Today, Matt characterized natural selection as "unguided order". how about the analogy of several items tossed into a swimming pool? They may all begin by hitting random spots, but in time, the environment will filter the lighter items up to the top, and the heavier to the bottom.
Do we need to believe that God was holding the more dense items down, or is it sufficient to accept that environmental factors can create order without an intelligent driving force?
I could so refute Kazim on the ontological argument. I did not get any responses the last time I defended it here. You cannot refute modal logic."
Except it's not good logic. It's flawed logic, and most people HATE it because it's borring annoying masturbatory truthyness garbage.
A concept does not require a mind to exist, reality is independent of observation therefore no mind is needed for it. If a tree falls in the forest it makes NOISE as defined by longitudinal waves of the air molecules even if there are no beings to sense them and translate it into SOUND. abstract concepts are descriptive of phenomena in the universe and are algorithms to explain them, they themselves do NOT exist in the pure universe...the phenomena they represent MAY exist independently but it may not be objects, it may be events or the relationships between objects. 2 in of itself does not exist in the real universe. It is a mental construct defined by humans to quantify a number of items. An alien race that entered our universe that thought in binary would have NO concept of two. Our two would be their ten. Two in of itself does not exist. Two apples exist, two watches exist two dildos exist, two twos do not. Two is just the observation that that pile of TWO apples has the same quantity of apples as that pile of TWO watches has of watches. If the universe were made up of ONLY apples or for the geekish of us SHRIMP, then TWO would be an objective part of the universe. It would be every pair of shrimp. When we have more than just shrimp two now is the observation that two sets of objects share the same perceived property. I don't know WHY this is hard to grasp for theists.
REGARDLESS of all that. even if we assume that the abstract are non-physical independent 'objects' of the universe that exist of themselves, that STILL doesn't imply a God. Socrates thousands of years ago proposed a model for such a universe (world of forms and world of substances) that does NOT require a God.
(EDIT) I was going to end this with something snarky but...i've been doing that way too much here and don't want to be an asshole. So I'll just end it by pointing out the Ontological argument ONLY works if you argue around that and try to externalize that which are mental processes.
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Oh, if only it were true!
ReplyDeleteAnd then next week Matt can explain the problem of evil with hand puppets? Please? I'll give him a dollar!
I hope that wasn't the plan, because as far as I know I'm not on today.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations for the program, the atheists of Brazil fully supported
ReplyDeleteWhat the first dude said... HAND PUPPETS! You'll have to give a blow-by-blow narraitive for those of us listening to the podcast, though =)
ReplyDeleteIs it still a spoon? I only ask because I woke up with a feeling that today was going to be the day...
I imagine the dance would involve a LOT of Michael Jackson's groin grab move and accompanying "time warp" pelvic thrusts.
ReplyDeleteToday, Matt characterized natural selection as "unguided order". how about the analogy of several items tossed into a swimming pool? They may all begin by hitting random spots, but in time, the environment will filter the lighter items up to the top, and the heavier to the bottom.
ReplyDeleteDo we need to believe that God was holding the more dense items down, or is it sufficient to accept that environmental factors can create order without an intelligent driving force?
I could so refute Kazim on the ontological argument. I did not get any responses the last time I defended it here.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot refute modal logic.
I could so refute Kazim on the ontological argument. I did not get any responses the last time I defended it here.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot refute modal logic."
Except it's not good logic. It's flawed logic, and most people HATE it because it's borring annoying masturbatory truthyness garbage.
A concept does not require a mind to exist, reality is independent of observation therefore no mind is needed for it. If a tree falls in the forest it makes NOISE as defined by longitudinal waves of the air molecules even if there are no beings to sense them and translate it into SOUND. abstract concepts are descriptive of phenomena in the universe and are algorithms to explain them, they themselves do NOT exist in the pure universe...the phenomena they represent MAY exist independently but it may not be objects, it may be events or the relationships between objects. 2 in of itself does not exist in the real universe. It is a mental construct defined by humans to quantify a number of items. An alien race that entered our universe that thought in binary would have NO concept of two. Our two would be their ten. Two in of itself does not exist. Two apples exist, two watches exist two dildos exist, two twos do not. Two is just the observation that that pile of TWO apples has the same quantity of apples as that pile of TWO watches has of watches. If the universe were made up of ONLY apples or for the geekish of us SHRIMP, then TWO would be an objective part of the universe. It would be every pair of shrimp. When we have more than just shrimp two now is the observation that two sets of objects share the same perceived property. I don't know WHY this is hard to grasp for theists.
REGARDLESS of all that. even if we assume that the abstract are non-physical independent 'objects' of the universe that exist of themselves, that STILL doesn't imply a God. Socrates thousands of years ago proposed a model for such a universe (world of forms and world of substances) that does NOT require a God.
(EDIT) I was going to end this with something snarky but...i've been doing that way too much here and don't want to be an asshole. So I'll just end it by pointing out the Ontological argument ONLY works if you argue around that and try to externalize that which are mental processes.
Let me just say that I love the dice jars. This was a great episode; the best part was when Tracie said "you're messing up my model. Put it back!"
ReplyDeleteKudos, Matt and Tracie, for an exceptionally fun episode.