Cosmology: Inflation theory under attack part 3 (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 28, 2017, 14:05 (2372 days ago) @ John Kalber

As regards your problems with the website, all you have to do is locate the relevant post(s) under the heading you are dealing with. If I want to reply to a post, I either print it out, or copy and paste it onto Word, and then edit it down to the points I wish to respond to.

Reblak: I feel I have written and argued virtually all I need to about atheism and religion, so will conclude with two points that relate to evolution and cosmology.
First: I absolutely refute the idea that intelligence is required for 'Mother Nature' to do ‘her thing’. ‘She’ being intrinsically guided by automatic inbuilt responses that I designate as the 'Rules Of Engagement'.

You are purporting to answer my post of 23 October, in which I expressed my agreement with much of what you wrote. However, you have ignored those sections with which I did not agree, which include the all-important problem of intelligence (see below). Joe Bloggs and the maze are no help, and the red shift argument to which you devote so much time is one I have repeatedly accepted on philosophical grounds (I can’t comment on the science). It is David not me who is defending the Establishment view. All I can do now is select and repeat the other problems I have with your arguments and hope that this time you will give me direct answers:

David: How do you know our universe is perfect? It is certainly very dangerous to life, except where it seems protected on Earth.
Reblak: This is easily dealt with. For something to be seen as imperfect requires a comparison. In a comparison, we may be able to select weak points. The Universe stands alone so cannot be ‘compared’. It has no faults as far as I can see.

“It has no faults as far as I can see” depends on your personal definition of perfection, imperfection and faults. You are quite right that there can be no comparison. That is why there is absolutely no point in imposing any of these concepts on it. I’ll repeat what I said in my earlier response: The universe is what it is and does what it does. That’s it.

Reblak: What part does this murder play in suggesting that God set the rules? […]

Since you clearly find this “maximum of cruelty” as repugnant as I do, I wonder how you square it with your personal concept of a “perfect” universe.

Reblak: Being virtually automatic, it has no consciousness, beyond a measure of ‘direction’ generated in sub-atomic and chemical awareness in differing states of being. Until the advent of life, there could be no conscious awareness.

Here you have touched on another subject I have raised in my responses: panpsychism, and the crucial question is precisely the degree of awareness or consciousness (I am not talking of human self-awareness) that may or may not be present in all materials. Do you believe it is sufficient to put together all the components necessary for the enormously complex mechanisms of life, reproduction, and the capacity for evolution leading from bacteria to the human brain? Such belief requires ignorance of these complexities (which seems unlikely in someone as learned as yourself) or a mighty degree of faith.

Dhw: Once more, then, the question of whether he exists or not boils down not to his possible nature but to whether you have sufficient faith in what you call “sub-atomical and chemical awareness” to believe that it is capable of producing the mechanisms described above – a question which you consistently ignore. NB This is a major factor in my own agnosticism, since I do not have that faith.
Reblak: This leaves 'Mother Nature' appearing to be doing it unaided, but – for some, that is not so. They believe God implemented all the 'know how' at outset. Nonetheless, David chooses to believe that his God is not actually all knowing, all powerful, nor absolutely perfect!

I know what others believe. I am challenging your own belief.

Reblak: So - it’s twaddle. All it means is that, for emotional convenience, by simply assuming God’s existence, we can attribute solutions we cannot otherwise find - to a mythical godhead that we invent and empower. Pure superstition – no evidence – just magic. Curiously, apply these assumptions of ‘arcane’ ability directly in favour of 'Mother Nature' and the problems disappear! Well – almost!

A lovely final twinkle. But from my view on the agnostic fence, it's not even “almost”! You are suggesting that the solutions we cannot otherwise find (especially to the problems of origin outlined above, but also to unexplained psychic phenomena) lie in blind, unconscious, chance-directed “Mother Nature”. Once more, if you believe that, you need just as much faith as you need to believe in “Mother Nature’s” other identity as a seeing, conscious, purpose-directed God.