cosmic design discussion continued..

[smcproductions]

shev posted this a while back, and i figure i'd add to it since i have nothing better to do...

"I have limited reading on the subject, but Cosmic Design certainly makes a lot of sense. It's basically saying that the chaces of us being alive by mere chance are rediculous like 1:100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

Because of the highly improbable chance that we do exist (cosmically, not individually), it is said that this has to be the consequence of some design...which implies there must be a designer.

The fact that cosmologists have picked up on other dimensions of time really puts the whole idea into perspective. I've heard that those educated enough to do the detailed reading are renouncing athiesm."

what you're refering to is actually called intelligent design, which implies, as you said before, that complex organisms occuring by chance is too improbable and must have a designer.

quote from wikipedia.org:

"The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science. While the scientific model of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, and speciation, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability."

not to say that i completely disregard the possibillity of ID, however i'm going to have to go with the bulk of the scientific community on this one. there is no solid evidence or a means to test the theory, so until there is, saying there must be a designer is still just as much a leap of faith to me as outright atheism is. however i have a lot more respect for religious types who accept that nature and evolution have a part in our existance a hell of a lot more than people who think god just made us out of a clump of dirt.

[1:(]

I can't bring myself to rule out the possibility of either side being right. So I guess I'm agnostic.

[sc00ts]

nothing improbable has ever happened

[Shevy]

smcproductions said:

what you're refering to is actually called intelligent design, which implies, as you said before, that complex organisms occuring by chance is too improbable and must have a designer.

quote from wikipedia.org:

"The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science. While the scientific model of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, and speciation, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability."

not to say that i completely disregard the possibillity of ID, however i'm going to have to go with the bulk of the scientific community on this one. there is no solid evidence or a means to test the theory, so until there is, saying there must be a designer is still just as much a leap of faith to me as outright atheism is. however i have a lot more respect for religious types who accept that nature and evolution have a part in our existance a hell of a lot more than people who think god just made us out of a clump of dirt.

Very good point. I'll agree that cosmic/intelligent design is still a leap of faith, but here's an example for you...Let's say you're walking through the woods and happen to find a large stack of sticks laying on the ground. Upon closer inspection you see that the sticks are perfectly arranged to form a life like mini-log cabin. There are two ways this could have been arranged like this:
1. The sticks fell from trees which just happened to be blown together by the wind to form a perfect structure.
2. Somebody built it.

While both of those ways are entirely possible, it would make more sense to think that somebody had actually arranged those sticks to build a perfect mini-log cabin than the wind just blowing them together by chance.

Yes, it's a tough theory to prove, but it makes sense. Technically, the theory of gravity is still just that. An unproven theory.

The more thought I put into the subject, the more I buy into this theory. What are the chances you could grab a box full of dishes, silverware, and food...throw them into the air...and have it arranged perfectly on the table by the time it all landed like in the cartoons? It's not impossible, but like our existence today, it's so highly unlikely that there's not a man in the world that wouldn't bet his last dime it wouldn't happen.

[sc00ts]

"1. The sticks fell from trees which just happened to be blown together by the wind to form a perfect structure.
2. Somebody built it."

poor analogy. when you say "somebody" built it i assume you mean a normal human person. i already know normal human persons exist. did the universe randomly come into being or did some cosmic intelligence create it... well, i've never experienced a cosmic intelligence so i'm leaning towards random.

[Shevy]

My analogy was geared towards the idea that one would believe that a higher intelligence than our own was possible. Regardless, let's work off of your idea. If I saw a perfect structure of a log cabin sitting in the woods, and I was assured that it was either created by random chaos or by a cosmic intelligence...and there could not be any other possible option as to how it got there...I would choose the cosmic intelligence.

One would have better odds of winning the jackpot of your local state lottery once a week for an entire year than for nature to randomly construct something so intricate.

[sc00ts]

i don't care how slim the odds are, the combination only has to happen ONCE. and as far as we can tell thus far HAS only happened once in zillion years.

[Satanic Ninja]

Only Satan is real.

[Shevy]

It all comes down to possibilities. I simply think it is a better possibility that our existance was designed by a higher intelligence than for us to exist at random by overcoming odds that are so absurd that it might as well be classified as impossible.

And by impossible, I'm not talking about picking the right single grain of sand out of every grain of sand on every beach in the world. I did a quick search, and the actual odds of us existing based on Roger Penrose's research (close friend to the better known Stephen Hawking) are 1 to 10^10,123. That's the number 1 followed by 10,123 zeros. In order to get an idea of how large a number that is, picture our entire universe. Now picture every single atom which makes up our universe. It is estimated that the number of atoms that make up our universe is only 10^78.

