Present a BETTER explanation for our existence than God

[nemesiss]

well, there is more then 1 mechanism proposed and its still a field thats not fleshed-out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Current_models

could you point out by your own words, what mechanisms are presented there, exactly ?

i'll put in my own words, in the way you post things in your own words..

There is no truly "standard model" of the origin of life. Most currently accepted models draw at least some elements from the framework laid out by the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis.
1.Some theorists suggest that the atmosphere of the early Earth may have been chemically reducing in nature, composed primarily of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO), and phosphate (PO43-), with molecular oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) either rare or absent.
2.In such a reducing atmosphere, electrical activity can catalyze the creation of certain basic small molecules (monomers) of life, such as amino acids.
3.Phospholipids (of an appropriate length) can spontaneously form lipid bilayers, a basic component of the cell membrane.
4.A fundamental question is about the nature of the first self-replicating molecule. Since replication is accomplished in modern cells through the cooperative action of proteins and nucleic acids, the major schools of thought about how the process originated can be broadly classified as "proteins first" and "nucleic acids first".
5.The principal thrust of the "nucleic acids first" argument is as follows:
1.The polymerization of nucleotides into random RNA molecules might have resulted in self-replicating ribozymes (RNA world hypothesis)
2.Selection pressures for catalytic efficiency and diversity might have resulted in ribozymes which catalyse peptidyl transfer (hence formation of small proteins), since oligopeptides complex with RNA to form better catalysts. The first ribosome might have been created by such a process, resulting in more prevalent protein synthesis.
3.Synthesized proteins might then outcompete ribozymes in catalytic ability, and therefore become the dominant biopolymer, relegating nucleic acids to their modern use, predominantly as a carrier of genomic information.

make an educated guess of what it could mean.... it may be just jibberish or it might actually mean something...

as said, upon common agreement, it could have a meaning, and be coded information.

well lets see... what meaning could we give it?

. ...- --- .-.. ..- - .. --- -.

what about...penis?
or perhaps douchebag?
maybe scum-bucket?
we could also jackass?

which shall we choose?

 

[nemesiss]

i could go on ranting what is wrong with both arguments, but first... Which stand do you take, the first or the second?

they don't contradict each other, they complement each other. The same is explained from different angles.

these different angles.... say that
A ) cannot change and cannot interact with time
B ) can change and can interact with time

its like choosing blue or red.... and purple is not an option.

which of the 2 is it?

 

[Story]

Japhia888, do you or do you not believe that if we can't explain something, then obviously the answer is magic?

 

[nemesiss]

its interesting that you still use that heavens forum as if its a reliable source, while most if not all of the assumptions on it have been disproven.

1. heaven forum is my own virtual library. Its my source, where i have easy information on hand. You cannot disprove a assumption, since it reflects only a personal interpretation and opinion of reality.

-monogenesis
-gestural theory
-Self-domesticated ape theory
-Synergetic approach

- which do not find any empirical evidence, backed up by science. tis pure speculation without any base at all. Wishful thinking at best.

it's almost as if you didn't even take the time to read, went to that heavens forum, searched for anything related to evolution of speech and quoted a piece which would be the most relevant to the argument.

how is it that you are not skeptical at all in regard of the proposed 4 hypotheses, since there is no evidence at all to back up the mentioned claims ?

Says someone who postulates a god as a answer for which there is even less evidence
perhaps if you actually read the wiki article you wouldn't sound like a troll.
so, just for clarification, i posted the whole part of the article so you and others can read it.
and if anyone is pissed of that the page gets stretched, we'd have to blame you.

Monogenesis
Main articles: Monogenesis (linguistics) and Proto-Human language
Linguistic monogenesis is the hypothesis that there was a single proto-language, sometimes called Proto-Human, from which all other languages spoken by humans descend. All human populations possess language. This includes populations, such as the Tasmanians and the Andamanese, who may have been isolated from the Old World continents for as long as 40,000 years. Thus, the multiregional hypothesis would entail that modern language evolved independently on all the continents, a proposition considered implausible by proponents of monogenesis.

According to the Out of Africa hypothesis, all humans alive today are descended from Mitochondrial Eve, a woman estimated to have lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago. This raises the possibility that the Proto-Human language could date to approximately that period. There are also claims of a population bottleneck, notably the Toba catastrophe theory, which postulates human population at one point some 70,000 years ago was as low as 15,000 or even 2,000 individuals.[35] If it did indeed transpire, such a bottleneck would be an excellent candidate for the date of Proto-Human, which also illustrates the fact that Proto-Human would not necessarily date to the first emergence of language.

