I am just curious about the religious views of this AI community. I was a very devout chrisitan for many years, but studying the human brain, and seeing robots like Kismet and Cog made me believe we will one day build conscious machines. Once consciousness didn't seem so special any more, humans seemed less exalted, less like some special species for whom the existence of the universe was meant. That eventually led me to become agnostic.

I think in my lifetime, we will see a debate on whether or not machines will have rights, and whether or not they are "alive" (I am only 25 so I have plenty of time). I think the main people speaking out against this will be the church, because it is detrimental to man's special place in the universe.

Anyone else care to share their views?

Rob

I'm intrigued by the neoplatonic view of the future as discussed in this article posted earlier:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12857

The Aristotelian view of humanity, reinforced by philosophers such as Descartes and Freud, has always been at odds with spirituality. AI is surely the epitomy of science over religion. But how do you explain the way that science fiction has often combined pure science with spiritual and transcendal concepts? The view of the future where we find transcendence (or, more preferable to my way of thinking , glimpses of transcendence) through our pursuit of technology is attractive.

Personally I am an atheist with treacherous agnostic thoughts, because it really takes far too much effort to resolve an unresolvable debate.

Linden

Faith, its a touchy subject most of the time, but in reference to AI it can also be a valid subject.. for this we must refer to past times, where medicine was in its infantcy, and to cure an illness was considered impossible, that same person in need of treatment, treated today to free them of the illess, to them it would be considered god like, but for us it is possible... but by the same example.. just because we know how to do things, how they work and how to accomplish something that we could not or considered to be the duty of some off world force due to the sheer impossibility in the past, does not mean it is then considered less important or less of a thing.. intelligence might be able to be implimented into a robot and many other things.. we may construct it.. and also human equivillent of that is much similar, learning from input to compile a personality that we consider the charicteristics of intelligent life
but weather people see such knowlage, and advances of which we are able to do something once considered impossible makes people lose faith, its upto the individual person to decide

one must ponder tho, altho me myself I do not beleve in god etc or religion in general.. when AI is advanced enough to be.. not only semi human, but have rights we enjoy and considered a species as such
and at such event that a robot with AI has malfunctioned, can not be repaired or repowered, altho they may share the same human and life rights as we do.. because the exact specifications are known of the device, the being which has been rendered offline or destroyed.. would many people infact question there own ideas of an afterlife
either for AI devices or humans and indeed all life

but also.. by the same ruling.. the exact same could be said for when the human body is exactly copyed and known about

AI itself I doubt has any effect on anyones relgious views in general.. but the science and knowlage included is the driving force which leads people to question there relgious ways

an intense subject, but rather interesting to think about

AI threatens the fundamental belief in a vital force (or élan vital) that constitutes life. The work of people like Wolfram (see other thread:

http://artificialintelligence.ai-depot.com/Philosophy/562.html)

contends that it is complexity and movement of information that derives life, those are its fundamental elements. This leads me to feel that life is therefore an ephemeral substance that cannot be put down to the "gift of life", and cannot be defined distinctly, but exists on a hypothetical scale with alive at one end (humans perhaps) and dead at the other (pure hydrogen). All substances exist somewhere on this scale.

Having said that, its so very difficult to abandon notions of supernatural forces. They are ingrained so deeply in our conciosness that concepts of God and Religion remain very powerful icons.

I've just remembered the film Contact. Based on the book by Carl Sagan (which I've not read), the story is an attempt to resolve the conflicting beliefs in Science and Religion. Not sure the film manages it, but maybe the book gets closer.

Linden

I think our tendency to believe in the supernatural stems from the fact that we are pattern-finding machines and, as a result, sometimes find patterns that don't exist. It will be interesting to see if, when robots are as intelligent as we are, they believe in the supernatural.

Since I think an intelligent machine will have to be built and taught over many years, like a child, it will probably have whatever religious beliefs it is taught to have, like a child usually does.

Rob

when mankind masters ai, would that not essentially make us god? if we create an entity that can make its own decisions, think for itself, that pretty much makes us god, right?

I would say that the only people who would qualify would be those who devised the method of creating AI. And one would have to wonder what the definition of God is. Not all Gods are credited with the creation of life, but they do generally have some kind of power that supercedes our own. If the makers of AI have control over the destiny of the inteligence they create, then perhaps to the creation they would indeed be godlike. Or is that Despot-like? But would AI qualify as life? Reproduction, self-maintenance etc are usually involved in any definition.

Whole can'o'worms here me feels...

Linden

This subject was about AI having effects on relgious views,
but what about the AI entitys having effects on relgion themselfs
not just the invention of AI as a whole, one would think with the continous evolution of AI itself, even once it is considered AI in the human sence.. much like the new animation system used for games.. that work out how to move themselfs and then some.. even the designers arnt sure how it works..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2058000/2058040.stm

without the centurys of experience, conflict, lives lost and conquests in the name of relgion that blinds some humans, one would think that AI life, either an individual or a as a whole would work out that relgion is not worth considering, and infact they would work out there is no god.. one must think.. in modern times, where science is advanced and explaining many things, if it wasnt for whats happened in the past in the name of relgion in terms of conflict and loss of life.. would we ourselfs be questioning relgion in larger numbers

AI is to be created in a world rich with science, where relgion takes a low priority.. speaking generally of humans.. our relgions where forged when little scientific was understood, and we explained away things we didnt understand with the supernatural and the superior

AI would have the advantage in that respect, and the idea itself of AI might not be as damaging as the actual AI in a working state

"Some" might think it "the devil" lol :)
but a race of intelligent robots or drones etc without a god seems VERY logical indeed

and that, would impact many peoples faith
and forge others lack of

Ignore the database of selling errors, didnt run spell check
but you get the idea hopefully

I watched the film Contact again the other day; it's a great film, and I'm pretty sure at least one of you as seen it as recently as me ;) Basically, it presents the difference between knowledge and faith, science and religion. It does so much better than I remembered initially, as it underlines their common aspects: they both offer meaning. In this context, take AI as a small subset of science, which contributes to the grand scheme of things.

• Religion offers a very mythical view of things, explaining that some god is at the source of the universe.
• Science does so rationally, attempting to find formal explanations that empirically validate themselves as being true (usually the most true to date).

The ongoing battle between the two fascinates me the more I think of it. Religion had a great time before the advent of writing (even before, since the dawn of civilisation), as so many things remained unexplained. Tribes had such things as the god of fire -- it does sounds crazy now. Slowly, as science as progressed with illuminated people fringing on blasphemy and tinkering with execution, religion has moved back in the mind of people.

As an aside, one should note that most religions have not adapted to this change in public opinions, like pretty much any religion still based on the bible (a `book of facts', according to my first philosophy teacher). The bible has many aspects that are politically incorrect, if not plain ridiculous scientifically, and religion would have an easier ride if they adapted to science and attempted to offer meaning to aspects of the world that science cannot yet explain (e.g., where the universe came from, or why abbreviate is such a long word).

So it seems as science progresses giving meaning to domains it has explained, religion regresses having fewer and fewer things to comfort people with (Occam's razor). So could the two be somehow complementary? Maybe so, but yet here I sit, passively atheist, putting my faith in the future of science hopefully being able to explain things that make no sense at the moment. An ironical point, don't you think?

The conflict, if any, between the two is all because of the way each of them tries to explain things. Religion reasons everything within the purview of some universal power - the so called God. Whereas science still doesn't have that universal power, so as to say any unified theory, to explain all things of Nature. Even then I don't think science and religion are complemetary subjects. A progress in one of them cannot regress the other, for there will always be certain "popular beliefs" in religion that even science won't be able to prove wrong. On a lighter note, may be God itself is that unified theory science is looking for ;)

Rinku

I agree that religion and science are not complementary. They are both trying to explain the inexplicable This makes them competition to each other.

