The distance between Christianity and the 4 Gospels

[MG 2.0]

The CoJCoLDS is certainly not humanistic.

I agree. But it is for humans. A certain subset of select humans. It’s not for everybody. B.F. Skinner would have had a rough go of it.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

...it is for ...a certain subset of select humans.

you've outdone yourself, dude. Why does the snobbery of these words crack me up so much? The language of this attempted insult is so over the top, so flamboyant, so ridiculously obnoxious that you just have to laugh. Do people still say stuff like that ?? I mean, out loud? In f&t meetings and such? : D

[MG 2.0]

...it is for ...a certain subset of select humans.

you've outdone yourself, dude. Why does the snobbery of these words crack me up so much? The language of this attempted insult is so over the top, so flamboyant, so ridiculously obnoxious that you just have to laugh. Do people still say stuff like that ?? I mean, out loud? In f&t meetings and such? : D

Is it for you?

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

you've outdone yourself, dude. Why does the snobbery of these words crack me up so much? The language of this attempted insult is so over the top, so flamboyant, so ridiculously obnoxious that you just have to laugh. Do people still say stuff like that ?? I mean, out loud? In f&t meetings and such? : D

Is it for you?

Regards,
MG

And the follow-up. : D Never change, mg2. That old school snobby stuff is entertaining as hell.

[Physics Guy]

I thought the emergence idea or concept may be visualized by the analogy of neuron count and emergence of consciousness. It was once thought there was a threshold of neurons that would express consciousness. Was it 100? Was it 1000? Does 7 billion people communicating with cell phones have an emergence of consciousness? Is the World Wide Web conscious? Would the boiling/freezing point of water be an emergent phenomenon?

This response is about 20 pages late. Sorry. I was busy.

My problem with the concept of emergence is that I don't think it counts as a concept. When cool things happen in large, complex systems, it's often difficult to understand exactly what's happening. Calling those mysterious things "emergent" is like calling the rabbit that a magician pulls out of a hat "emergent". It means nothing more than, "I didn't see how that happened." It conveys no information at all about what actually did happen.

[Physics Guy]

Emergence as I'm using it has two parts. The first is in the context where the resulting properties of a system or thing are the results of self-organizing processes such as entropy and thermodynamics. Prior conditions inform subsequent conditions as seen from our position in time, and vice verse, subsequent conditions predict prior conditions when time flows in reverse. The second is more akin to your comment about consciousness where those properties that emerge within systems are not reduceable to the prior parts. For example, physics -> chemistry -> biology -> psychology. I went and looked up Sean Carrol because I recalled being introduced to the idea from him and found this quote:

“When many parts come together to make a whole, in this view, not only should we be on the lookout for new knowledge in the form of better ways to describe the system, but we should contemplate new behaviour."

“Everyone working on the problem [of high-temperature superconductors] believe that such materials are made out of ordinary atoms, obeying ordinary microscopic rules; knowing that has been of essentially zero help in guiding us toward an understanding of why high-temperature superconductivity happens at all.”

So certain aspects of emergence as simply acknowledging systems self organize according to natural law, anyone with even a middle school science education has some comprehension of how emergence works. But yeah, when it comes to the spooky bits of why we get life out of chemistry or consciousness out of biology, there is something magical about it. The universe is cool like that.

As long as it seems magical, I think one simply hasn't understood it. What Carrol says is quite true: the microscopic rules determine everything, but that doesn't help us understand complicated things, any more than simply understanding the rules of chess helps one understand the current world championship games.

On the other hand, however, whatever higher-level concepts that one might invoke to understand high-temperature superconductivity—or whatever—must also themselves be derivable from the microscopic rules. Until one can fill in those dots, accepting the higher-level concepts as independent axioms means leaving the problem unsolved and the phenomenon not understood.

And that we may have to do, because our brains are quite crude. I'd rather admit that as a failure, though, than try to spin it as a wonderful example of emergence.

Something determined the actual initial conditions of everything in the universe. Whatever that is or was, its power to choose those initial conditions was in fact tantamount to a power to intervene in the universe in an ongoing way.

The issue I take with the above is in the word, "choose". As I've stated to MG, in order to demonstrate that this "choice" is not just an example of chaos theory-like delicate differences leading to broad diversity in outcomes, one has to show intention in the selection process. If we just point out that because humans resulted from the outcome, therefore the universe selected for humans we could share common ground because that's a benign metaphysical statement. We, as humans, being here observing the universe prove the universe selected for humans.