Gestural theory
The gestural theory states that human language developed from gestures that were used for simple communication.

Two types of evidence support this theory.

1.Gestural language and vocal language depend on similar neural systems. The regions on the cortex that are responsible for mouth and hand movements border each other.
2.Nonhuman primates can use gestures or symbols for at least primitive communication, and some of their gestures resemble those of humans, such as the "begging posture", with the hands stretched out, which humans share with chimpanzees.
Research found strong support for the idea that verbal language and sign language depend on similar neural structures. Patients who used sign language, and who suffered from a left-hemisphere lesion, showed the same disorders with their sign language as vocal patients did with their spoken language. Other researchers found that the same left-hemisphere brain regions were active during sign language as during the use of vocal or written language.

The important question for gestural theories is why there was a shift to vocalization. There are three likely explanations:
1.Our ancestors started to use more and more tools, meaning that their hands were occupied and could not be used for gesturing.
2.Gesturing requires that the communicating individuals can see each other. There are many situations in which individuals need to communicate even without visual contact, for instance when a predator is closing in on somebody who is up in a tree picking fruit.
3.The need to co-operate effectively with others in order to survive. A command issued by a tribal leader to 'find' 'stones' to 'repel' attacking 'wolves' would create teamwork and a much more powerful, co-ordinated response.
Humans still use hand and facial gestures when they speak, especially when people meet who have no language in common.[39] There are also, of course, a great number of sign languages still in existence, commonly associated with Deaf communities, but it is important to note that these signed languages are as equally complex as any spoken language - the cognitive functions are similar and the parts of the brain used are similar - the main difference is that the "phonemes" are produced on the outside of the body, articulated with hands, body, and facial expression, rather than inside the body articulated with tongue, teeth, lips, and breathing. To compare sign language to primitive gestures is a mistake.

Critics of gestural theory note, that it is difficult to name serious reasons why the initial pitch-based vocal communication (which is present in primates) would be abandoned and changed into the non-vocal, gestural communication, which was much less effective for the communication, than vocal communication.

Self-domesticated ape theory
According to a study investigating the song differences between white-rumped Munias and its domesticated counterpart (Bengalese finch), the wild munias use a highly stereotyped song, whereas the domesticated ones sing a highly unconstrained song. Considering that song syntactical complexity is subject to female preference in the Bengalese finch, it is likely that maternal resource allocation strategies play a role in song evolution.[40] In the field of bird vocalization, brains capable of producing only an innate song have very simple neural pathways: the primary forebrain motor center, called the robust nucleus of arcopallium (RA), connects to midbrain vocal outputs which in turn project to brainstem motor nuclei. By contrast, in brains capable of learning songs, the RA receives input from numerous additional forebrain regions, including those involved in learning and social experience. Control over song generation has become less constrained, more distributed, and more flexible.

When compared with other primates, whose communication system is restricted to a highly stereotypic repertoire of hoots and calls, humans have very few prespecified vocalizations, extant examples being laughter and sobbing. Moreover, these remaining innate vocalizations are generated by restricted neuronal pathways, whereas language is generated by a highly distributed system involving numerous regions of the human brain.

A salient feature of language is that while language competency is inherited, the languages themselves are transmitted via culture. Also transmitted via culture are understandings, such as technological ways of doing things, that are framed as language-based explanations. Hence one would expect a robust co-evolutionary trajectory between language competency and culture: proto-humans capable of the first, and presumably rudimentary, versions of protolanguage would have better access to cultural understandings, and cultural understandings, conveyed in protolanguages that children's brains could readily learn, were more likely to be transmitted, thereby conferring the benefits accrued.

Hence proto-humans indubitably engaged in, and continue to engage in, what is called niche construction, creating cultural niches that provide understandings key to survival, and undergoing evolutionary changes that optimize their ability to flourish in such niches. Selection pressures that operated to sustain instincts important for survival in prior niches would be expected to relax as humans became increasingly dependent on their self-created cultural niches, while any innovations that facilitated cultural adaptation,in this case, innovations in language competency,would be expected to spread.

One way to think about human evolution is that we are basically self-domesticated apes. Just as domestication relaxed selection for stereotypic songs in the finches,mate choice was supplanted by choices made by the aesthetic sensibilities of bird breeders and their customers,so might our cultural domestication have relaxed selection on many of our primate behavioral traits, allowing old pathways to degenerate and reconfigure. Given the highly indeterminate way that mammalian brains develop,they basically construct themselves "bottom up," with one set of neuronal interactions setting the stage for the next round of interactions,degraded pathways would tend to seek out and find new opportunities for synaptic hookups. Such inherited de-differentiations of brain pathways might have contributed to the functional complexity that characterizes human language. And, as exemplified by the finches, such de-differentiations can occur in very rapid timeframes.