God created our universe. It is all we have and all we can know. Religion has taught us to learn God and we will know understand the universe. But if science were to explain the universe, wouldn't we understand it as well as if we understood God?

They are the same will to understand the exact same thing. They are just the two ways that people can categorise things at the highest level; those things that are measurable, and those that are not.

For those of you interested in the connection between spirituality and science, I suggest to visit the homepage of the world pantheism movement at http://www.pantheism.net/. I don't belong to this religion myself, but agree with the ideas stated.

For those of us who don't think that a super-intelligence designed the universe, it seems quite a rational and respectful organisation: I've never seen before a religion saying that it's credo is not intended to be 100% believed 8) (read it at http://www.harrison.dircon.co.uk/manifest.htm). You can check it to understand the point of view of non-god scientists.

(BTW, Contact the movie had exactly the opposite conclusions that Contact the book with respect to religion. Not surprising if you consider that Carl Sagan's ideas were close to this religion - but Hollywood cliches don't).

I for one was an atheist the first 18 years of my life. Then someone close to me opened my eyes. I soon realized that science is not the end-all-be-all of everything. Science is merely what we learn from observation. It can't explain what we don't see or what we falsely witness. We put very high faith in science. We witness things to happen over and over and we assume that physical laws are concrete. Imagine you are Newton and Einstein comes and bursts your bubble.

It would seem that it is logical for us to worship physics. This is dangerous, though. I will explain myself with a simple thought experiment. Imagine we humans create an artificial world with 'artificial' life. These life forms view the world that surrounds them and witness tangible, verifiable laws. They are no different than we. No suppose we as 'God' enter this world and defy the laws our creations witnessed. Does anyone argue that this is not possible? By the same token I argue that man's situation is no different and the existence of God is not impossible. Furthermore, I see no possible way for man to disprove God. We could easily make an artificial world with artificial beings and never show our nature to them. Our existence is the truth but our creations would have no means by which to know of us. They are trapped in their world, which is of course a puny subset of what really exists.

God is not an impossibility. Physical miracles are not an impossibility. A God that created our universe created all laws and can thus defy all laws. Now here is why I'm claiming you are all missing the obvious. As aforementioned I was an atheist all my life until I was given a broader perspective. Immediately I became an agnostic. I wasn't sure if there was a God but I HAD to admit the possibility is there. Then I looked at myself. At this point in my life I was in college and studying AI. I was struggling with the immense complexity of AI and how little we humans as a collective intelligence could create. The more I learned about the requirements for intelligence the more I came to realize that it just doesn't make sense that humans came about without intention. Imagine our utter complexity. Millions of processes go on simultaneously in our bodies. Our brain has billions of neurons. Current estimates put the processing power of our brains at a range of 100 trillion instructions per second. Does science explain that? Why the complexity? Does it make any sense at all that we'd be here without intention? Come on guys, apply your minds and open up to the truth. Science can help explain the truth and describe the truth but it isn't the truth.

Interesting conjecture, however, you're also missing the obvious. You make the statement, "Furthermore, I see no possible way for man to disprove God." Remember that proof is the responsibility of those making the claim, i.e., it is not the atheist's job to disprove the existence of God but the job of the faithful should be to prove the existence of God. Interestingly the truly faithful scoff at this and respond with "blind faith." Troubling.

The argument goes something like this: I claim that there is a tiger in the room with you which you cannot detect in any manner, however, I know that it is there. I now expect you to disprove the existence of the tiger or accept its existence. This is an unreasonable expectation and I as the claimant should prove the tiger's existence. You as the doubter have no responsibility but to assess the data critically.

In response to Alex's comments above:

You mention that religion examines the workings of the universe in a mythical manner while science does so rationally. But, back to what I was saying above, both require the same fundamental ingredient: faith. Even the hardest of scientist has to instill faith in what it is that he's doing.

For example, if you pick of anatomy/physiology textbook from 150 years ago, much of what you'll read is the same as what you'll read today. Not much has changed from the gross viewpoint, however, if you dig a little deeper into some of the most fundamental pieces that we take for granted now, you'll find some blinding errors. It was not until about 50 years ago that people accepted that DNA is the genetic material!! For ages people thought it was protein that stored the genetic code and now we "know" that it is DNA. The list of examples is endless.

Also remember that whatever you read in a textbook today is our current best guess based upon the evidence we have. We don't necessarily know the true answer, but only what the data suggests, yet it is often presented as fact. And, people often accept it with blind faith that it is true. Hmmm...sounds oddly familiar, eh? Again, I claim that an invisible tiger is in the room with you...

There was a great line in Minority Report (a very anti-organized religion film, by the way) where the warden of the cryo-prision said something on the order of, "The people put the power in the preists. Now the preists just have to come up with the oracle."

I could rant on this stuff forever. 8^) Please don't take this as criticism, but rather as a healthy discussion. I'd love to hear further comments...

-Kirk

"Remember that proof is the responsibility of those making the claim."

You are wrong and I'll tell you why. By your logic nobody could claim anything unless it was proved, or that if these claims were made none should be believed. Is this what you want? As in my previous post I'll again use the example of Newton and Einstein. Newton looked at the properties of the universe and made a claim about them. For all that he knew he was certain that his laws would apply to all cases. Then Einstein came along and looked at the universe a different way and concluded there isn't a concrete frame of reference. Neither man has proved anything. Both just looked at what they knew and hoped to explain as much of the truth as possible. If you think about it there is no way of knowing for certain if any physicist is correct. There is no way of proving physics. We still believe our laws of physics, though, even when we realize they have not been proven. Will you not believe and live by the laws of physics because the burden of proof is on those making the physical laws? Granted that when we believe things that are not proven we must admit we 'could' be wrong (as was Newton) but that isn't the point. You should believe the most likely claim. When something is shown to you and you have no reason to believe anything else over it you might as well live by it until something better comes along.

Either we were created or we were not. There is absolutely no proof to either scenario. We are not capable of knowing the full truth of everything and we will always be prone to error. I hope you can at least agree with this. Atheists have it hard. If it is the case that we were not created then there has never and will never be any evidence in support of a creator. The universe is what it is and when looking at it we must admit that there is no intention or reason behind it. How can you prove that? You can't. I mentioned in my previous post that we could create a universe with artificial life and never show our creations that they were created. Making the common mistake every atheist makes they conclude no evidence of their creator means no creator. The truth is that we as creators do exist and our creations are mistaken. This is why atheism requires just as much "blind faith" as theism.

You may rightfully be an agnostic if there is absolutely no evidence for or against God. Let me use your tiger example. Sure, there may be an invisible tiger in my room. Why are you making that claim? Do you have any evidence at all in support of your claim? No? Well then I admit there 'could' be an invisible tiger in my room but there just as well couldn't be so for now I'll just hold off on my decision. This scenario you put forth is perhaps the only one of its kind in which agnosticism is applicable. If any evidence exists to raise one claim over another you might as well choose the favorable side. You do this for nearly everything in your life, why not God? There is evidence for creation. I provided this in my previous post. If you want more I'll provide more. You can't rightfully be an agnostic unless every single shred of my evidence is proven to be false. Don't you agree that the evidence in favor of God outweighs the null set of evidence provided by atheists in opposition to God? If so you are a theist.

Your argument has proven my point.

My argument is that if someone makes a claim, regardless of the topic, then they should back that up with some degree of proof, be it empirical, theoretical, etc. The alternative is blind faith. Without proof, then essentially I can make any claim I want, lack any degree of proof, and expect it to be believed without recourse. I would much rather have a situation in which no claim could be made without some degree of proof.

Regarding the Newton and Einstein scenario, each made certain observations under certain, specific conditions, did some experimentation/theorization and came to a conclusion regarding the system in question. Newton effectively was correct given the system he was examining and the degree of precsion he was capable. Einstein looked at a different system which was essentially a superset of Newton's system at a much higher degree of precision. While Newton was correct, it was on a microscopic scale with respect to that of Einstein. Further, trying to apply Newton's principles to all cases outside the system he was capable of examining is out of context.

