Creation conundrum

[Vlad the Emailer]

Is it fair or relevant to look at the intelligent design issue like this?

When people talk about needing a creator, a lot of it makes sense. For instance, if the earth were even a little bit closer to, or further from, the sun, then life on this planet, as we know it at least, would not be possible.

All around can be seen not only incredible natural beauty, but intricate complexities that boggle even the most brilliant minds.

How could it have just happened? How could it all be by chance?

I think those are fair questions and is why I am agnostic rather that fully atheist. However, I'm atheist enough to ask this question - if God is where we came from, where did God come from?

I've asked religionists this question and they basically answer with the standard "God is perfect and eternal, He didn't have to come from anywhere". That answer is obviously fine for the faithful, but my mind needs more.

If a supreme being is required for our existence, what about his existence?

Any thoughts?

[LSOF]

If the Universe, being so complex, requires a designer, then the designer itself must be even more complex, since a being can't design a thing more complex than itself. Thus the designer, being complex, itself requires a still more complex designer, and the designer's designer also requires one, &c., &c., &c. Which is more parsimonious: an infinitude of designers, or a self-existent Universe?

"How could it have just happened?" I can't see why it's inconceivable. "How could it all be by chance?" It isn't. It's complexity emergent from natural laws and quantum fluctuations.

The circumsolar habitable zone is actually quite wide. The smallest commonly accepted circumsolar habitable zone is between the perihelion of Mars and aphelion of Venus; that is a range of 9.8445 x 10^10 m. That's 66 per cent of the average distance between Earth and the Sun.

[didyoumythme]

You nailed the issue with the creationist response to questions like "where did we come from?". Making 'God' the answer to that question only raises more questions about where God came from, what God is like, why God exists, what it means for us etc. These are all things I feel we cannot know. The reasoning in support of God is very circular.

Q. "How do you know God is perfect and Eternal?"
A. "The scriptures say so."
Q. "Where did your scriptures come from?"
A. "God inspired people to write them."
Q. "How do you know God inspired people to write them?"
A. "The scriptures say so."

I don't see facts such as the distance of the earth from the sun or complexities of life as evidence of a creator God. The vastness of the universe and the eons of history before us are incomprehensible so it can be hard to attribute the fact of our existence to chance. Our minds are wired to try to make sense of the world, which often leads us to attribute meaning to the randomness in it.

[Linked]

I am ok with the earth and life on earth being a product of the laws of physics working in the universe after the big bang.

The thing that gets me wondering is why my consciousness is stuck in this body, and not in another body on another planet. And why "I" exist at all. I think the most profound part of the bible is the stuff about the great I AM.

[wtfluff]

This conversation sounds to me a bit like "The God of the Gaps".

Am I way off base, or not?

[Corsair]

A common description of God in much of the Evangelical or Christian world does try to answer this. God is simply defined as the being that is beyond time and beyond the physical universe as well as all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. He is still a personal God and did manifest Himself in the avatar of Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible and still as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit today. But all your concerns about creation can be solved whether you believe in Young Earth, Old Earth, Intelligent Design, or some other Christian friendly narrative. The "God of the Gaps" does fit in this model. I would welcome any knowledgeable Christians to correct any incorrect views I may have espoused.

The problem is that this is simply insisting on believing in a definition of God, not an empirically discovered god. Evangelicals have a chain of logic from first principles that relies upon this defined view of God. The timeless, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God is an important part of many Christian faiths that supports belief.

[Newme]

I consider 3 main aspects of God:
1. Creator - intelligent design
2. Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics
3. Personal subjective truth - "the kingdom (experience) of God is within you" - ie belief power of placebo effect

You're asking about the 1st, but personally, I see the other 2 more relevant since I don't think in my lifetime I'll get to the point of understanding all of creation and it's less relevant to me than #2 and 3. Still, for the sake of discussion, I imagine that there are many gods - countless - throughout the universe. Some are in charge of more or less advanced civilizations/worlds. Maybe God came from other slightly more advanced gods. To us, it's god - it's like as kids, your parents are like gods - you believe everything they say - gradually, you learn more and don't trust in them anymore - maybe trust in religion, then that fails and you move on to something else to put trust in. Consciousness might meet it's own level, as far as gods (Creators) go. But who knows?

[LSOF]

Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics

What in tarnation do these three things have to do with one another?

[Newme]

Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics

What in tarnation do these three things have to do with one another?

Maybe you can use your computer, as you did to type that, to look it up.
The attitude in your response doesn't make me motivated to do your work for you.

[LSOF]

Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics

What in tarnation do these three things have to do with one another?

Maybe you can use your computer, as you did to type that, to look it up.
The attitude in your response doesn't make me motivated to do your work for you.

