How do you explain self organisation in nature?

[Skashion]

Alan Turing -- the apple logo was based on him
Did ja know that ?

I don't know if that's what the modern version is about but I know absolutely that the first one was about Newton, not Turing:

Apple was also just a name Woz and Jobs came up with on a drive, and couldn't think of anything better, and was probably influenced by the time Jobs spent living in an apple orchard commune. The influence of Newton and/or Turing in the name itself is non-existent.

 

[mammutly]

Anybody who believes that the natural world was created by a series of random accidents has lost the ability to think.

How arrogant is it to mock an explanation just because it doesn't meet your particular belief crteria.

God having created the natural world is actually more possible that it having evolved via millions upon millions of random events, some of which had more longevity than others. Simple probability theory will tell you that.

I'd really love to hear you describe how probablity points towards a god. I really would.

Some kind of non random influence is decidedly ( and I use that word deliberately) more probable than an explantaion based upon chance alone.

I've asked you before to explain the assumptions which underpin your reasoning and you have declined to answer, so don't expect much of a epistemological debate out of me.

You assume therefore you know and I don't want to waste my time arguing with that kind of closed mindedness.

 

[GStar]

I'd actually be interested to hear your foundations for belief in a higher being and how it stands up to the usual counters 'men of faith' are challenged with.

 

[pee dubya]

I'd really love to hear you describe how probablity points towards a god. I really would.

Some kind of non random influence is decidedly ( and I use that word deliberately) more probable than an explantaion based upon chance alone.

I've asked you before to explain the assumptions which underpin your reasoning and you have declined to answer, so don't expect much of a epistemological debate out of me.

You assume therefore you know and I don't want to waste my time arguing with that kind of closed mindedness.

Doesn't that just depend on your point of view? I mean surely the probability of a creator existing can't be any greater than the probability of anything else existing, because both of them would have to have come from nothing. I assume that a creator of everything (God) must be a complex thing, and therefore the sudden existence of a God, where there was no God before, surely has to be less likely than the sudden existence of a far less complicated and unorganised set of molecules, which then over a vast period of time became organised.

Or has God always existed and there was never nothing?

 

[mammutly]

Some kind of non random influence is decidedly ( and I use that word deliberately) more probable than an explantaion based upon chance alone.

I've asked you before to explain the assumptions which underpin your reasoning and you have declined to answer, so don't expect much of a epistemological debate out of me.

You assume therefore you know and I don't want to waste my time arguing with that kind of closed mindedness.

Doesn't that just depend on your point of view? I mean surely the probability of a creator existing can't be any greater than the probability of anything else existing, because both of them would have to have come from nothing. I assume that a creator of everything (God) must be a complex thing, and therefore the sudden existence of a God, where there was no God before, surely has to be less likely than the sudden existence of a far less complicated and unorganised set of molecules, which then over a vast period of time became organised.

Or has God always existed and there was never nothing?

Let's reduce all of that to the base question.

The probability of life evolving accidently is less than the probability of it being created.

The proof of a creators existence is not logically necessary for that to be true.

 

[GStar]

I can see a line of evolution which could be used to back up the 'acidental begining' Big Bang theory.

I've seen no evidence that backs up an original 'creator'.

How have you come to these probabilities and how did the creator get to 'be', hypothetically?

 

[pee dubya]

Doesn't that just depend on your point of view? I mean surely the probability of a creator existing can't be any greater than the probability of anything else existing, because both of them would have to have come from nothing. I assume that a creator of everything (God) must be a complex thing, and therefore the sudden existence of a God, where there was no God before, surely has to be less likely than the sudden existence of a far less complicated and unorganised set of molecules, which then over a vast period of time became organised.

Or has God always existed and there was never nothing?

Let's reduce all of that to the base question.

The probability of life evolving accidently is less than the probability of it being created.

The proof of a creators existence is not logically necessary for that to be true.

I can't agree with that, for a start i'm 100% convinced that life evolved 'accidently', what i'm unsure about is how the stuff that became life got there.

 

[eagle]

I heard that also and can see why that would be plauable but my understanding was that in an interview with Rob Janoff, the designer of the logo, he denied this.

Never heard ofjanoff - who he and what he say ?

He is a designer attributed with coming up with the apple logo. The following link includes a radio interview where he speaks about the apple logo:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.robjanoff.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.robjanoff.com/</a>

The second link includes his views on the notion that the apple logo was a tribute to Turing:

<a class="postlink" href="http://creativebits.org/interview/interview_rob_janoff_designer_apple_logo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://creativebits.org/interview/inter ... apple_logo</a><br /><br />-- Sun Jul 11, 2010 12:51 am --<br /><br />

Let's reduce all of that to the base question.

The probability of life evolving accidently is less than the probability of it being created.

The proof of a creators existence is not logically necessary for that to be true.

I can't agree with that, for a start i'm 100% convinced that life evolved 'accidently', what i'm unsure about is how the stuff that became life got there.

Do you think, as suggested by Jim Al-Khalili, that there may actually be a pattern and mathematical basis behind the whole of existence leading to the equilibrium in nature?

I would lean more toward this view than that of life having evolved solely as a result of accidents and would suggest that this randomness you point to actually had some structure.

The linked programme illustrates this by looking at chaotic behaviour with feedback loops resulting in pattern formation. It is suggested that chaos and order are not two separate ideas but two ends of a spectrum of behaviour.

 

[ElanJo]

I'd really love to hear you describe how probablity points towards a god. I really would.

Some kind of non random influence is decidedly ( and I use that word deliberately) more probable than an explantaion based upon chance alone.

I've asked you before to explain the assumptions which underpin your reasoning and you have declined to answer, so don't expect much of a epistemological debate out of me.

You assume therefore you know and I don't want to waste my time arguing with that kind of closed mindedness.

Let's just note that you have'nt bothered to show any actual mathematical formula for your claim:

God having created the natural world is actually more possible that it having evolved via millions upon millions of random events, some of which had more longevity than others. Simple probability theory will tell you that.

Let's say that nature needs a non random process. A non random process does not therefore equal a god. In the realm of biology (and, it could be argued further a field) natural selection is not a random process. Evolution itself is not a random process or one based upon chance alone. Mutations are random but that's just a part of the process.

Anyway, I'd still love to hear how probablity theory points towards a god over evolution. If you understood probablity theory you'd understand that it's silly to put a probablity figure on things that have happened already. :)

As for myself, I've never declined to answer any post that I have seen directed at me whilst on BM. If you think I've declined to answer some question then I'd gladly answer it here. Just ask.

Hopefully you can answer my question in return.

-- Sun Jul 11, 2010 2:39 am --

Let's reduce all of that to the base question.

The probability of life evolving accidently is less than the probability of it being created.

The proof of a creators existence is not logically necessary for that to be true.

Give it a read.


PS. Even if you were right (you're not), probablity arguments, if they could be properly calculated, are trumped by evidence.

 

[goat boy]

I hold no truck with the conventional notion of the Christian God figure. I'm fascinated by the concept of Gaia, though. Every living thing from a lowly bacterium to the geezer typing this message, via every plant and tree going, as one, the result of Mother Nature and Father Time big ol' gettin' it onnnn... and synergystically producing a homeostatic biosphere in an undulating Sun. Our God is the rock beneath our feet and all that lives upon it as She pulls the levers around us that keep the balance of life going. Now we're fucking it up, Gaia is poorly, and guess what? She's got a temperature... Perhaps we should know that those who are unsuitable to the the purposes of balance are those that cease to be. At once, a creation figure and one capable of our demise at the same moment. As a species, we should be both thankful and very wary...

</hippy>

:o)