Cosmology: Latest theories of everything (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 17, 2017, 13:59 (2654 days ago) @ John Kalber

Dhw: “...as if it’s enough to say we don’t know what it is and that proves it must be automatic...
reblak: For so long as the secret of life remains undiscovered, we can only surmise. No help is presently gained by appealing to logic (atheism), praying to a God or sitting (like Humpty Dumpty), precariously balanced on a wall (fence).
You call upon me to accept that my atheism is an irrational faith and therefore carries no greater authority than pretty well any other faith, in that all ‘faith’ is irrational. I am at a loss trying to make sense of this. It has hitherto been my understanding that any belief that results entirely logically from known facts is a rational belief, while beliefs not so founded may well be irrational.

I am NOT saying that atheism is an irrational faith. Atheism is simply rejection of belief in God. (As an agnostic, I neither accept nor reject the belief.) Atheism is not a faith at all. But like most atheists I know, you go beyond rejecting belief in God, which takes us to the secret of life. Yes, we can only surmise. We are not talking about “help” but about belief. In my view, faith is strong belief in something without proof, i.e. NOT resulting “entirely logically from known facts”. That is why I think belief in an unproven, sourceless, omniscient being can be called irrational faith. You confirmed your belief that “living beings can be produced by an impersonal and unconscious force which works automatically”. If you can tell me the known facts which support this belief, I will agree that it is not an irrational faith. (See David’s post for a much more scientific response.)

reblak: I have no difficulty in viewing both my adoption of atheism and my belief in the absolute perfection of the universe as prime examples of rational belief (yes, yes, belief!) Both views employ only known facts in support of their proven efficacy in understanding and solving problems. To define them as irrational, simply because they cannot (yet) explain how life has appeared, or to disparage them as vehicles for rational thought seems itself irrational – In Spades!

I prefer to call atheism the rejection of a belief rather than a belief (see above), but that's not the point here. I agree that rejection is rational. I do not agree that belief in the creative powers of an unconscious force is rational. I still have no idea what you mean by the “absolute perfection” of the universe. If your Mother Nature were to drop a giant asteroid on our Mother Earth, killing me and a few billion others,I'm afraid my dying words would not be “I believe in the absolute perfection of the universe”, but since I don’t know your criteria I really don’t see your point. It certainly has nothing to do with theism or atheism.

Reblak: Challenging me by asking me to show how life can be created, as if my inability to do so were some criterion of the value of my thoughts, of atheism, or some sort of proof that logical explanation is not possible, does not advance my understanding.[...]

Your understanding of what? Of course my challenge won’t advance your understanding of how life came into existence. Your telling me you believe it arose through unconscious automatic processes won’t advance my understanding either. That does not devalue your thoughts on other subjects. Please, please do not take one disagreement to indicate dismissal of all your thoughts! On the contrary, I share your scepticism concerning the Big Bang (but regard this as irrelevant to theism versus atheism), and as regards your next comment (which contradicts your earlier characterization of “Mother Nature”) I had already suggested something similar in my reply to you on 17 July under "Reasons why ID must be considered"(not an apt heading for your debut on this forum!) but you never responded:

Reblak: Dhw suggests that a degree of awareness may exist in cells. My view is similar, but I propose that all the cells inherit awareness from much earlier – i.e. day one!

Dhw: (July 17 @ 09.07): "This brings us back to the problem of how organic life and intelligence arose from inorganic materials – a question nobody can answer. But instead of your “Mother Nature” or David’s God, one can perhaps speculate that even the simplest of materials also have a form of intelligence – far more rudimentary than that of organic cells, but nevertheless endowing them with the ability, as you say, to combine atoms with atoms and form new materials. This idea, as you probably know, is a form of panpsychism, which seems to be enjoying a bit of a revival. What it comes down to basically is life and consciousness evolving bottom up from its most rudimentary forms to its most sophisticated. Some forms of panpsychism are theistic – but one might just as well have faith in a zillion bottom-up evolving consciousnesses as in a single top-down creative consciousness that has existed for ever. I’ll stop here to see whether these ideas have any resonance with you."

I’m delighted to have at least a degree of support for this hypothesis, though I should add that I do not regard it as any more fact-based (rational) than the God hypothesis or the hypothesis that life originated automatically via an impersonal, unconscious force called Mother Nature.