaning...there may be a GOD, a God, several gods, or no gods. Intelligent design could be a function of any of those things...plus others.

If, by atheist" they mean someone who 'believes' there are no gods or someone who 'believes' it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is one...a serious, almost irreconcilable issue arises: What is the "intelligence" causing the "design."

Is yours about what people (might) believe? Or about what is?

Not sure I understand your question, Tim. Can you flesh it out a bit, please.

You're mentioning what people might mean or believe. People might mean or believe anything. If you're discussing ID as something some people might believe, then that's not of much interest to me. If your proposition is that there is such a thing as intelligent design, then, it seems to me, that it would be a matter of interest to anyone interested in what you're thinking just what you mean by "intelligent" and "design."

By "intelligent design" one seems to imply some sort of entity that "causes" that phenomenon. But what if the design appears to be a product of intelligence when in fact it may not be? Is there effect without cause? All most of us ever see in this world is effect resulting from a cause, or a host of causes. Thus, we question, What was "before" the Big Bang? Suppose the Universe is different, but we "see" what we are accustomed to seeing. Then time reversal in mathematical equations in physics might describe reality better than normal perspectives. We simply can't see or process what is "really" out there.

Just babbling. Pay me no mind. :chin:

Was it something's work?

Does structure emerging from a big bang imply that the big bang was structured itself?

What's meant by intelligent designer is a related intelligent species, which to us is an anomaly, is capable of creating universes.

It probably did create the structure of the pre-big bang with the knowledge of universe result and resources.

If there are an infinite number of universes, there is one where the contents of this entire forum were created by monkeys randomly typing at keyboards.

Perhaps that's the universe that we're in.

|>ouglas

If there are an infinite number of universes, there is one where the contents of this entire forum were created by monkeys randomly typing at keyboards. — Douglas Alan

A countable or uncountable number of universes? Would there be a difference? :chin:

All the terms you don't trouble to define you assume are already well-defined. But at the least you anthropomorphize them. And without even "the cold respect of a passing glance" you dismiss without any acknowledgement significant problems with your ideas, even as thinly as you have expressed them. Until you offer some rigor, even as minimally as making reasonably clear just what the heck you're on about, until then, it's just nonsense.

A countable or uncountable number of universes? Would there be a difference? — jgill

Hmmm, that's an interesting question.

It may be that having enough real monkeys at computer terminals is not actually a possible universe at all, depending on the rules via which universes are made. But certainly there are possible worlds in which there are such monkeys, since the possible world could just begin with the monkeys typing at the beginning of time, which was last Thursday, and the apparent age of the universe is only an illusion. In which case, there would only need to be a countably infinite number of possible worlds, since this forum is only of finite length.

Though at times it does seem to be filled with an infinite amount of nonsense, so I'm not completely convinced by my argument.

|>ouglas

We cannot answer whether the universe was or wasn't created, we can say 'nothing' or 'something' created us.

There's no specific reason to think it wasn't created. In fact, it seems more likely it was, which is my argument.

There's a lot of strangeness, misjudgements; a higher power, who could merely know more, is a high probability. There is probably existence of other dimensions and locale. This universe, was likely created in a chain of creations.

It's a reasonable suggestion based on all that strangeness.

I think 'some' implies relation and thing, 'anomaly".

Putting two and two together anomaly sounds almost toon, or contra-dimensional - for having what is anomaly power. — Qwex

Awwwww shit. I really didn't want us to become friends but it looks like we are going to become friends. When are you coming over my house to play Call of Duty? I guess your ok. :)

All right, God created the universe. Where does that get you? — tim wood

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss!

We cannot answer whether the universe was or wasn't created, we can say 'nothing' or 'something' created us.

There's no specific reason to think it wasn't created. In fact, it seems more likely it was, which is my argument.

There's a lot of strangeness, misjudgements; a higher power, who could merely know more, is a high probability. There is probably existence of other dimensions and locale. This universe, was likely created in a chain of creations.

It's a reasonable suggestion based on all that strangeness.

I think 'some' implies relation and thing, 'anomaly".