Synergetic approach
The Azerbaijan Linguistic School believes that speech does not precede language and is not the only instrument for language performance. Language can exist without speech, and nonverbal means can play the role of shell (medium) for language. Humans developed verbal language form because its other channels of communication are not so extensive and comfortable. Here natural selection favours the verbal channel. Despite visual channels dominance in everyday human relations with the outside world, in terms of the individual security this channel is not reliable and dependable enough. The fact is that the range of vision covers in the space only a quarter of visible environment, and it covers only a half of a day (i.e., only wakeful state time). The visual channel efficiency is also limited by various adverse conditions such as smoke, fog or any obstacles.

The auditory canal activity is available for 24 hours in the range of 360 degrees in space. The only barrier for sound propagation is strong noise, which is a very atypical in terms of occurrence. Furthermore, in order to communicate with a person visually it is necessary that this person sees the communicator. On the other hand, the auditory canal is open around the clock for perception of information from all sides, from anyone, and without any special settings. All this contributed to the human verbal (oral) form of language development.

It is hypothesized that the mechanism of modern sophisticated and overly-complicated human languages development is identical to the writing evolutionary mechanism, and has evolved through the following four stages:

Stage I: Phoneme = sentence (pictographic language);
Stage II: Phoneme = word or phrase (ideographic language);
Stage III: Phoneme = syllable (syllabic language);
Stage IV: Phoneme = sound (phonetic language).
That is, some utterance first substituted (designated) a whole sentence, then , only a part of the sentence, and then , part of the word.

 

[borrofburi]

I can't blame him. After you said "Study the Kalam Cosmological Argument" I couldn't help but think that you're either badly informed or trolling.

I'm leaning towards copy pasta fights... If he copy pastes kalam cosmological I'll just copy paste a refutation.

 

[borrofburi]

Do squaere circles exist ? according to your answer, you don't know how to answer, and your answer being a absolute truth.

You did not ask me a question with respect to square circles. You asked me if absolute truth exists. I answer to such that I don't know if an absolute truth exists. Again, please be mindful of your questions and the answers attached to such.

He's arguing that it is "absolutely true" that square circles don't exist, therefore you do believe absolute truth exists.

 

[borrofburi]

The reason I feel that you are trolling is because you are refusing to answer questions.

QFT, only as a moderator.

 

[lrkun]

He's arguing that it is "absolutely true" that square circles don't exist, therefore you do believe absolute truth exists.

It would make sense if he stated it your way. However, he failed to do so.

Now assuming that :

He's arguing that it is "absolutely true" that square circles don't exist, therefore you do believe absolute truth exists.

In this case my answer will be different, because there is a specific scenario involved. Consequently, it is absolutely true that square circles do not exist, but it is not true that absolute truth exists.

However, the thread starter failed to define what absolute truth means. Therefore, I cannot state that I believe absolute truth exists, until he defines such.

Absolutely true and absolute truth are two different things.

1.

does absolute truth exist ?

What do you mean by absolute truth? Do you mean truth in a sense that is 100 percent true, where there is no degree of error involved? Incidentally, I don't know if such exists.

Note the fact that I asked what he meant by absolute truth, because I don't know what he was refering to. Since, I don't know what he meant, I can't give an accurate and effective answer. Consequently, the only available answer left for me is to say that I don't know.

2.

Do squaere circles exist ? according to your answer, you don't know how to answer, and your answer being a absolute truth.

Here, the thread starter assumes I do not know how to answer. Likewise, he assumes that my not knowing how to answer is an absolute truth. Consequently, he failed to understand my answer to his question.

3.

You did not ask me a question with respect to square circles. You asked me if absolute truth exists. I answer to such that I don't know if an absolute truth exists. Again, please be mindful of your questions and the answers attached to such.

Here, I am reminding the thread starter that he has yet to lay foundation with respect to the definition of the term. It can be observed that Japia was refering to the existence of absolute truth, to which he failed to address.

 

[borrofburi]

The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous with its beginning to exist.

So you have COMPLETELY changed your argument then, to being one in which god came to being and the universe at the same time...

