h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just following the logic.

I'm sorry, warner. My trick question was uncalled for.

>>My trick question was uncalled for<<

No, it probably wasn't . ( post 14516 )

Hi Warner,

>"AND IT IS We who have built the universe with power/support; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it."
Quran - 51:47

Or did you mean:
"We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof).
Quran - 51:47

And let's not forget:
"when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring"
Quran - 18:86

Gif

Hi Ed,

Thinking more about your book request, two quite good books I have read are:

Paul Davies - The Goldilocks Enigma
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics

Gif

Taliesin,

"A clear-thinking atheist must also be agnostic, at least with respect to undefined gods: "I don't know exactly what you mean by 'god', and I do not believe such a thing exists, so lacking a clear definition it is not logically possible to state categorically that such a thing either exists or does not exist""

I don't actually agree with this. Suppose I said "Slarzimukbrak exists" and demanded that you take a position on this. Personally, I think you'd be well within your rights to tell me that it made no sense to take a position on an undefined or meaningless proposition. However, this is understating the case. Saying "God exists" is more like saying "Slarzimukbrak fingabrugl" and demanding that you agree that one of "Slarzimukbrak fingabrugl" or "It is not the case that Slarzimukbrak fingabrugl" must be true.

The thing is that for every object X (except X=God) in the statement "X exists" we can say what we mean by it. "Tables exist" - yes we can point to a table. "Bugs Bunny exists" - either yes if we mean by this is that there is a fictional character Bugs Bunny, or no if we mean there is an actual walking talking rabbit that we could point to. "The solution to x^2=2 exists" - yes, and it's approximately 1.41. This last one is tricky because the solution isn't an actual object but a mathematical construct, so existence means the mathematical sense of existence (i.e. there is a sequence of mathematical statements each validly deduced from the previous one starting from axioms and ending in the statement (Ex)x^2=2).

OK so the meaning of "exists" varies but in every case we can explain the sense in which we mean it. In the case of God we cannot say what the word "exists" means in the statement "God exists". It doesn't mean anything like any of the forms of the word "exist" in my examples above (it doesn't refer to anything physical, it doesn't refer to a fictional character - obviously it does but that's not what the theists mean by it - and it doesn't refer to a mathematical statement). If it had a meaning, it would be unique to the one sentence "God exists". So by saying "God exists" I'm asserting not only the truth of that sentence, but first that there is a meaning for the verb "exists" in this case without saying or even knowing what that meaning is or how I would identify it. And we simply cannot use language in this way. I could go on about this and argue that we CANNOT find a meaning for the verb "exists" that applies to God, but I'll leave it there for the moment.

In conclusion: a clear-thinking atheist doesn't need to be agnostic in the sense of admitting that there is a possibility that they are wrong and that God does exist. True, they also can't take the position that God definitely doesn't exist, but they can sidestep the whole argument and say that God talk is gibberish and they refuse to play the game.

Gif

>>Or did you mean:
"We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof).<<

No, I didn't mean that. I am not a professor of classical arabic, but I think that
if anybody does their research thouroughly, they will find that:

"and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it."

is a correct and more literal meaning.

>>Anything by McGrath ought to be OK then. Not that I've read any of it myself. Oh, and some obscure bloke called CS Lewis.

Good [thing], no! In my experience, they're both dreadful!

>>If technology ever progresses to where it becomes possible to reliably model 'ought' problems to the level of infallibly predicting individual decisions, it will also have reached the stage where such predictions will become unnecessary.


No! It would still only model the decision, not whether the decision was the 'best' one. How is 'best' defined?

(Although I concede that if by 'best' we mean 'whatever the individuals choose for themselves' - you're right. Ish. But even then...would they have been happier with another decision?)

The Tao of Physics I know (and don't much like, actually). The Goldilocks Enigma I know of.

They're not quite the sort of thing I mean, though. They deal with creation rather than religious belief. I think what I'd rather see is something that dealt with (ahem) the other magesterium and how religious beliefs can be squared with the fact that science makes religion look silly.

"Although I concede that if by 'best' we mean 'whatever the individuals choose for themselves' - you're right. Ish. But even then...would they have been happier with another decision?"

Ah, but that's another question entirely. What we want versus what we need. And again those could be modelled. It's all cause and effect. And if we know the rules which connect cause with effect then we have the model.

Which is exactly what I've been trying to say! Another question - and a non-scientific one!

Even if I concede that that it's *theoretically* possible to scientifically model all of cause and effect - then how big's the model? It's a parallel universe, surely?

And whose job is it to create universes?

Should we be 'agnostic' wrt fairies? We can't disprove their existence but in all likihood they do not exist hence one can based on previous information etc be athiestic towards fairies, same with gods.

I have always been fascinated with maths!

Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry and a DNA 'expert' calculated:

The probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins
found in a single bacteria was found to be in the order of 10 ^ -40000.

Doesn't that lead to us thinking that the likelihood of the spontaneous
formation of life from inanimate matter to be EXTREMELY unlikely ?

"then how big's the model? It's a parallel universe, surely?"

That is an interesting question. If we model a system completely (be it a simple mechanical lever, a human being or a universe) then is there actually any difference between the model and the reality?
If we do make such a model and it is accurate at time t then will it diverge from that which it is modelling at t+n or will the reality and model continue to be the same? If all is rule based and ordered then they will. If all is based on chaos then they may not.

Equally, human beings (for example) exist as a sub sytem within the universe system. As such, is it possible to fully and accurately model a human being without first modelling the universe and running it until it has created humans?

And then continuing to run it so that the human interacts with its environment - most significantly, with many other humans, including those that preceded him/her...

Don't scientists usually construct models to *simplify* a problem?

indeed

"Don't scientists usually construct models to *simplify* a problem?"
no.

Can't we consider humans as a (tautological) model for themselves?