Let's take another example. A few centuries back it was widely believed that health status was controlled by the humors, or energy fields of the body. A clear example is infection of a wound. If the humors were not balanced, then the wound would become infected, whereas if the humors were in balance, the wound would remain clean. The first suggestions of germ theory (microbiology) were met with huge resistence and were not accepted for many, many years. The claimants of germ theory had an idea, made a claim, and had no proof. However, over time they accumulated that proof and I don't think there are many people around today that subscribe to the philosophy of the humors. Now, I realize your argument will be that they accepted their theory on blind faith, but perhaps not. They developed their theory based upon extensive empirical observation and followed that up with extensive experimentation. Granted, they believed in their theory but not blindly.

In your second paragraph you mention that there is no proof as to whether there is or is not a Creator. I agree fully with you here - we cannot absolutely prove either, and thus it falls into the category of philosophy. I also agree that there could be a God. I think it is equally likely that there might not be a God. As for the evidence for which side outweighs the other, I'm not convinced it rests on the side of the theists.

I want to make a slightly different point here. I don't want to come across as a Marxist suggesting that spirituality has no place in our world. I think that indeed it does have a place - a very important place. We are spiritual creatures. But, I think that the method by which one arrives at that spirituality is not necessarily dependent upon Creation or God. I have full respect for religions of all varieties, and am personally partial to East Asian philosophies. I have full respect for whatever religious walk one may choose (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.), but I also respect those who chose not to walk that path.

This post is really long, so I'll slow down a bit...

-Kirk

Well you seem to understand everything I said. About all you had to say in your long post that wasn't just an elaboration on previous posts was:

"As for the evidence for which side outweighs the other, I'm not convinced it rests on the side of the theists."

This is what I was looking for. So far your reasoning has seemed sound but I'd like you to think about your claim and back it up. We now know why one should/shouldn't believe something but you haven't given me any convincing arguments as to why theism doesn't win over atheism (and vice versa). I've said already that atheists basically have no evidence. About all they have going for them is the assumption that a creator would clearly make itself known and if it does not then we can conclude there is no creator. I can easily counter this by saying that our creator 'has' made itself known, but this is an entirely different debate. Tell me if my claims in my first post are reasonable. To reiterate, isn't it remarkable that everything is so ordered, so complex, and so meaningful? Knowing this, doesn't it make sense that this universe, this planet, and man were intended? Would you rather believe that things are the way they are because by sheer nothing a once in forever universe happened to be and its everything we need to exist and be happy?

Yes, I agree. I think this is a great discussion and I'm glad to know that we're not making any enemies. It's nice to be able to present viewpoints without people getting upset with each other.

Back to the topic at hand:

My main point in my long post was that to allow people to make claims without expecting some type of proof opens a Pandora's box (no pun intended). By this argument, anything is possible and nothing is impossible for any being, dietous or not, and no proff is required. This is where we have to be careful.

I still say that those with the burden of proof are those making the claim. If you claim there to be a divine creator, where's the proof? Your argument is that the proof is in the pudding, so to speak - the overall complexity of life itself. Could this have arisen by chance? I say, yes, it is possible it could have arisen by chance. Much as you say that no, it must have been intended. As for my comfort level in that - well, I'm fully comfortable with the idea that all these things occurred by chance. It would be nice if it were otherwise, but if it were chance alone, I can be happy about that.

As for evidence on the side of the atheists, they actually have a lot of evidence. The world of chaos theory, evolutionary theory (and the genetic algorithms that I program all day) for a start. Each of these has its own proof: order from chaos can occur and there have been numerous studies that show it empirically and theoretically (islands of stability is extremely high elctron shell counts where intuitively no stability should occur, protein folding, weather patterns); evolution occurs all around us and we see it in numerous reports of adaptations in bacteria (multiple drug resistance, UV tolerance, extremophiles), HIV (drug resistance) and more complex organisms, such as yeast developing genes producing proteins to sequester Copper, fishes adapting to resist the effects of viruses. The biggest problem is that the changes happen so slowly we cannot observe them in a single lifespan for the more complex organisms. But, they are happening.

Now, the obvious, easy argument for all of these is, "Isn't it possible that these are all part of a divine plan?" And while, yes, it is possible, it is equally possible that no such plan exists. So, where does that leave us?

-Kirk

I'm not going to say that evolution is or is not a valid theory but please separate it from God. I'm not here to agree that if man evolved from some ooze that there is no God. I think you are not fully understanding what I mean by order and complexity. I admit that evolution does occur and complex constructs can be formed from simple sub-constructs. What I'm trying to get across is that 'this in itself' is order and complexity. Look at the order and complexity of the physical laws that ALLOW for evolution. I engaged in a similar exchange such as this in another forum a few years back when I was arguing the same side you are now. It was there that I was introduced to the Anthropic Principle. This merely puts forth the notion that there are thousands and thousands of physical laws that are perfectly fine-tuned to allow for man to exist. Change any of them just a little bit and there wouldn't even be any conditions that would allow for evolution. It is in this sense that I feel it is quite obvious that this universe was intended.

Hey, fup - are you following me? Seriously, good to see you here.
And, very well put.

To follow up on that and regarding the Anthropic Principle, the thousands and thousands of physical laws that exist are the conditions of the system. The emergence or creation of life (pick one) is effectively an optimization problem within that system - these laws didn't 'allow' life to emerge, but they defined the constraints. Change any one of them and then we have a slightly different system to optimize. As a result, a different solution will likely be found. This is analagous to the Carbon vs Silicon debate - if our biomass were composed primarily of Silicon, would we be Silicon based rather than Carbon based entities. Again, we get into the situation of yes it is possible, but we can't absolutely prove it due to the fact that we cannot conduct an experiment within the time frame of our life span. There's plenty of evidence to suggest it could happen, but nothing definitive.

In my last post I pointed out that the most obvious response to my comments was, "Isn't it possible that these are all part of a divine plan?" The Anthropic Principle as you put it is exactly this response. Again, we hit a deadlock because neither of us can prove either way, and we have to rely on suggestive evidence. In other words, which physical law could you change and how would it be changed such that life as we know it wouldn't exist? Also, what would the new system be like and why would life not emerge from that system in a new form? The suggestive evidence for my argument exists in the extremeophile bacteria which exist in locations we once thought it impossible for anything to exist such as extreme temperature, acid, or cold.

-Kirk

I'm speaking of conditions for intelligent life, not simple bacteria. Also, you say:

"Again, we hit a deadlock because neither of us can prove either way, and we have to rely on suggestive evidence."

Read my other posts, I've said that proof isn't needed. We 'believe' lots of things relying on suggestive evidence alone.

Despite the level of itelligence humans claim to have, we WILL lose the microbial battle. No matter what we do, bacteria will be able to adapt to whatever we throw at them. As for simplicity, have you ever considered that even the simplest of bacteria have about 1000 genes required for their existence. The whole metabolism is far from simple. Interestingly, a good portion of the genes/proteins absolutely required for bacterial existence are highly similar (homologous) to human genes.

As for my statement about deadlock, yes, you've said we believe lots of things relying on suggestive evidence, but you also said that proof should not be required. Suggestive evidence is a step toward proof, hence, we've supplied some level of proof one way or another. Definitive evidence is what is lacking.

The physical makeup of bacteria is complex. But when compared to a human a bacterium is next to nothing. This is an AI website and I was hoping that the members of this website would recognize intelligence for what it is. Humans have a high-level understanding of the universe. Our brains are so robust that they can reason about anything. As I said before, the processing power of our brains is comparable to a computer that performs 100 trillion instructions per second. Do you see why bacteria are relatively simple? The fact that bacteria ever came into being is astonishing but human beings are much more so.