But applying modal thinking to this problem and asking what else one should consider in possible explanations for the origin of the universe suggests the selection process that resulted in humans wasn't directed at producing humans with intention. The incomprehensibly vast amounts of the universe hostile to human life, the blip of time our species will exist on the timeline of the existence of the universe, the obviously evolved inefficient nature of our biological form, and many, many others probes into comparing a theological explanation with a natural one for the origin of the universe confirm that our selection is not special but merely one of countless other selections that occurred as the universe evolves.

I use "choose" in the sense of the Axiom of Choice (I think). Something selects. The laws of nature that we know would allow uncountably many different universes from the one we have. Postulating that all of them are in fact somehow realised, and the one we have is just the one in which we happen to be, seems so un-parsimonious that I really don't think it counts as an explanation.

I don't know what you mean by "just an example of chaos theory-like delicate differences leading to broad diversity of outcomes". Chaos really exists, and most dynamical systems are chaotic. The fact that tiny differences in initial conditions would have made a very different universe is precisely a matter of chaos. Unless there is a basic error in the whole scientific picture of natural law, as differential equations with arbitrary initial conditions, the universe we actually have must be incredibly fine-tuned. Even if the equations themselves are not fine-tuned, either because the ones we have are somehow inevitable or because different equations would be just as good, the initial conditions must be.

If I were setting the initial conditions of the universe, I would be completely unable to grasp the implications of all my uncountably many infinitely precise choices, and I would no doubt just spin a lot of dials at random, if that option existed. Theists suppose that God is better at this kind of thing than I would be. Exactly what that means, though, isn't clear. Nobody knows what it would mean for a being like God to have an intention.

Was there anything meaningful in any way about the particular initial conditions of the universe? The only thing that natural laws since the beginning of science as we know it have ever said about initial conditions is that all are possible. Even hoping that there might have been some reason why these were the initial conditions instead of all the alternatives seems to be a significant step into theism, because by the time you allow for all our uncertainty about what divine intention would mean, theism doesn't clearly mean much more than that.

[malkie]

I thought the emergence idea or concept may be visualized by the analogy of neuron count and emergence of consciousness. It was once thought there was a threshold of neurons that would express consciousness. Was it 100? Was it 1000? Does 7 billion people communicating with cell phones have an emergence of consciousness? Is the World Wide Web conscious? Would the boiling/freezing point of water be an emergent phenomenon?

This response is about 20 pages late. Sorry. I was busy.

My problem with the concept of emergence is that I don't think it counts as a concept. When cool things happen in large, complex systems, it's often difficult to understand exactly what's happening. Calling those mysterious things "emergent" is like calling the rabbit that a magician pulls out of a hat "emergent". It means nothing more than, "I didn't see how that happened." It conveys no information at all about what actually did happen.

Do you think that it's a convenient shorthand for "I'm not invoking a god or magic - it just happened by itself with no further explanation needed"?

[huckelberry]

Physics Guy, can I ask your help on a bit of a puzzle in this thread?

It has been proposed from various sources that it is possible that consecutive universes or parallel universes could run on different basic principals and structures. I find that odd but of course I cannot show it to be incorrect. But I consider that we are in a big universe and it appears , to what I am aware of, that the atomic structures in our solar system are also popular far far away. These atoms are strong structures , I would imagine that the principals determining their form must be something more regular than a mere toss of the dice. A big bang and all that high energy sorts itself out into atoms. Is there any reason to think a different big bang would result in mush? or alien energy dances?

I am slow to believe various universes would fall into different structures but of course there remains the principal of what if ? My wonder is there any reason to expect different fundamental principals to take shape with each role of the dice?

[honorentheos]

I recently watched this video of a discussion between Stephen Fry and Jordan Peterson. It models the kind of discussion I think we might have all intended to have were all parties interested in actual discussion, but Stephen Fry has a library of thoughts that flow from him that is gorgeous to behold. And Peterson is sincere, earnest, and has thought hard about the basis of his support of the Western religious tradition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFFSKedy9f4

Stephen Fry captures something early in it I've sensed but never heard put so lucidly when he discussed the difference between his being an atheist empiricist compared to more rationalist views. The discussion engages many topics that have arisen in this thread, even B.F. Skinner of all things.