Besides, after this you go into a "something has always existed but it was a really special something and it existed in a really special way" rant; what you continue to fail to realize is the effects of occam's razor on your special pleading.

in what sense does my argument consist in special pleading ?

You consider it "impossible" for anything to have "always existed" and conclude that therefore the universe could not have always existed. Then you say "ah, but I have a solution, god has always existed and created the universe"; when I point out that you just said nothing can always exist you obfuscate your claim and wrap it in poorly defined words in such a way that, honestly, when boiled down translates into "well god is *really* special and can have always existed in a very special way". Basically: you have made a general rejection of a possible concept, and you are making an exception for your pet idea. That's the very definition of special pleading.

The big bang does not mark the beginning of "everything there is"; it marks the beginning of the universe as we know it.

say that to all cited secular scientists, mentioned here, which don't agree with you :

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/beginning.html

I'm sorry but they're not saying "universe" in the sense of "all their is"; they're saying "universe" in the sense of "all that we can observe right now". It really is an unfortunate limitation of the english language that we don't have two different words for these two different concepts.

I understand you try to come back, and defy the second premise of the kalaam cosmological argument. Lets be frank. It stands on quite solid rational ground, and you will not find a satisfying answer to rebut it.

No, it really doesn't. You've claimed it does, again, and again, and again, but your "rational" grounds is that you find it "absurd". But that you find it absurd does not make it so. An argument that "it's absurd therefore wrong" is, quite simply, extraordinarily fallacious.

Moreover I reject BOTH premises of the kalam cosmological, and, quite frankly, find it a laughable argument.

Since you love your copy pasta, here's a quick refutation of the first premise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHXXrFf2Zy0
Another similar point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9DLcTfYBcQ

The second premise of the kalam cosmological argument is supported by both philosophical and scientific arguments.

Erm... no. There may be philosophical arguments (but I honestly don't care about them... when was the last time philosophy resulted in, say, objective verifiable evidence in (i.e. predictive models of) reality), but scientific arguments are necessarily limited by the fact that science is inductive, and does not result in "absolute truth", but rather statistical predictive models of reality. Even if I grant to you that the 2nd premise is verified by science (which I absolutely do NOT), I don't grant you that makes the 2nd premise true because the 2nd premise is only true if true 100% of the time, and an inductive statistical method for understanding the cause and effect of the universe as we know it is NOT veracity of something that requires such a method to pronounce absolute truth about the very beginnings of the universe as we know it (where, as we ALREADY KNOW, some of the rules of the universe as we know it do not apply).

Arguments under the former category involve showing that the existence of an actually infinite number of things is metaphysically impossible.

People make this claim a lot, yet I still don't see it verified. They always say things like "where do you start counting?" as though that settles it (all the while forgetting that the origin of these is Plato's arguments that NOTHING changes in the universe, that motion doesn't exist, that time doesn't exist; they try to use his premises to justify their pet ideas, forgetting the consequences of those premises). Nevertheless, "where do you start counting" is an attempt to apply our discrete and finite mathematics to an infinite set; it's a lot like asking, to use your own analogy, "what does blue taste like?" or arguing that triangles always contain 180 degrees and can't possibly have 270 degrees.

Additionally, an eternal universe is ruled out by the second law of thermodynamics.

I've dealt with this tripe before (in this conversation, I really don't think you're listening). Craig doesn't understand thermodynamics. It's not an absolute, but a statistical result of the physical rules of the universe as we know them. His "second law forbids it" is no more valuable than the idea that the first law of thermodynamics disproves god because energy and matter can't be created, which god purportedly did to create the universe, therefore god does not exist because he would have had to violate the first law of thermo (and the first supersedes the second). The second law being a result of the physical laws of the universe that we can observe necessarily does not apply to the universe before the physical laws we know applied...

 

[Rivius]

Also, Japhia, I'd advise you to read this to begin with:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

and you, this one:

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp

And you this one :lol:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/camp.html

 

[ron baker]

This is not a rigid definition. It is metaphysical bullshit. If god has no past or future, then the sequence of events (since all sequences of events imply time) you propose that god undertook can not exist. There is no "before time"; there can be a "before time as we know it" but time is a requisite for ANY sequence of events. There is no "outside of time", for time is a requisite for a sequence of events; anything outside of time is permanently unchanging; nothing outside of time could create time because an unchanging thing can not create anything (since creation implies a 'before' creation and an "after" creation, which is a sequence of events, which requires some form of time).

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosophy-and-god-f14/is-timeless-divine-action-coherent-t374.htm#1300

The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous with its beginning to exist.