I don't think you are grasping the Anthropic Principle like I had hoped you would. It isn't as if we change one physical law and then somehow we can assume evolution would have occured in this new system. Most of the physical laws, if changed slightly, would drastically change the nature of this universe. The universe would just be one big black hole, there might be too much radiation, no mass would ever collect to form hard bodies, etc. I'll speak more on this tomorrow. For now just please think about this. I'm hoping you are somewhat educated in computer science so please imagine the following. It is your job to program physical laws that will define a virtual universe. You as an intelligent, intending creator must make a universe that is capable of allowing for evolution. This evolution must lead to the creation of artificial beings as intelligent as you. Could you do this? Clearly the set of all failing universes would be exponentially higher than the set of all succeeding universes. In fact I'd go so far as to say you could never create a universe as successful as our own. You are intelligent, you are intending. If you can't make a universe like our own how can you believe our universe came about without intelligence, without intention?

Hi Kirk,

I stumbled into this conversation but I don't expect it will go anywhere any of us haven't been before ;)

Adam believes in a Creator, we don't. Best to keep it that way. We know we're right, Adam knows he's right. I have a friend who thinks he's God (seriously). He's right too. We chose whatever makes us feel comfortable.

And that's all I have to say about that, as Forest would say.

Argh, don't say that. If none of us agree then either one of us is right or none of us are right.

By the way, we don't choose what is comfortable. We choose what the evidence points to. Whether or not I want, like, or need a creator has absolutely no effect on what is 'true'. Your friend may want to believe he is God but he's not. If he were God he would have created the entire universe and would know everything there is to know about it. This is not the case. The issue of whether or not a creator exists should not be taken lightly. This isn't some silly belief that has no effect on us. Determining whether there is a creator and the nature of this creator is a very tough task but some of us are obviously going to be more right than others. There is only one truth and if we arrive at it we should accept it whether we are comfortable with it or not.

Who says I'm taking it lightly? I'm not. I've just reached an age where I realize there's no sense in discussing it. I've wasted far too many hours in my life doing that already. I'd rather accept peoples beliefs and get on with something useful.

And I will reiterate: we choose what we are comfortable with. You can argue against that with all the lucidity and wisdom of Socrates... but it ain't going to change my mind.

NB. Alex, if you're reading this, email notification is only working sporadically.

Howdy! I'm convinced you're following me, fup. Or maybe I'm following you - not sure. I suppose it comes down to your perspective.

I think you're exactly right and we are probably going to have to agree to disagree. And, I think that you are exactly right also in that we choose what makes us feel most comfortable. Adam, you said yourself earlier in this thread,

"Would you rather believe that things are the way they are because by sheer nothing a once in forever universe happened to be and its everything we need to exist and be happy?"

It's obvious from this question and the theme of the thread that your not comfortable in accepting life arose by chance due to the degree of complexity we see today. Hence, you're choosing what makes you most comfortable, that being a divine guidance. And that's fine. I have no problem with that belief, I just don't share it with you.

The fundamental issues that I have are summed up in these statements you made earlier in the thread:

"By your logic nobody could claim anything unless it was proved, or that if these claims were made none should be believed. Is this what you want?"

"When something is shown to you and you have no reason to believe anything else over it you might as well live by it until something better comes along."

In effect, this logic suggests the concept of "if I've never seen it, it must not exist" or "if I can't DISprove it, it must be true." It is that which troubles me.

-Kirk

We choose what is most comfortable. Sure, for the most part that is true. But what I'm tring to say is that we shouldn't do this. It is stupid. We choose what the evidence points to. If we feel comfortable in believing what the evindence points to then we have a much higher likelihood of being right as opposed to someone who believes in whatever makes them feel good.

"It's obvious from this question and the theme of the thread that your not comfortable in accepting life arose by chance due to the degree of complexity we see today."

I was perfectly comfortable believing life arose by chance for 18 years. I never did any sort of searching for evidence that could prove me wrong. Now I'm comfortable in accepting God because the evidence is in favor of a God. I'm troubled that just as I was making some very good points you guys stopped countering them and just said "Oh, we give up, let's believe whatever we want to believe." I feel my good arguments haven't been addressed yet and it seems as though I've been able to address every argument in opposition to my beliefs.

I don't understand what you meant by your last two quotes and your conclusion about them. I'm not saying either of those two concepts you arrived at in your conclusion. If we can't see something, and by see I mean there is no way of ever detecting any evidence in favor of its existence, then we should believe it doesn't exist but offer that it might exist. If we can't disprove something that says nothing about whether it is true or not. What I'm saying is that we should believe what the majority of the evidence points to. We can always believe we 'might' be wrong but we can know that we are believing the most logical thing. I believe the evidence is in favor of God. Let's focus solely on the evidence for/against God.

"Now I'm comfortable in accepting God"

Thank you, you've proved my point.

"just as I was making some very good points you guys stopped countering them and just said "Oh, we give up, let's believe whatever we want to believe"

This is a typical response you're making here. I haven't given up but we are essentially arguing in circles.
To satisfy your query, your primary point is the Anthropic Principle. In effect all you've said is that by altering some natural laws of physics subtly you could create a situation where life could not have arisen. This does nothing but point out that such a condition might exist, not that it could exist, nor that the current state of the universe is more or less probable. Further it has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of God. A specific example you cited was an increase in radiation. It's well known that you can get things to grow in extreme levels of radiation - this in itself is proof that life can exist in those conditions.

"I feel my good arguments haven't been addressed yet and it seems as though I've been able to address every argument in opposition to my beliefs."

Your only argument is that the incredible complexity seen in life (human, specifically) could only have come from a guided process. This is back to the flawed logic I posted of "if I haven't seen it, it must not exist" or more appropriately "if I can't figure out how it could work, it must be God." I could quote a stream of examples of situations where by all reasonable arguments dictated that life should NOT exist and it in fact did. Now the argument to assume the complexity of bacteria and other life forms isn't enough as compared to human life isn't valid. It's the same complexity in a different context.

I said the following, and I'm still waiting for a response:
"For now just please think about this. I'm hoping you are somewhat educated in computer science so please imagine the following. It is your job to program physical laws that will define a virtual universe. You as an intelligent, intending creator must make a universe that is capable of allowing for evolution. This evolution must lead to the creation of artificial beings as intelligent as you. Could you do this? Clearly the set of all failing universes would be exponentially higher than the set of all succeeding universes. In fact I'd go so far as to say you could never create a universe as successful as our own. You are intelligent, you are intending. If you can't make a universe like our own how can you believe our universe came about without intelligence, without intention?"

Respond to that please.

Now, in response to your post. I'll say again that the Anthropic Principle is a wonderful tool. You say that things grow in radiation. Let's hear of specifics. Do you have any evidence of beings capable of 100 trillion computations a second living in high levels of radiation? Are there any 'intelligent' beings that live in high levels of radiation? I haven't seen any evidence of this.

"Your only argument is that the incredible complexity seen in life (human, specifically) could only have come from a guided process."

No, my argument is that it is certainly more probable when looking at all the evidence we have before us that we were intended and created by God. I admit there are circumstances in which I'm insane, the evidence I have before me is flawed, etc. We are all imperfect and we can't fully know truth. We can, however, make logical conclusions based on sound reasoning about the evidence we have in front of us. We may or may not be right in our beliefs but this is the best we can possibly do.

Respond to the first part of my post please.

No, I most certainly could not develop such a computer application. But that in no way supports your assertion: "If you can't make a universe like our own how can you believe our universe came about without intelligence, without intention?" We're back to the theory of "If I can't figure a way it occured naturally, it must be God." Very weak argument. And, again, there are tomes of examples in which people have been proven wrong time after time. Citation of specific examples is possible but unnecessary at this point.

I also could not synthesize an amino acid from a mixture of hydrogen, methane, ammonia, water, and a spark gap, but it has been done experimentally. I refer to the spontaneous generation of amino acids, and nucleotides in experiments conducted by Stanley Miller - I think it took about a week.