They aren't even the same field of study: consciousness is neuroscience, "I am that I am" is theology, and quantum mechanics is physics. Neuroscience deals with the brain, and it has been well-established that consciousness is a product of the brain. The brain is on the order of 100 mm (10^-1 m) in size; quantum mechanics deals with particles on the order of 1 nm (10^-9 m) and smaller. That's eight orders of magnitude. To say that quantum effects can materially affect consciousness is thus like saying that a sacrament cup can materially affect the contents of an Olympic swimming pool. There's a reason that quantum mechanics is a very new field of study.

Theology deals with Judaeo-Christian fables, which can be any size, depending on how they are represented. At any rate, theology is almost entirely based on studying texts, which have no material presence in themselves (though they must have some material representation to exist at all). So pray forgive my incredulity and bafflement when I'm presented with 'Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics'.

[Ghost]

It was kind of a profound realization for me that for questions like these, God appears to be an answer superficially. But positing God's existence doesn't really address the question at all and can even make it more difficult to answer.

If God is a being outside of space and time (as if that were something we can even conceive of, despite it being easy to say), then that seems a whole lot more difficult to explain than how life arose on Earth.

There's also the more basic question "Why is there anything instead of nothing?" God, if out there, is just another part of that anything.

[Dravin]

Is it fair or relevant to look at the intelligent design issue like this?

When people talk about needing a creator, a lot of it makes sense. For instance, if the earth were even a little bit closer to, or further from, the sun, then life on this planet, as we know it at least, would not be possible.

If Earth was in the orbit of say Mars , none of us would be here to marvel that Earth is in the right position for life. Of course if life naturally arises rather than being a consequence of design it's going to find itself in environments suitable to its existence, if the environment isn't suitable to its existence it either won't exist in that environment, it'll be very different, or it'll change the environment given enough time* (see the Great Oxygenation Event for an example of how life changed both the environment of Earth and its suitability for certain forms of life such as us).

This conversation sounds to me a bit like "The God of the Gaps".

Am I way off base, or not?

I'd probably categorize it, at least the initial argument the OP makes, as a form of the Fine-Tuned Universe argument.

[fh451]

I've asked religionists this question and they basically answer with the standard "God is perfect and eternal, He didn't have to come from anywhere". That answer is obviously fine for the faithful, but my mind needs more.

If a supreme being is required for our existence, what about his existence?

As you and others have pointed out, any argument about complexity that posits God as the necessary antecedent of everything that exists doesn't actually answer the question, it just moves the goal posts one length down the field. My response to "everything must have a creator, except God is special and un-created" is that "if God could have always existed, then why couldn't the universe always have existed? Why is positing a bearded white guy in the sky somewhere with ultimate unlimited power MORE plausible than the universe has always existed?" (Yes, I'm setting up a caricature about the definition of God, but definitions of God from many believers aren't much more complicated than that). Now, science tells us that the universe as we observe it seems to have come out of some massive explosive singularity around 14 billion years ago. Therefore, science can't currently say what happened before that - if matter has always existed and cycles through "big bangs" followed by "big crunches", or if there really was "nothing" before that. Hard to say, but I would rather say "I don't know" and keep looking for answers than say it must have been done by an extra-universal intelligent power that no one can observer or measure.

fh451

[Newme]

What in tarnation do these three things have to do with one another?

Maybe you can use your computer, as you did to type that, to look it up.
The attitude in your response doesn't make me motivated to do your work for you.

They aren't even the same field of study: consciousness is neuroscience, "I am that I am" is theology, and quantum mechanics is physics. Neuroscience deals with the brain, and it has been well-established that consciousness is a product of the brain. The brain is on the order of 100 mm (10^-1 m) in size; quantum mechanics deals with particles on the order of 1 nm (10^-9 m) and smaller. That's eight orders of magnitude. To say that quantum effects can materially affect consciousness is thus like saying that a sacrament cup can materially affect the contents of an Olympic swimming pool. There's a reason that quantum mechanics is a very new field of study.

Theology deals with Judaeo-Christian fables, which can be any size, depending on how they are represented. At any rate, theology is almost entirely based on studying texts, which have no material presence in themselves (though they must have some material representation to exist at all). So pray forgive my incredulity and bafflement when I'm presented with 'Consciousness - "I AM THAT I AM" - quantum mechanics'.

I apologize if I jumped to an inaccurate conclusion, but you seemed to have an attitude with me.

You're stating some things that are not 100% proven as if they were. Consciousness has been shown to exist independent of brain activity, suggesting that consciousness (which is energy) does not just zap out of existence upon death, but changes form.

It seems that you require that things be compartmentalized and that there can be no mixing, but that's not how reality is, IMO. Truth is truth - whether it's stated in the bible, or neuroscience or quantum mechanics books. And often, the same thing may be viewed and explained from different perspectives or fields of study. "I AM THAT I AM" is the biblical way of stating that God is essentially that consciousness aware of that consciousness - in all. It's very similar to Leibniz's theory on monads as the fundamental basis of matter - all based on perception at the subatomic, quantum level. Quantum mechanics suggests that just by conscious focus, matter can be altered, even if just slightly. Some have theorized the possibility of consciousness creating the brain. "The quantum mind or quantum consciousness[1] group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. It posits that quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and superposition, may play an important part in the brain's function and could form the basis of an explanation of consciousness."