So that means if you gave every single atom in our universe a number, and guessed that exact number 129 times in a row, you still wouldn't equal the odds of us existing.

That's about as close to impossible as I can fathom. Especially when you consider our universe is only roughly 15,000,000,000 years old.

[thrashed]

I think this is probably the most the most complex topic to ever show up on kickedintheface. i read shevy's thoeries and start believing that maybe god did create us but like scoots said the combination only has to happen once (through the entire history of the universe) and it would spawn life for a long time. but if the odds of us exsisting are as unlikley as Shevy said it makes you wonder.

[Shevy]

Just for the hell of it, here roughly the number for our odds: 1:1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 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That's a big freakin' number.

[smcproductions]

admin said:

My analogy was geared towards the idea that one would believe that a higher intelligence than our own was possible. Regardless, let's work off of your idea. If I saw a perfect structure of a log cabin sitting in the woods, and I was assured that it was either created by random chaos or by a cosmic intelligence...and there could not be any other possible option as to how it got there...I would choose the cosmic intelligence.

One would have better odds of winning the jackpot of your local state lottery once a week for an entire year than for nature to randomly construct something so intricate.

yes, its like the old "watch maker" argument, however i dont really think you're taking into account how vast the universe is.

"Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion stars in the known universe. That is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, or 230 billion times as much as the 300 billion in our own Milky Way."

so taking into account how many stars there are and how many planets orbiting those stars that are suitable for life, not to mention the incredible amount of time it has all been here since the big bang, with new stars and planets forming within that span of time, the question comes to mind. is it really that unlikely that at some point life would eventually happen somewhere?

all it takes is for one-celled organisms to form in a suitable environment. perhaps the organisms on earth were resillient, you know what i mean? maybe it wasnt all by chance that we'd evolve into such complex beings, but perhaps an organism's will to survive, and natural instincts played a large role in our evolution. i mean, it had to take a lot of time, work, and sacrifice on the organism's behalf. it wasnt just as if these lifeforms sat there and waited for the forces of nature to adapt their bodies for them. however, dead sticks in the forrest have no instincts or a will of their own. where ever outside forces take a stick, that's where it goes, so it is highly unlikely that the wind and gravity would just randomly make a quaint little cabin, actually it's more than safe to say that it will never happen EVER. however, a living being, even a simple one, can adapt to it's environment or often it can find a new, more suitable environment. each individual offspring of an organism is unique. say you have a generation of anteaters, all well-suited for their current evironment. some offspring have shorter tounges and some have longer tounges. suddenly the environment changes and the ones with shorter tounges cannot get enough food and die out. the longer-tounged animals would then flourish and thrive in their new environment. eventually after years and years of new generations adapting in this way to evironmental changes, it becomes a completely new species. now i know this is all very obvious and basic, but does it really take a higher force for something like that to happen, or is it the organism's abillty to survive what nature throws at it? i seriously, seriously doubt that we're all here by pure chance, but i dont think chance and supreme diety are the only two options. i hope i'm making a little sense here. it's hard for a pea brain like me to express my thoughts when it comes to something as mind boggling as the origins of life and the universe. i've been getting drunk all day with a sexy hosewife that's friends with my mom, so my mind is a bit cloudy.

again, i am not disputing the concept of ID, however what gets to me about most of it's supporters is that they completely throw away the concept of evolution without a creator, while personally i think it's just as likely.

[smcproductions]

never mind my earlier statement about not taking into account how vast our universe is, however there is a theory that the big bang and the big crunch (the reduction of all matter in the universe into a compacted singularity) has happened numerous times. so if this is true, out of all the universes that may have been, then maybe that evens the odds a bit? i dont know.

by the way, is that insanely large number the odds of complex structures randomly occuring, or just life begining on a planet?

[smcproductions]

oh! and real quick, one more thing comes to mind, that there are numerous universes "banging" and "crunching" outside the reach of our own, known as the omniverse. reality as a whole could very well be infinite. it's pretty far fetched, i think but if that were true, it would certainly even the odds significantly.

[thrashed]

there must be somthing out there look at those fucking crop circles. they are way too complex for humans to make. maybe aliens created us. but I don't beleive in aliens that much because if humans were created out of chance, then the chances of another race existing is pretty slim. like 2 races existing is twice as unlikely if the chances of humans coming to existence is as unlikely as shevy said

[smcproductions]

crop circles have been proven as hoaxes.

[thrashed]

how?like how did they prove them hoaxes? and how could humans build somthing that accurate?