The specifics of creatures and high radiation are: nuclear power plants have found Pseudomonas Areuganosa growing on control rods in power plants. Also, investigations of Chernobyl have found a variety of single and multi-cellular organisms growing within the encased water environment and the radiation contaminated soil 10 years after the melt-down. Deinococcus radiodurans is well know to withstand high doses of radiation (thousands of times that which would kill a person) and live just fine. It's well know that various insects (creatures with a nervous system which demonstrate social behavior and a degree of self-awareness) survive quite nicely in high radiation environments. (This has always led to the saying that roaches will be the only survivor of nuclear holocaust - an exaggeration but insects do withstand radiation better than humans.)

I can hear your response now: "Bacteria are simple. Bugs are simple. What about things as sophisticated as humans. You can't develop a computer program that simulates evolution effectively." You're missing the whole point, and have all along. You've chosen your path, are comfortable within that path.

Now for your challenge. You assert through the Anthropic Principle "the notion that there are thousands and thousands of physical laws that are perfectly fine-tuned to allow for man to exist. Change any of them just a little bit and there wouldn't even be any conditions that would allow for evolution." (Your words.) If there are thousands and thousands that need to be modified just a little, please name one specifically, the modification, and the specific reason the modification would prevent life to emerge in some form. Notice that I'm not asking for why life as we know it would not emerge, but life of some form analagous life as we know it bearing intelligence.

http://userweb.nashville.com/~al.schroeder/anthcoi.htm

I could post any number of links to resources on this. I found this within five seconds doing a google search and it looks like it says enough of what I want to get across.

"We're back to the theory of 'If I can't figure a way it occured naturally, it must be God.' Very weak argument."

Is that all you see in my argument? You are not thinking about this hard enough. Let me put this into perspective for you. Examples always make things easier to explain and understand. I've used this example before and it seemed to get my point across. Imagine you are walking in the desert and you see a chess board. Granted this somehow COULD come into existence randomly but what are the odds? Without any visual evidence of intelligence you can assume that an intelligence was behind the creation of that chess board. It is too ordered to be natural. I have no doubt in my mind that if you saw this chessboard in the desert that you would believe that intelligence was behind it. With this example I disprove your argument. You say that "If I can't figure out a way it occured naturally, it must be God" is a weak argument. How so? You can in fact figure out a way how a chess board could occur naturally yet when you see it you believe beyond any reasonable doubt that an intelligent creator was behind it. You are basing your beliefs on an even weaker argument than mine, yet you won't use my argument for any of your beliefs! Do you now see?

You give examples of basic creatures living in radiation. Great, that isn't my point. There are still the other millions of laws fine-tuned to let that small subset of life survive. The Anthropic Principle deals with MAN. MAN is the free-willed, intelligent, and highly robust creature that is superior to all other living creatures. The Anthropic Principle deals with how laws are fine-tuned for man. And I don't mean man in the sense of our species. I'm using the notion of man to mean any being capable of free-will, emotion, love, intelligence, morality, etc... There is of course evidence of only one species having all of these properties (our species) and so we naturally define our species as man. Lesser life forms are possible in the environment created for man but this is trivially understandable.

This quote came from one of the pages in the link you gave me.

"But there are alternative ways of viewing this coincidence."

Hmmm...but let's ignore all other possible views and focus on only one which is weakly supported.

More great quotes from you reading material:

"perhaps not giving life time to evolve "
"if life can indeed develop without hydrogen "
"seems to be just about as weak "
"Supernovae might still work "
"THis seems to imply "
"seem to be ideal "
"It is as though "
"It might as well be that a whole set of perfectly reasonable S-matrices exist"
"it is difficult to see "

All of these essentially say the same thing: speculation. "We can't imagine a different scenario, so it must be this way.

And, my favorite qoute:

"The significance of this is that the orbits of planets, like the earth, around the sun would be unstable; the least disturbance from a circular orbit(such as would be caused by the gravitational attraction of other planets) would result in the earth spiraling away into or away from, the sun. "

Despite all the hashing of quantum physics, does this person not realize that planetary orbits are not circular? Poor credibility.

Now, you can continue to read these and be happy about the fact that they throw around a lot of numbers and fancy words, or you can answer my challenge and cite a specific example, the specific effect, and why that effect eliminates the possibilities. Without that capability, you're uninformed.

Gravity is roughly 10^39 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been 10^33 times weaker than electromagnetism, stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster.

The nuclear weak force is 10^28 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).

A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.

If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.

The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a mystery (a point noticed by one of the forerunners of anthropic reasoning in the nineteenth century, Harvard biologist Lawrence Henderson). Unique amongst the molecules, water is lighter in its solid than liquid form: Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up and earth would now be covered with solid ice. This property in turn is traceable to the unique properties of the hydrogen atom.

The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the centre of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long.

I'm getting tired of your repeated need for proof. I think I've completely shown you that we can prove next to nothing. You blindly believe so many things on a day to day basis because there is no way of comprehending it all. You have to go with what the majority of the evidence shows 'might' be true. Why I'm so upset over your arguments is that you keep trying to make the case that we shouldn't believe something unless there is proof. I can't prove to you that God exists. I can't prove many things to you. Are you going to refuse to believe all of these things?

Just listen to yourself. You are putting the following statement down - "We can't imagine a different scenario, so it must be this way." I think I've said twice already that this is not my policy. Please pay attention this time. If we can't imagine a different scenario then that is an inadequacy on our part. What we imagine has no effect on the truth. *HOWEVER*, we should *BELIEVE* that something is a certain way if we can't imagine a different scenario. This is how we live our lives whether you recognize it or not.

I want to make it perfectly clear that there might be other scenarios that might "make sense" and don't involve God. I haven't seen any of these presented here, though. All I've gotten from these discussions is that it is likely that our universe just came into being and that is just the way things are. I've said before that there is no proof for or against this belief. We do have very strong evidence against this claim because of the nature of this universe. I'm not going to leave this debate until I've at least convinced everyone that the "one universe, lucky us" claim is absolutely absurd. I haven't seen one intelligent, respected scientist argue this point of view.

Don't pick at specifics about that site. As I said, I arrived at it from a 5 second google search. My examples at the start of this post are better, I hope. I'm too busy to go searching for all of the good information on the AP that was shown to me when I was an agnostic.

You said: "*HOWEVER*, we should *BELIEVE* that something is a certain way if we can't imagine a different scenario."

This is the problem and effectively the same as "We can't imagine a different scenario, so it must be this way." You say this is not your policy and then you follow it with the statement above!

All of your examples point to the idea that subtle changes would have altered the universe from what we know today. None of them bothers to address is life or intelligent life possible in the altered result. None. They merely point out that life AS WE KNOW IT would not exist. What about life as we DON'T know it?

By the way, water is NOT lighter when solid as opposed to liquid. It is less dense due to the crystal lattice structure. The bottoms of the oceans don't freeze for a couple of reasons: thermic heating and intense pressure. Do your homework - don't let rhetoric do it for you.

First off, Alex and all of those who have tolerated this debate, thank you very much for your patience. I was many times tempted to request this discussion be taken off-line - in retrospect, perhaps I should have acted upon that.

In closing, I would like to point out that from the beginning I put forth my belief that while I don't deny that a Creator could exist, I'm not convinced of that to the point of blind acceptance. I equally accept that life as we know it (and elsewhere as we can't imagine it) could emerge spontaneously. Which is the truth is not mine to judge.

The arguments put forth to support the Anthropic Principle are effectively arguments which are in desperate need of refinement. I don't accept them as anything more than speculations much on the same order as other orign of life speculations. The universe is full of possibilities and other universes are equally full. My arguments have been countered with circular references to the Anthropic Principle without rigorous evaluation of the reference itself.