The Creator began to exist? Then this "Creator" is not the first cause.

Contemporary philosophical discussions of causal directionality deal routinely with cases in which cause and effect are simultaneous;

How does that have bearing on reality?

indeed, a good case can be made that all temporal causal relations involve the simultaneity of cause and effect.

Show us.

Sorry but the bible can not prove itself to be true.

I just cited the bible, because the bible confirms God existing in a timeless eternity.

A timeless eternity seems like a good place to store one's square circles.

How much of the Bible is true?


--
rb

 

[Andiferous]

I saw what you did there. Be nice, clever people.

 

[Japhia888]

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis2.htm

That page does not talk about information, it creates (and refuses to rigidly define) "design" as some sort of metric. Your original argument was that DNA contains too much information to have been formed by chemical processes (which is patently false);,´[/quote]

that is laughable.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/dnanotcode.htm

Code is defined as communication between an encoder (a "writer" or "speaker") and a decoder (a "reader" or "listener") using agreed upon symbols.
DNA's definition as a literal code (and not a figurative one) is nearly universal in the entire body of biological literature since the 1960's.
DNA code has much in common with human language and computer languages
DNA transcription is an encoding / decoding mechanism isomorphic with Claude Shannon's 1948 model: The sequence of base pairs is encoded into messenger RNA which is decoded into proteins.
Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

Just how logical is this monkey story? In simple terms, if every square foot of the earth's surface was covered with monkeys randomly typing on typewriters, at the rate of ten characters per second (about 5 times the realistic speed) they could not do the job. Even if they typed non-stop for 30 billion years there would not be the slightest chance that one of them would type even a single five word sentence of 31 characters, with spaces and punctuation in the correct place. The probability for them to achieve this is less than one chance in a trillion.

Richard Dawkins also appeals to the monkeys to convince his readers that evolution by natural selection is plausible. He believes that a thousand such monkeys could type Shakespeare's sentence, "Methinks it is like a weasel." However, the probability of them typing this six-word sentence (including spaces), is one chance in 1039.

It has been calculated that it would be statistically impossible to randomly type even the first 100 characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet". If the monkeys typed only in lower case, including the 27 spaces in the first 100 characters, the chances are 27100 (ie. one chance in 10143).

you've moved the goalposts yet again. Moreover you went from a potentially interesting (but not yet defined) argument to "look, dna kind of looks designed", which is, quite frankly, entirely and utterly unconvincing and rationally bankrupt.

what i said, is, dna is a information storage system, and it carries coded information :

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/origin-of-life-how-did-life-arise-on-earth-f2/information-evidence-for-a-creator-t287.htm#997

Does the code in all living systems (DNA) exhibit all four attributes of Universal Definition of Information?

Since all living systems contain DNA and DNA information contains all four attributes, it meets the UDI definition of information.

Furthermore, the capacity and density of the information encoded in DNA surpasses anything mankind has accomplished.

There is no information system designed by man that can even begin to compare to it [DNA]

The decoded portion of DNA contains 4 letters (ATCG) that make up three-letter words (codon). These codons are arranged linearly in a various sequence (syntax).

Meaning Each three-letter word represents 1 of the 20 specific amino acids used in life. The sequence (syntax) of the DNA words designates the specific sequence of the amino acids in protein formation.

Cellular proteins are biomachines essential for construction, function, maintenance, and reproduction of the entire organism

The information encoded in DNA is billions of times more compact than a modern PC hard drive.

How long would it take using naturalistic processes to type out such a code?
A billion universes each populated by billions of typing monkeys could not type out a single gene of this genome.


But a purposeful, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator could create complex codes in less than a day.

This is also not a rigid definition of information; and even if it were, it is wildly divergent from the defintion that actual information theory uses (you know, the actual science these apologists are pretending to emulate). These words "fundamental entity" are not rigid, and why on earth isn't it a property of matter? These are horribly unjustified. Something I would be far more inclined to accept is, say, something quantified as actual information theory does (you know, again, real science).

you have still not presented a natural mechanism to create information. As long as you are unable, my argument stands.