[honorentheos]

So certain aspects of emergence as simply acknowledging systems self organize according to natural law, anyone with even a middle school science education has some comprehension of how emergence works. But yeah, when it comes to the spooky bits of why we get life out of chemistry or consciousness out of biology, there is something magical about it. The universe is cool like that.

As long as it seems magical, I think one simply hasn't understood it. What Carrol says is quite true: the microscopic rules determine everything, but that doesn't help us understand complicated things, any more than simply understanding the rules of chess helps one understand the current world championship games.

On the other hand, however, whatever higher-level concepts that one might invoke to understand high-temperature superconductivity—or whatever—must also themselves be derivable from the microscopic rules. Until one can fill in those dots, accepting the higher-level concepts as independent axioms means leaving the problem unsolved and the phenomenon not understood.

And that we may have to do, because our brains are quite crude. I'd rather admit that as a failure, though, than try to spin it as a wonderful example of emergence.

That may all be so. I'm certainly no physicist and find writings from, say Carrol or Lee Smolin, enlightening without being able to originate the results they present. That's the nature of boards like this, I suppose. The discussion above isn't saying anything, though, other than one may find the unknown aspects of the universe fascinating or one may find them to be a failure of ours as a species to rationally explain everything or, by default, give that mystery the name, "God" and play along with a cultural myth formed out of a Semitic tribe's subjugation to multiple empires which eventually subverted one of those empires through a pretty appealing cultural meme...or whatever.

Let's say I have been using "emergence" in the same way you use "choice" and then what?

I see the problem below not being with my position but your understanding of it based on how you reflect it back to me:

The laws of nature that we know would allow uncountably many different universes from the one we have. Postulating that all of them are in fact somehow realised, and the one we have is just the one in which we happen to be, seems so un-parsimonious that I really don't think it counts as an explanation.

No one but MG argued that all possible universes are being realized in order for us to be in the one that happens to allow for us to exist. Again, magic, failure of our crude brains, call it what you will, the fact is ALL WE CAN BE CERTAIN OF is that the universe we exist in has the traits needed for human beings to have evolved. That could just be luck, it could be there are infinite universes that exist so of course we are in the one that we can be in because, well, that's not saying anything. Saying all we can be certain of is that the universe we find ourselves in is also one where we CAN exist is as parsimonious as it gets, to the point of being tautological. But using it as the end of an argument is disingenuous. If you then take the unknown or perhaps even unknowable explanation for that and then say we need to either have a solid explanation for "US" rather than "NOT US" or we must simply be ok with the mystery of it, we agree. But if we want to give one suggestion for why that is over the other, we've but begun to investigate the issue, not resolved it.

So here's what matters: Claiming fine tuning is proof of God is asserting it demonstrates divine intention. If one says that isn't true, because our existence is explained by fine tuning, period, that's dodging the reality of our situation where the majority characteristics of the universe don't align with other traits one should expect from a universe "fine tuned" for the evolution of human beings as a central purpose of the existence and form of said universe. Sure, the universe "selected for" human beings. But that's not "intention". It's one result among countless other selected for results.

Claiming fine tuning works for religion is a claim of intention being evidence for favoring the selection of as an intended end of the existence of said universe...and demands you then proceed to back that up with further examples.

Or, it's unknown. Magic. Cool. A failure of our crude meat brains. Whatever. But it's either the result of intention or it's not. And if it is, one ought to be able to see more evidence for it than the one that says, "Hey, things could have been different and we wouldn't have existed. So, the universe must have "selected" for us in a way that uses selection/choice to hint at 'favors' that abuses the way natural laws 'favor' certain outcomes over others by the nature of starting conditions having limited preferred outcomes...but without hidden intelligent intention behind them."

I don't know what you mean by "just an example of chaos theory-like delicate differences leading to broad diversity of outcomes". Chaos really exists, and most dynamical systems are chaotic. The fact that tiny differences in initial conditions would have made a very different universe is precisely a matter of chaos. Unless there is a basic error in the whole scientific picture of natural law, as differential equations with arbitrary initial conditions, the universe we actually have must be incredibly fine-tuned. Even if the equations themselves are not fine-tuned, either because the ones we have are somehow inevitable or because different equations would be just as good, the initial conditions must be.

We agree on chaos dynamics being real. Of course infinitesimal variances lead to fundamentally varied outcomes. I think you are shadow boxing an argument I'm not making, to be honest.