My point and the reason I've tolerated this extensively tiring conversation is simply to bring forth the notion that an infinite number of possibilities exist and these types of discussions are unanswerable, philosophical debates. The unwillingness of my adversary to accept that alternate viewpoints exist which may very well be equally valid is disappointing. The world of scientific and philosophical thought must remain open to alternate viewpoints and willing to accept these as possibilities, lest it fall into a quagmire of rhetoric.

Philosophy can be compared to some powders that are so corrosive that, after they have eaten away the infected flesh of a wound, they then devour the living flesh, rot the bones, and penetrate to the very marrow. Philosophy at first refutes errors. But if it is not stopped at this point, it goes on to attack truths. And when it is left on its own, it goes so far that it no longer knows where it is and can find no stopping place.
ATTRIBUTION: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)

There has to be an end to every debate but I see you saying the same things as before and I can tell you do not understand what I'm saying. I don't expect you to accept my conclusions but to be honest very rarely do you even grasp what my conclusions are. Let me just address everything you claimed about MY beliefs in your last two posts and I'll show you that you are arguing against beliefs I don't even have.

I said:
"*HOWEVER*, we should *BELIEVE* that something is a certain way if we can't imagine a different scenario."

You said:
"This is the problem and effectively the same as "We can't imagine a different scenario, so it must be this way." You say this is not your policy and then you follow it with the statement above!"

You fail to grasp the concept of belief versus truth. The truth is trivially understandable. There is only one truth. I won't speak any more of truth. A belief is a bet placed on what we perceive to be truth. Our perceptions might be flawed and our beliefs might be flawed and we have absolutely no control over this. You believe something if there is no other explanation, no "different scenario" for it. 2+2 is 4, I can't imagine a different scenario, one very well may exist, but my belief is that 2+2 is 4. You may never post here again but don't stop reading this post until you understand everything I've said so far. Believing something and declaring "it must be this way" are not the same.

You said:
"All of your examples point to the idea that subtle changes would have altered the universe from what we know today. None of them bothers to address is life or intelligent life possible in the altered result."

No, you are wrong. Since when has the Anthropic Principle been my only crutch? Seems as though I brought it up late in the debate. Also, there is definitely a possibility that intelligent life would exist with an altered universe. I never said otherwise, stop putting words in my mouth. You have no evidence that it would, though. We as intelligent creators can't devise a universe that would give rise to intelligent life. I made the case earlier that when imagining the set of all possible universes we ourselves could devise it is clearly the case that nearly all/all would fail in producing intelligent life akin to man. I've tried to get you to realize this for some time now. Is this proof that there is an intelligent creator? No. Is this evidence for an intelligent creator? Yes. If there is evidence for something an none/little to the contrary should you form a belief? You have free will and can choose whatever you want to believe. More times than not if you choose to believe what the evidence suggests you will be right in the end...

You said:
"By the way, water is NOT lighter when solid as opposed to liquid. It is less dense due to the crystal lattice structure."

You are picking at stuff so pointless that I'm starting to think you are just fishing for things to support the beliefs you hold so dear. Obviously how you define water, ice, and lighter will effect the truth of their claim. An interpretation of their sentence exists in which it is true and it is under that interpretation that the sentence was originally intended. When you start to debate things not related to the discussion at all then I can only conclude you can't debate on my level.

You said:
"while I don't deny that a Creator could exist, I'm not convinced of that to the point of blind acceptance. I equally accept that life as we know it (and elsewhere as we can't imagine it) could emerge spontaneously. Which is the truth is not mine to judge."

Anyone who has a belief is blindly accepting things? Should a belief only be based on something 'proven'? I haven't once said you should blindly accept anything. You have no proof that your mother is really your mother. There exists a situation in which your family is lying to you, documents were forged, etc. You still have the belief that your mother is your mother. That is not blind acceptance. It is holding a belief that you think is true based on what you know. You very well may be wrong.

You said:
"My point and the reason I've tolerated this extensively tiring conversation is simply to bring forth the notion that an infinite number of possibilities exist and these types of discussions are unanswerable, philosophical debates. The unwillingness of my adversary to accept that alternate view points exist which may very well be equally valid is disappointing. The world of scientific and philosophical thought must remain open to alternate viewpoints and willing to accept these as possibilities, lest it fall into a quagmire of rhetoric."

I'm so thankful that you "tolerated" me. That shows me how you approach opposing views. As for "an infinite number of possibilities" existing you are definitely right. So what? Do you think you are the first to come to this conclusion? We all know this. Can truth ever be known? Yes, it can. Will we ever know when we've arrived at truth? No, we can't ever be completely sure. Can we hold beliefs that try their best to represent truth? Yes, we can. Can we choose to not even try to search for the truth, to not use what we believe to be true in our daily lives? Yes, you do just that.

I am unwilling to admit that alternate views exist which may be equally valid? First of all this makes no sense. Only one view is valid. It may not be my view by there is only one truth. Let me just put it this way. Your stance is that you have no idea what is going on. You are always right in the sense that you are never wrong. Just the same you are never right, though. There exists no case in which you could be right about our origins. When betting on a belief we are sometimes wrong and sometimes right. What is the point of life from your perspective? When all is said and done about the only thing an agnostic has to say for himself is that he is never wrong. Funny thing is that is the only thing he's right about.

Nice discussion, at least from my perspective. So long.

How do you know there is only one truth? There may be many.

More than one truth? That's impossible on so many levels. We define truth to be a singularity. Do you have any sense of reason in you, any recognition of logic? There can't be more than one truth because that in itself is a false statement according to how we define truth. Let me disprove you. If there can be more than one truth then you are right in that there is more than one truth and I am right that there is only one truth. So thus there is only one truth. By your very claim I've come up with a way to disprove your claim. I don't think a single person on the face of this planet with any sort of higher education believes there is more than one truth. I advise you to do some serious research.

Sorry to point it but your argument isn't logically valid.
You say 'if your claim is right (there is more than one truth) then mine is right too (there is only a truh)', wich doesn't follow. Being more than one truth doesn't mean that everything is a truth.

Besides that, people not always means truth to be equal to 'logical truth'. If you define truth as 'intimal belief', then can be as much different truths as people over there, only that some truths will have more endorsement than others.

In my opinion, logical truth has much less significance than it used to have before Goedel's Theorem and Karl Popper's Falsification Principle.

Logically valid? With more than one truth there is no such thing as logic. Let's go ahead and bring that out into the open. I see no reason why you would redefine truth just to make the multiple truths claim 'true'. "Intimal belief" is not an accepted definition of truth as far as the English language is concerned. I'm by no means insulting your intelligence but it seems that English is not your native language. When I speak of one truth I'm speaking of one reality. This reality is the truth and beliefs about this reality are either true or false depending on how well they represent this reality. I don't see why logical truth has any less meaning. Godel's theorem states that things are true that we can't prove, which strengthens any argument in favor of faith in God. The principle of falsification merely narrows what we would call 'science', excluding the study of God as well as many other fields that were previously considered science. Logical truth is still applicable because it applies to how we interpret truth, not how we search for it and define it.

You guessed, I'm not an English native speaker. 8)
I don't suggest that logic has no meaning, my intention was to say that logic isn't the definitive criterion to grasp truth. Of course it's a powerful scientific tool.
"Mea culpa" if I misleaded the concept of truth. What you call 'truth', I call reality. I think that truth is in the mind of people and has a common sense definition, related to the concept of knowledge. About what can be known, read this essay (especially parts 2 & 3), it gives a clean description of to what degree facts can be believed. Take it with a grain of salt, it's not a philosophic text.

This thread is nearly unreadable by now. Shall we move to a new one?

Adam: I fear your religious fervor has wound you up to the extent that this discussion is no longer friendly. Insulting my intelligence is certainly not the way to involve me further in this conversation. I don't bite on bait set by someone who is so obviously immature in the ways of the world.