That you can create and destroy information does not mean information is "purely non-material"; rather, it means that information is an emergent property due to the order (or organization) of material things and as a result it is a property of material things even if it itself is not material (because if it were just "material" then we wouldn't need a second word for it). And of course you can order matter and then un-order it (any child with a lego set can tell you that). It doesn't make the information "non-material" (whatever that even means, "non-material" is yet another one of those words that you have not really defined), but rather a property of material (although again, material here is not well defined (e.g. is light a material? Electromagnetic radiation? Potential energy?)).

its simple, lets not complicate it. A mind, and thinking, and will, and consciousness, is not a material entity. There is enough evidence to confirm this :

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/intelligent-design-f4/mind-body-dualism-is-the-mind-purely-a-function-of-the-brain-t235.htm#746

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

Dr. Ken Ring published a paper in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (Summer, 1993) concerning near-death experiencers who, while out of their bodies, witness real events that occur far away from their dead body. The important aspect to this phenomenon is that these events seen far away are later verified to be true. Experiencers not only witness events from great distances, but they have been documented to hear conversations between people at the same events. Conversations such as these have also verified to be true. An even more fascinating phenomenon occurs when the experiencer actually appears in spirit to someone, usually a loved one, during their NDE and it is verified to be true by the experiencer and the loved one. It is evidence such as this, if scientifically controlled, that can provide absolute scientific proof that consciousness can exist outside of the body. A scientifically controlled NDE that can be repeated which provides such evidence would be the scientific discovery of all time. However, science does not yet have the exact tools to accomplish this. But, science is coming very, very close. This kind of evidence and others provide very strong circumstantial evidence for the survival of consciousness.

Still more: you still haven't shown how the orginzation of atoms in a crystal aren't information (except to merely claim they're not). Even these "rigid definitions" (which aren't rigid) say that the order of atoms in a crystal are information. And the truth is: they are information; anyone who has taken a basic class artificial intelligence (and understood the bit about simulated annealing search) will be able to tell you that. The problem, then, of course, is that information itself is not evidence of design.

have i not linked already to the website, which defines and shows the difference of patterns, and information ?

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis1.htm

The starting point of this entire discussion is to define the difference between a pattern and a design. A pattern could be a tornado or hurricane, but a tornado or hurricane is not design. Nature does have self-organizing properties. Not all patterns are designed, but all designs have patterns.Hot air + cold air + moisture + time = tornados and hurricanes, right? We all experience these things everyday.
Snowflakes, tornados, stalactites, stalagmites the behavior of those things are governed we now know as something that is called Chaos theory. Chaos theory is the study of how order forms naturally without design.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis2.htm

Let me give you some examples of designs. Music - you can hear music, and we all know it sounds like. You see the musicians in the picture, and the sheet music here is a symbolic representation of that music. The sheet music corresponds to what you hear but music exists in two forms. It exists in the symbolic form the notes on a piece of paper. It also exists in the physical form, which is the vibration in the ear. Both are equivalent to each other but they are in different forms, right?

The Fundamental Characteristic of Designs
Chinese people don't normally use pin yin, but if you see Chinese signs written for English people you see pin yin. Then you have a translation into English. And you have two kinds of symbolic representation of Chinese. There's the word ge ge, which means older brother. So once again the design is always characterized by a plan that symbolizes what was actually created later.
That's the fundamental characteristic of a design. So here's what I want to illustrate: First we talked about patterns and chaos. Stalactites and stalagmites, tornados, hurricanes weather, snowflakes. On the right I've got information music, maps of Washington D.C.., Chinese symbols English letters.
Patterns & Chaos: Purely a Result of Matter and Energy, Not Mental Processes
What is the difference between the two? Patterns are simply created by matter in energy. That's all that's there. In the world of patterns there is never an exact copy. That is an interesting little observation.
To have information you have to matter and energy and will. Somebody has to decide to create information. Somebody has to write the music. The interesting thing about information is that you can have exact copies of it. You can have an exact copy of a book. I can send you an email and what can you do with it? You can read it on your screen. You can print it out on your printer. You can read it out loud. You could read it over the telephone. You could save it as a Microsoft Word document. You could post it on the Internet as a web page.
The Message is Not The Medium
Does the message change? No. The message is separate form the media that it comes in. That's what information is, and it requires thought. All information requires a thought process, which I will talk about.
So really the fundamental question if you want to frame the fundamental questions of evolution and the origins question. The question becomes:
Can patterns turn into designs?
Can stuff on the left turn into stuff on the right? Is there a natural process that allows that to happen?
And here's the big question:
Is DNA a pattern or is it a design?
The whole argument rests on the answer to that question.
Tonight we are going to answer that question. And when you have designs how do they evolve? I'm going to discuss that towards the ends of my talk.

If you weigh a modern blank CD, fill it with information, and weigh it again, the two weights will be the same. Likewise, erasing the information on the CD has no effect on the weight.