Putting two and two together anomaly sounds almost toon, or contra-dimensional - for having what is anomaly power. — Qwex

What these guys don't seem to understand is while it is possible for matter and energy to appear out of nothing (based on us armchair physicist's knowledge base). Many Physicists argue for the universe to expand that would require the early universe to be lined up similar to a magnet (seems counter intuitive but the matter lined up allows for expansion instead of massive gravity causing stagnation or continual implosion).

Another thing these guys need to understand is time is like a billion sided dice. If you roll it one time and expect to roll an 8 you'll likely not roll an 8 but if you roll it one billion times you'll likely roll an 8. That being said there could have been a million big bangs from 1 million locations over X (lets say 10 to the 7000000 power "years"). Basically my point is there is so much that goes into understanding how complicated life and the universe that perhaps many of these people need to embrace "pascal's wager".

We cannot answer whether the universe was or wasn't created, we can say 'nothing' or 'something' created us.

There's no specific reason to think it wasn't created. In fact, it seems more likely it was, which is my argument.

There's a lot of strangeness, misjudgements; a higher power, who could merely know more, is a high probability. There is probably existence of other dimensions and locale. This universe, was likely created in a chain of creations.

It's a reasonable suggestion based on all that strangeness.

I think 'some' implies relation and thing, 'anomaly".

Putting two and two together anomaly sounds almost toon, or contra-dimensional - for having what is anomaly power. — Qwex

Are you more of a "god wound up the clock and walked away kind of guy"?

We cannot answer whether the universe was or wasn't created, we can say 'nothing' or 'something' created us.

There's no specific reason to think it wasn't created. In fact, it seems more likely it was, which is my argument.

There's a lot of strangeness, misjudgements; a higher power, who could merely know more, is a high probability. There is probably existence of other dimensions and locale. This universe, was likely created in a chain of creations.

It's a reasonable suggestion based on all that strangeness.

I think 'some' implies relation and thing, 'anomaly".

Putting two and two together anomaly sounds almost toon, or contra-dimensional - for having what is anomaly power. — Qwex

As promised i've been reading through alot of what you've been saying through out this forum. You are by far the wierdest guy on this forum, you actually remind me to some extent of a guy known as "The Theologian". I can tell you and i are going to have alot of fun on this forum together.

What these guys don't seem to understand is while it is possible for matter and energy to appear out of nothing — christian2017

Yes, this is quite true because gravitational fields have negative energy. So even with conservation of mass/energy, it turns out that you can get something from nothing and it could turn out that the entire universe contains zero net mass/energy.

|>ouglas

Yes, this is quite true because gravitational fields have negative energy. So even with conservation of mass/energy, it turns out that you can get something from nothing and it could turn out that the entire universe contains zero net mass/energy. — Douglas Alan

Stephen Hawkings essentially stated that in "a brief history of time" in the early 1980s. I don't know what percentage of Physicists adhere to this or if he changed his opinion on this over the course of time. Are you a physicist?

Putting two and two together anomaly sounds almost toon, or contra-dimensional - for having what is anomaly power. — Qwex

But if you use that anomaly power to create a closed time-like curve, you can go back in time, kill your grandfather, causing a cascade of non-causality, which might cause the birth of untold past and future realities.

|>ouglas

Stephen Hawkings essentially stated that in "a brief history of time" in the early 1980s. I don't know what percentage of Physicists adhere to this or if he changed his opinion on this over the course of time. Are you a physicist? — christian2017

I am not a physicist, but I do have an S.B. from MIT. And I did write the software that was used to operate an X-ray space telescope called the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer. Alan Guth himself told me (or rather a small room full of people) how to make universes out of nothing. He even proved that gravitational fields have negative energy. The proof is quite simple, should you be interested.

|>ouglas

I am not a physicist, but I do have an S.B. from MIT. And I did write the software that was used to operate an X-ray space telescope called the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer. Alan Guth himself told me (or rather a small room full of people) how to make universes out of nothing. He even proved that gravitational fields have negative energy. The proof is quite simple, should you be interested. — Douglas Alan

Fucking Amazing!!!!! Send me the link or send it privately if you would like. Stephen Hawkings didn't explain in great detail what negative energy is. I know what and electron and a proton is. Feel free to send me the paper or the video.