(but I do love the way you attempt to accomodate logic *and* your belief in a God - masterly, you'll go far with thinking like that)

I'm insulting your intelligence because you are insulting intelligence in general. In fact if you believe in more than one truth none of us could even have intelligence. With more than one truth we'd have no way to logically reason about anything. There would be no such thing as reality and the universe would never make sense. I'd bet my life that you could never show me a case in which there is more than one truth. It's impossible. There is only one reality. My religious views have nothing to do with this. I've always believed this, even when I was an atheist and then an agnostic. Claiming that there is more than one truth is infinitely more bold than claiming there is a God. There will never exist a case in which you could prove or even give evidence for your claim.

The highest quality answer to certain questions can be that two contradictory things exist. The single highest quality answer to the free will question for example is that we do and we do not have free will. Both things are true. You cannot reasonably argue that it doesn't exist because it appears that way to everyone, but you cannot reasonably argue that it does if you also accept that experience comes before the subject. To say that either one is exclusively true doesn't pass the tests of logic, empricism and brevity. The only answer that does is to say that they are both true but they are different types of truth.

http://www.diversophy.com/Map_Chapter1.pdf

http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/ZMag/articles/sept96albert.htm

http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/96-2/issue10/lastword.html

We either do have free will or we do not. It makes absolutely no difference who believes what. If everyone in the world believes that there is a unicorn living on the moon that does not mean there is a unicorn on the moon. Belief does not equate to truth. A belief can be weighed against truth but that is all.

"You cannot reasonably argue that it doesn't exist because it appears that way to everyone..."

Wrong. This makes no sense. The entire world believed the world was flat at one point in time. The ENTIRE WORLD was wrong. This does not mean that at some point everyone was right and the world was flat. Everyone was wrong, end of story. There is only one truth. The entire world could be wrong in believing that we have free will. This one quote is the basis for your entire argument and it fails. Thus your argument fails.

From your last source:
"What I am arguing is that there is no single truth, there are only small and large pockets of consensus which evolve in various ways."

No. This author fails to understand a whole lot. The "pockets of consensus" are usually representations of truth. Let me give you a simple example, this really isn't hard to understand guys.

Single truth:
There is a red block.
There is a blue block.
The red block is on top of the blue block.

Person 1 believes:
There is a red block.
There is a green block.

Person 2 believes:
There is a red block.
There is a blue block.
The red block is on top of the blue block.
There is a green block.

Person 3 believes:
There is a blue block.
There is a green block.

The one consensus is that there is a green block. This is false, the truth is that there is no green block. The consensus between person 1 and 2 is that there is a red block and a green block. This is false, the truth is that there is no green block. The consensus between person 2 and 3 is that there is a blue block and a green block. This is false, the truth is that there is no green block. Each of these belief systems grasp a part of the truth but not the whole truth. We can't say that each person is right. We can say that certain beliefs of each person are right, though.

There is only one truth. We can all believe different things and sometimes our beliefs might agree to a certain extent. If two conflicting sets of beliefs come to a consensus on something then it is usually the case that somewhere inbetween these two beliefs lies the truth. This isn't always the case, though, as evidenced by my 'world is round' example. We can look for evidence of truth and believe whatever we want but we are either right or wrong.

I want to add something here. It seems like all three of your sources create these stupid thought experiments that prove nothing. Let me explain. Suppose I make the claim that killing is wrong. Yes, I agree that under one interpretation killing is wrong and perhaps in some other interpretation killing is right. This does not mean there are two truths. It means that we as humans have failed to adequately define the concept of killing. There is no such thing as killing. It is a concept that we humans created to apply to a wide variety of situations. "Killing" doesn't exist and thus there is no truth to it one way or the other. Find me a "killing" and then I'll tell you if it is right or wrong. Let's say that in Tribe A killing is wrong. Let's also say in Tribe B killing is right. I can't logically make a claim that killing in general is wrong or right. There exist two separate definitions for it, neither of which truly mean anything because "killing" in and of itself does not exist. It is a man-made concept, not reality. There is only one reality and one truth.

Do you realize that your argument on killing also applies to "God exists" and "God doesn't exist"?

The point is that ALL human knowledge is composed of made concepts. The only way to relate knowledge to truth is through experience. Truth/reality exists, but it can't be directly accesed by human mind, and logic doesn't prevent this fact (unless Platonism is right and logic objects have a real existence). Do you agree with this?

Very nice, TuringTest! This also applies to the colored block example. The concept of a "red" or "green" or "blue" block cannot be evaluated as a truth or non-truth. The CONCEPTS of color, killing, God, shape, etc. are just that - CONCEPTS and PERCEPTIONS.

Adams arguments are weak but his argumentation is strong. Perhaps he should stop behaving like Jerry Fallwell and consider a bit of empathy.

The concepts of red, green, and blue are well-defined. I'm not trying to be rude here but I just can't understand how you don't understand!!!!! There exists a reality. In this reality there exists a green block. If a person believes that there exists a green block then they are correct. Otherwise they are not correct. The concept of killing is not well-defined in a moral sense. It is well-defined in a physical sense. If I say "killing is wrong" I'm not making any sense because there are different situations in which I could kill. If I say "I just killed someone" I'm making perfect sense because this statement can be evaluated. I'm either right or wrong but I'm making sense. Just the same if I say "a green block exists" it either does or it doesn't. I'm not some religous loon here, these are mathematical, logical, and philosophical concepts that are taught in higher education that have absolutely nothing to do with religion. A statement about a well-defined concept can be evaluated to either true or false.

Suppose you grew up being told all your life that a particular color is green. Then let's suppose you meet someone who has been told that same particular color is blue. Which is it? What is the truth? Your arguments are pathetic and poorly formed. You keep arguing speculations with supportive speculations.

Well-defined. Pay attention to that. For a well defined definition of a green block green is green, block is block, and a green block is a green block. Look, if the truth is that there is a green block and someone believes there is a green block then they are correct. This isn't a poorly formed argument, there is no way you can deny this! When speaking of assigning truths to statements we must always assume the definitions of the words in that statement are universal. Anyone who believes the color green is named "blue" is just using a different string of characters to describe the same concept. There is still only one truth.

see my post below about well-defined concepts and its relation with truth. There may exist one only truth in the real world, but logic can't reach it.

The problem is this: if the truth is that there is a green block and someone believes there is a green block then they are correct, BUT no one in the world can prove that they are correct (i.e. have absolute certainty of it).

This is the difference between mathematics and physics; you can't reason about the world in a mathematical way and deduce true sentences about it.

I've been saying this since the beginning, no need to tell me, please tell these other people. Logic is, however, the best means we have by which to reach the truth. Every belief we have is based on some level of faith but if we firmly believe something we can make logical conclusions based on the belief. The belief in itself must also be logical. Firmly believing something will lead to false logical conclusions.

You believe in only one truth but don't believe logic will ever reach it. I will have to disagree. Logic can reach the truth. We may not know for certain if logic has reached the truth but again I'll say that logical beliefs and logical assumptions will lead to a set of beliefs that is as close to the truth as we'll ever be able to grasp. We are proven right more times than not so don't think that we are all hopelessly lost in wacky beliefs.

I do not think so, otherwise I wouldn't have signed for a PhD program the last two years! 8) Glad to see that our positions aren't so divergent after all.

But I believe that logic is for logic things, and it's only a tool for deducing properties about mathematical objects. Whether this objects have any correspondence with real ones (truth achievement) is mainly a matter of observation and experimentation, and logic shouldn't be overestimated. A logical deduction in physics must always be contrasted with reality before believed, as it can be based on wrong assumptions.

Specially when applied to non-accordable subjects like religion or art. Science can't give definitive answers on those topics, neither it is it's goal. The task of Science is to describe reality; inventing how should it be (ethics) or why it is that way (religion) can also benefit from reason, but can't be based on the scientific method (logical deduction + experimental corroboration).