This is a problem with your scale, and not reflective of reality. In other words: it's false. It's "true" only in the sense that if I weigh myself in my car on a car scale, and then I go and eat a large lunch next door and weigh my car again, the two weights will b the same. The truth is, the CD's weight will have changed, you just can't detect it.[/quote]

wrong. You can see a tv program, and get a lot of information , but physically, the tv did not change at all.

First Law of Information (LI1)

(Argh, I was wrong, I can't help but continue on a little more) The above is wrong, and is really an act of defining things precisely so that you can make your claim that all "information" is designed. Th problem here is that you've caused a major problem: either DNA does not communicate information, or information can arise from statistical processes. Moreover evolution does not argue chance plus time causes new (useful) information, rather chance + time + selection causes new (useful) information.

we are not talking about evolution, but about abiogenesis.

Of course, the problem, is that statistical processes DO create new information: a sequence of dice rolls does contain information, even if it's not necessarily useful to us (at least, according to the actual scientific definition of information).

correct. So lets stick to the scientific definition of information.

And I'm getting sick of your splitting up my posts into multiple pieces (currently my post is already pre-split, but if you split it any more... well I guess I'll probably just stop talking to you, and you can go and claim "victory" by copy pasta, and feel all good about yourself yet having failed to accomplish anything other than boost your ego by doing nothing more than copying and pasting gigantic swaths of text. Also, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not enjoying the ridiculous amount of copy pasta, and I'm quickly believing you do not read my posts but rather just copy and paste things in response to key phrases; in which case you're no better than a chat bot, and will quickly find yourself just as silenced as a chat bot.

ok, i will stop to split your posts.

 

[Japhia888]

Since you avoided my post I want to say 3 things.

Japhia888, are you aware that saying "we don't understand what causes x" therefore "god did it" is fallacious?

Its not, since its a matter of philosophy and metaphysics, and as such, there is no fallacy to think about the subject, and to try to find the best answer to the question.

Are you aware that the big bang does not in anyway denote that the universe was born or created at that time?

No, i am not aware of this. The second premise of the kalaam cosmological argument stands quit firmly :

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronomy-cosmology-and-god-f15/evidence-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning-t199.htm

The second premise of the kalam cosmological argument is supported by both philosophical and scientific arguments. Arguments under the former category involve showing that the existence of an actually infinite number of things is metaphysically impossible. If the universe never began to exist, then its past duration would be actually infinite. [5] Since actual infinities cannot exist, then the past duration of the universe must have been finite, implying that the universe must have begun to exist. Even if one grants that it is possible for an actual infinite to exist, it still cannot be formed by successive addition, and henceforth the past duration of the universe must be finite. From a scientific perspective, the beginning of the universe is strongly supported by modern big bang cosmology. The proponent of the KCA thus finds himself comfortably seated in the midst of mainstream cosmology. Combined, these two reasons lend strong support to the truth of the second premise. Additionally, an eternal universe is ruled out by the second law of thermodynamics.

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s7-01/7-01.htm

Very soon after arriving at the final form of the field equations, Einstein began to consider their implications with regard to the overall structure of the universe. His 1917 paper presented a simple model of a closed spherical universe which "from the standpoint of the general theory of relativity lies nearest at hand". More evidence that supports the universe is a closed system :
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1008_031008_finiteuniverse.html


That means it has finite energy. Even though energy cannot be created or destroyed (by any natural processes), over time the useful energy in the universe becomes more and more useless. This is known in science as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the universe were eternal then all of the energy would have become totally useless by now and I wouldn't be writing this article and you wouldn't be reading it either!

Isn't the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely an expression of probability? Yes, but the probability is so high and certain that the odds of just one calorie of energy spontaneously defying the Second Law would be trillions times trillions to one, and the universe is made up of far more than just one calorie of energy!

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html

The Big Bang marking the beginning of the universe is amazing when one reflects on the fact that a state of "infinite density" is synonymous to "nothing." There can be no object that possesses infinite density, for if it had any size at all it could still be even more dense. Therefore, as Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle points out, the Big Bang Theory requires the creation of matter from nothing. This is because as one goes back in time, one reaches a point at which, in Hoyle's words, the universe was "shrunk down to nothing at all."


http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20infinity.htm

Strictly speaking, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a singularity does not contain anything that is actually infinite, only things that MOVE MATHEMATICALLY TOWARDS infinity. A black hole is formed when large stars collapse and their mass has been compressed down to a very small size and the powerful gravitational field so formed prevents anything, even light, from escaping from it. A black hole therefore forms a singularity at its centre from the concentrated mass of the collapsed star itself and from the accumulated mass that is sucked into it. A singularity's mass is therefore finite, the 'infinity' refers only to the maths.