[smcproductions]

actually i just looked it up. it's said that the ones that appear authentic are probably by some natural phenomena that science has yet to explain. however, just because we havent figured it out yet doesnt mean we should jump to conclusions.

on a related note, show me a grey alien and i'll show you a new believer in intelligent design. given the improbabillity that we exsist in the first place, what are the odds that there will be upright, bipedal primates on a distant planet? not only would life have to form somewhere, the animals would have have to evolve almost identically to result in a species that resembles us so much. now, THAT is near impossible!

[thrashed]

that's exactly what i said about it being even more unlikley that there's 2 upright races in the universe, however if there was a god that created us he could have created other races too right? I just don't know how nature can form shapes like that plus the shaped seem to mean somthing (for example a picture of the milky way) and they were to complex for man or nature to create imo. Anyway there was this guy my parents knew who was perfectly normal-until he thought he was abducted by aliens. it started when he drove to Winnipeg and he claims he lost count of 3 hours of driving time. he said the trip took 3 hours more than it should have. him and my dad used to go camping all the time and he's afraid of it now, for some reason. he also said he's seen weird stuff in the sky, has had marks appear on his body and he doesn't know what it's from, has had serious sleeping disorders and strange dreams, and other stuff that he can't talk about. Do I believe him? well he was a normal man, with a hot wife (well their devorced now) a good job, and a nice house. he's still pretty normall but when i asked my dad about him he just says he's alright yet he doesn't hang around with him any more

[Shevy]

smcproductions said:

yes, its like the old "watch maker" argument, however i dont really think you're taking into account how vast the universe is.

Eh...the watch maker arguement is bunk, in my opinion.

"Astronomers estimate that there are at least 70 sextillion stars in the known universe. That is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, or 230 billion times as much as the 300 billion in our own Milky Way."

so taking into account how many stars there are and how many planets orbiting those stars that are suitable for life, not to mention the incredible amount of time it has all been here since the big bang, with new stars and planets forming within that span of time, the question comes to mind. is it really that unlikely that at some point life would eventually happen somewhere?

Unfortunately I am not very knowledgable in astronomy, but from my understanding nobody has yet to find a planet which could possibly host life. On top of which, there would have to be another planet out there that is just the right distance away from the star, rotate just so, revolve around the star just so, etc. There are all kinds of variables which come into play, none of which have been witnessed by mankind so far. And mankind has telescopes so strong they can actually see across time (meaning scientists think they have found evidence of 5th & 6th dimensions).

all it takes is for one-celled organisms to form in a suitable environment. perhaps the organisms on earth were resillient, you know what i mean? maybe it wasnt all by chance that we'd evolve into such complex beings, but perhaps an organism's will to survive, and natural instincts played a large role in our evolution. i mean, it had to take a lot of time, work, and sacrifice on the organism's behalf. it wasnt just as if these lifeforms sat there and waited for the forces of nature to adapt their bodies for them. however, dead sticks in the forrest have no instincts or a will of their own. where ever outside forces take a stick, that's where it goes, so it is highly unlikely that the wind and gravity would just randomly make a quaint little cabin, actually it's more than safe to say that it will never happen EVER. however, a living being, even a simple one, can adapt to it's environment or often it can find a new, more suitable environment. each individual offspring of an organism is unique. say you have a generation of anteaters, all well-suited for their current evironment. some offspring have shorter tounges and some have longer tounges. suddenly the environment changes and the ones with shorter tounges cannot get enough food and die out. the longer-tounged animals would then flourish and thrive in their new environment. eventually after years and years of new generations adapting in this way to evironmental changes, it becomes a completely new species. now i know this is all very obvious and basic, but does it really take a higher force for something like that to happen, or is it the organism's abillty to survive what nature throws at it? i seriously, seriously doubt that we're all here by pure chance, but i dont think chance and supreme diety are the only two options. i hope i'm making a little sense here. it's hard for a pea brain like me to express my thoughts when it comes to something as mind boggling as the origins of life and the universe. i've been getting drunk all day with a sexy hosewife that's friends with my mom, so my mind is a bit cloudy.

I would hardly call you a "pea brain". None the less, while I'm sure a species' genetic mutations which enable them to outperform and adapt to change play a part in why we're here, just the possibility of life in general is a tough one to overcome.

again, i am not disputing the concept of ID, however what gets to me about most of it's supporters is that they completely throw away the concept of evolution without a creator, while personally i think it's just as likely.

I don't understand why people can't believe in a higher authority and evolution co-existing. It's almost like the sides have been split up between "an old man sitting in the clouds that made Adam & Eve out of Play-Doh" and "fish grew legs/I fap it to The Gay Science".