And about the "God" affair, in my case it is quite simple - The same evidence you presented in favor of God, I interpret it as evidence against it.

You see, it's all a matter of the subjective point-of-view, because you can't even find direct evidence about the act of creation by an intelligent being. If you could find the construction shack it would be a different thing.

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There's no need to insult anyone.

As long as both agree in the physical definition of the color (that's to say, the color is well-defined) both speakers can agree that the block has those properties.

Myself as a Spanish native speaker have been always told that this color is called 'azul'. Would you dare to say I'm wrong? ;-)

You're correct. I apologize for my rude tone. I'm very frustrated in reading adam's posts because he has a very rude tone in the earlier posts and argues points that he cannot back up. Read back through the posts and he seems to contradict himself a number of times yet he argues feverishly. It's crazy to argue for an absolute truth and contradict yourself in the process.

My point with the block example is that this example which was originally posted by adam is indeed an example of multiple truths. I accept it is not well defined in this sense, but, adam, YOU initiated this example and now you're criticizing my use.

Well I don't think my argument on killing also applies to God. About all I've said about God so far is that God is our intelligent creator. Yes, there exist more than one set of beliefs about God. One religion may believe something about God that another does not. This in no way whatsoever means there is more than one truth. If two different set of beliefs exist then one or both are wrong. End of story. There's only one truth/reality. In being so careful as to only describe God as an intelligent creator it is easy for me to argue that God exists. I haven't even touched on what I believe to be the nature of God yet. I won't ever be able to do this until everyone here admits that there is only one reality. If something is perceived to have two contradictory truths then we have not adequately defined it. So far I've only defined God as an intelligent creator. There is only one truth to this, I'm either right or wrong. Don't argue against my claim about God if you are using different definitions. When I say God exists I'm not saying every God in every religion exists. If you'd like for now I will stop using the term God. My argument is that there is an intelligent creator. Argue for/against that.

OK. I've already agreed that only one truth exist - just review my last post. I call this definition of truth 'reality' or 'existence'.

Before starting, and advice - to make this conversation polite. I personally don't believe in god, but I don't mind if other people do.

The problem with all your arguments is that you are equalling "logic truth" with reality. And this just can't be done because they are different things. Logic truth is ALWAYS related to some initial concepts, whose given properties are called axioms.

In logic, concepts are treated as symbols. What you are saying in your last post means: the symbol GOD is well defined in terms of the symbols INTELLIGENT and CREATOR. These symbols are treated as 'primitives' (in the computer-science meaning of this word). So every logic reasoning needs an a-priori definition. The whole demonstration relies upon a symbol, whose truth (logic truth) has to be assumed, because it's impossible to prove. I'll hardly believe that this symbolic procedure has anything to do with "reality" or "real truth".

The human approach to knowledge is much more complex (and in this, Kant did a great work joining two forked traditions in European philosophy). The principle of knowledge is perception, and accumulated perceptions make the experience needed to develop concepts. Be aware that this doesn't preclude the development of religious concepts and beliefs, since the religious experience is a valid one.

[quote]To reiterate, isn't it remarkable that everything is so ordered, so complex, and so meaningful?[/quote]

The reason everything seems so meaningful and ordered is that your brain has evolved to create meaning and order where there is chaos and disorder. It is just a survival mechanism. Nothing more.

By the way, good discussion. I'm just here for an intelligent exchange, not an argument or flame or anything of the sort...

are these posts appearing out of order Alex?

And my last post seems to have simply vanished altogether!

Adam, I grew up Catholic. For 18 years I went to Sunday school, CCD, then Confirmation. I went to church every day; I understand what is meant by religion and the belief in God.

First, a majority of evidence does not denote truth. Thruth can only be derived, directly, from other truths. If you've ever had to do proofs in math class you would understand this. 2+2=4 is true sole because of it's rules. There is one rule for addition. This is the only rule that applies to that statement. Hence, it is true based on that one rule. If you make a belief, something you defined as "A belief is a bet placed on what we perceive to be truth." you are just as faliable as Newton was. You do not know the entire story, so you can't know truth. You "might" be closer to it than others, but you don't know that. And until someone knows how close you are, you can't claim to be closer than anyone else.

Second, why do you assume that our universe is the first one that God created. Why is it not possible that he failed a million times before he got to the universe that created us. What if he actually thinks as us of failures. Why do we assume we are what he intended in the first place. You state during your challenge to create a virtual universe, "This evolution must lead to the creation of artificial beings as intelligent as you." Are you saying we are as intelligent as God?

Third, why would God create a universe where Human life was so much more important that plant or animal life? Are they strictly for our consumption? Or are they just lessor evolved species who will eventually become as intelligent as us? Talk to Coco about it. She's a great ape who has shown complete self awareness and intelligence to equal our own (even though it's simple as a c5 year old child.) Did God create the universe for her too, or is she just another animal to eat or make a slave?

I had more points, but a friend showed up so I'm distracted now. I will post them later for your review. I like this debate, as it has turned into. I hate arguing, but I think this is a good subject that needs to be clarified for many people.

Truth is only truth if it's based on other actual truths. Specualtion, no matter how much logic follows it, is not truth. There is no proof of God, either way, until we prove every other fact that leads up to him.

I believe in God. I also believe in religion, but not as it has become on earth.

"Yes, there are two paths you can go down, but in the long, there's still time to change the road your on." - Led Zepplin

Welcoming you all to continue this excellent topic http://artificialintelligence.ai-depot.com/Philosophy/1070.html

Arguer A basically argues:

1) It is impossible to prove that God does not exist.
2) There is at least some evidence that God does exist.
3) Therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence, like we generally do in most aspect of life, we should accept the existence of God.

Arguer K replies to this by dismantling Arguer A’s so called evidence for the existence of God, thereby seemingly missing the point that, even if he could destroy nearly all such evidence, such activity couldn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, and so Arguer A’s argument continues that:
2) There is at least some evidence that God does exist.
3) Therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence, like we generally do in most aspect of life, we should accept the existence of God.

Arguer K basically argues:

1) Let’s take the question of whether or not God exists and state it as a proposition that God does exist.
2) Since this proposition is now aligned with my opponent, the burden is on him to prove it.
3) It is impossible to prove that God does exist… Neener-neener-neener

To which arguer A basically responds, “nuh-uh!”

K is at least right in pointing out that A can’t prove God’s existence any more than K could disprove it. The reason neither side can be proven is that the meaning, importance, and validity of any ‘evidence’ is subjective. That being the case, K could certainly find some kind of evidence that indicates, at least to him, that God does not exist and discount any evidence that he does. After all, by A’s own reasoning, no amount of refutation of K’s ‘evidence’ that God does not exist could prove (or even constitute evidence) that he does. And so, given any small amount of evidence K cares to imagine or consider, versus all evidence that he chooses to dismiss as impotent, by a preponderance thereof, he must accept that God does not exist.

A’s argument doesn’t prove that we should accept the existence of God any more than it proves that we should reject it.

I believe that K has correctly dismantled some faulty ‘evidences’, but the items he proposes as evidence for Atheism are nothing of the kind. Yes, they are attempts at refutation of some Theist arguments, but the Atheist claim is that “There is no God”, and as A has correctly pointed out, refuting his evidence makes no steps towards supporting such a claim.

Those issues aside, here are a couple comments on some of A’s ‘evidences’.

“Why the complexity? Does it make any sense at all that we'd be here without intention?”
“You are intelligent, you are intending. If you can't make a universe like our own how can you believe our universe came about without intelligence, without intention?”

These seem to be put forward as evidence of intelligent creation, but they are nothing of the kind. The degree to which complexity is unlikely, seems directly proportional to the degree to which it is unlikely to be intended. The notion that intelligence can’t create our Universe is certainly no evidence that it in fact did. And as K has already pointed out, the fact that one can’t imagine that there could be any other explanation (than the one they im