Can we have an infinite universe for example? The answer is no, the universe is finite.

Alexander Vilenkin is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the universe from nothing.

Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/If_the_Big_Bang_came_from_a_singularity_where_did_the_singularity_come_from

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know.

http://thoughtlife.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/the-kalam-cosmological-argument-part-1-scientific-observations/

Stephen Hawking writes, "Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang.

The Universe is Not Eternal, But Had A Beginning

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/beginning.html

 

[Japhia888]

Do squaere circles exist ? according to your answer, you don't know how to answer, and your answer being a absolute truth.

You did not ask me a question with respect to square circles. You asked me if absolute truth exists. I answer to such that I don't know if an absolute truth exists. Again, please be mindful of your questions and the answers attached to such.

you said you don't know if absolute truth exists. I replied : so you don't know if circles can be square ?
of course , they cannot, and this is a absolute truth, and you can know it. So your claim not to know if absolute truth exists is bollock.

 

[Japhia888]

just study the kalaam cosmological argument, and you will know.

But that argument has already been debunked.

really ? where ? how ?

 

[Unwardil]

you said you don't know if absolute truth exists. I replied : so you don't know if circles can be square ?
of course , they cannot, and this is a absolute truth, and you can know it. So your claim not to know if absolute truth exists is bollock.

While that is true, the reason that a circle cannot be a square is because the word circle is used to define an object with specific geometric principles, same with the word square. These are hypothetical constructs. They have no absolute value. You could exchange the word circle for pineapple and it wouldn't change the properties that make up a circle. If the properties of that geometric figure were not that of a pineapple-circle, then they would be different.

If you want to call it an absolute truth that a theoretical geometric object cannot also be another, different kind of theoretical geometric object, then fine. It just seems a bit... Well, trite.

 

[lrkun]

you said you don't know if absolute truth exists. I replied : so you don't know if circles can be square ?
of course , they cannot, and this is a absolute truth, and you can know it. So your claim not to know if absolute truth exists is bollock.

That is an example of something that is absolutely true, and in that specific case it is not false. However, that is not the issue. That which you need to answer is, what is the meaning of absolute truth. My claim that I don't know what such is still holds, because you still failed to define what it is.

The term true and the term truth are two different things or are you using the same definition for both?

I likewise dispute your train of thought, because circles can be squares if the circle changes its shape to a square. Now, if you stated if a circle can be a square at the same time, such can not be. If such were to occur, it will violate the first principle of identity.

 

[lrkun]

really ? where ? how ?

Wes Morriston, "Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Critical Examination of the Kalam Cosmological Argument" (Faith and Philosophy Vol. 17, No. 2 (2000), 149-169; Craig's reply: "Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder;" and Morriston's counter-reply, "Causes and Beginnings in the Kalam Argument: Reply to Craig," in Faith and Philosophy, Vol. 19, No. 2 (April 2002), 233-244. All three essays can be found on the web. For effective rebuttals of Craig's arguments against the impossibility of reaching an infinite through "successive addition" and against an infinite past, see Wes Morriston's "Must the Past Have a Beginning?" (Philo Vol. 2 (1999) no. 1, pp. 5-19.

 

[Japhia888]

Do you honestly think people believe that a bacteria morphed into a human without intermediate stages that were near as dammit identical to previous states? If so then you are unequipped for this discussion. If not then are being disingenuous. Which is it?

thats a extrapolation of what i quoted.[/quote]

An extrapolation? Really. Perhaps you should clarify for me, since I am unsure of your position. I proposed two alternatives, perhaps you can agree with one of them or alternatively show why neither applies.[/quote]

of course do i know, evolution claims , this happend in small steps, over a very long period of time. I don't think, macro evolution can happen :

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/darwin-s-theory-of-evolution-f3/has-macro-evolution-been-proved-observed-t80.htm

"The changes within a population have been termed microevolution, and they can indeed be accepted as a consequence of shifting gene frequencies. Changes above the species level-involving the origin of new species and the establishment of higher taxonomic patterns- are known as macroevolution. The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No." (Lewin, Roger [biochemist, former editor of New Scientist and science writer], "Evolutionary- Theory Under Fire: An historic conference in Chicago challenges the four-decade long dominance of the Modern Synthesis," Science, Vol. 210, 21 November 1980, pp.883-887, p.883).