The odds for God (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, May 21, 2011, 04:56 (4914 days ago) @ David Turell


> > It's not just a math point of view--you've referred to this a couple times in similar cycles. If I characterize you properly, you refer to the "math point of view" as that closed system that deals only in proofs, cold, stark, and pure logic? 
> 
> I don't know or understand math like you do. All I know is as you describe above. 
> > 
> > My point is deeper than that. If you want to be able to compute the odds of any event, you need to have more information than "it's happened once." 
> 
> But if you know the requirements to put together DNA and/or RNA, and we do know their structure, what are the odds of it happening by chance. Can't that be computed?
> -It can be computed--but there's a fallacy here. -Correlating that back to the "black wall" and further is folly. You admitted to me once that we're trying to reason back from today's life, and that we have no real reason to assume that life at or near the time of abiogenesis follows exactly the same rules or logic as life of today. -You will likely disagree with me, but computing based on your criteria above makes a series of assumptions that to me, seem unwarranted. Again, I come from the school--no--personal philosophy (since no school agrees with me) that we need to do EVERYTHING possible to perform abiogenesis. Shapiro and his contemporaries tried to limit themselves... there's no need for that limit. In programming, my methodology is "just make it work... then optimize." Same thing for this problem. Too many constraints... that's why I applaud work of this kind.-> 
> > > As for your fine tuning comment; great way to look at it. But I take a reverse view of your point. 
> 
> > You didn't address my main thrust however--that two equally logical claims coming from the same evidence simply points to the lack of a solution. (Here's where the more traditional "math side" enters...)
> 
> I understand that. But about my point above.... Can we calculate the chance for DNA?-Yeah; but like I said before it's a "weather prediction." You're predicting based on incomplete information, assuming that you can extrapolate today's knowledge back 4Bn years. You assume that life at all junctures had to have identical property(ies) that we find in modern DNA. I don't think this is the case. -A good exercise for you here is to enumerate ALL of your assumptions. Fire them out and maybe I can weaken/strengthen some of them...-More importantly, does your computation mean anything when you can't falsify your conclusion? You've expressed reservations concering Popper, but his assessment of how science works fits with Kuhn's and I find no logical reason to abandon it... and in general it is the de facto standard that science operates by.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"