[LSOF]

I apologize if I jumped to an inaccurate conclusion, but you seemed to have an attitude with me.

You're stating some things that are not 100% proven as if they were. Consciousness has been shown to exist independent of brain activity, suggesting that consciousness (which is energy) does not just zap out of existence upon death, but changes form.

It seems that you require that things be compartmentalized and that there can be no mixing, but that's not how reality is, IMO. Truth is truth - whether it's stated in the bible, or neuroscience or quantum mechanics books. And often, the same thing may be viewed and explained from different perspectives or fields of study. "I AM THAT I AM" is the biblical way of stating that God is essentially that consciousness aware of that consciousness - in all. It's very similar to Leibniz's theory on monads as the fundamental basis of matter - all based on perception at the subatomic, quantum level. Quantum mechanics suggests that just by conscious focus, matter can be altered, even if just slightly. Some have theorized the possibility of consciousness creating the brain. "The quantum mind or quantum consciousness[1] group of hypotheses propose that classical mechanics cannot explain consciousness. It posits that quantum mechanical phenomena, such as quantum entanglement and superposition, may play an important part in the brain's function and could form the basis of an explanation of consciousness."

I know "some" (e.g. Deepak Chopra) have theorized consciousness creating the brain. Does the brain cease to exist when a person dies or becomes unconscious? If it doesn't, then consciousness does not create the brain, and that hypothesis is falsified.

Neuroscience deals with macroscopic phenomena (the brain). The brain is much too hot and much too large to be materially affected by quantum effects. On large scales, the Universe is predictable; otherwise science would never have formed.

You seem to be confused by the talk of "observation" in quantum mechanics. "Observation" in quantum mechanics does not require a conscious actor.

"I am that I am" is an archaic way of saying "I am what I am". It's a mere tautology.

Who has shown that consciousness is independent of the brain?

I am not opposed to commingling of scientific disciplines with good reason. What good reason is there to mingle quantum mechanics and neuroscience?

[Raylan Givens]

Great book that got me thinking about science and a creator

https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Novel-Creatio ... 030774485X

Author is a professor of both English and physics at MIT, also very short.

Us gunslingers don't have much time for reading

[Vlad the Emailer]

Wow, great discussion. Thanks all, for your contributions.

This surprised me:

The circumsolar habitable zone is actually quite wide. The smallest commonly accepted circumsolar habitable zone is between the perihelion of Mars and aphelion of Venus; that is a range of 9.8445 x 10^10 m. That's 66 per cent of the average distance between Earth and the Sun.

I've always heard it the way I put it in the OP, which is pretty much the opposite of this, as you point out. The point I've oft heard made is that just a few degrees difference in the average temperature (caused by being closer or further from, the sun) would alter our world substantially - you know, melting the polar icecaps thus raising the sea level and all that type of thing.

[moksha]

Deep Mormon theology is able to leap the conundrum crevasse in both directions. The first God of all creation was able to evolve through natural processes. Subsequent Gods in the chain of Gods were able to be created by this first Ur-God and thus were molded to the pathway of Eternal Progression. We are unable to determine (doesn't mean Elder Bruce R. McConkie did not have it figured out to the millimeter) where our own God fits on this timeline, but it is guessed to be at least 3rd generation Godlihoodness.

[ulmite]

If you take the Intelligent design viewpoint, you get stuck on what entity created the first God.
If you are a complete atheist, you're left with the emergence of matter, life, and intelligence. It's conceivable that life managed over a few billion years to pop up spontaneously and that intelligent life also evolved from those humble cells. The Big Bang however, being defined in a sense as t=0 for our universe poses the exact same problem as a Creator : what happened before?

Fun thoughts :
Knowing that we are here wondering about this question, the probability of intelligent life existing somewhere in the Universe is exactly 1.
If there is no beginning, there were at least א‎0 many Gods before our own. If there was an uncountable infinity of them, we can't reach the beginning with genealogy.

[Craig Paxton]

Is it fair or relevant to look at the intelligent design issue like this?

When people talk about needing a creator, a lot of it makes sense. For instance, if the earth were even a little bit closer to, or further from, the sun, then life on this planet, as we know it at least, would not be possible.

Another way of looking at this is...The earths placement in relation to the Sun IS WHY life was able even start and then evolve on earth. See no need for a creator...which is why those who study cosmology are looking for life ONLY on planets in other solar systems that have a similar proximity to their respective sun...its the only place in the universe that we know for certain can sustain life (as we understand it)