![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
Typing takes time. (Reading too.)
>whatever is enough to produce thinking entities is enough to be called "reality" by somebody. And I think the requirements for that might be very low indeed.
I love it!
>The universe might have been born this very moment for all we know, complete with the memories of an old universe in all of our heads.
statistically not unlikely if you there are infinite universes
![[gb]](/mwf/flags/gb.png "United Kingdom")
Why? Throwing a dice "infinity" many times doesn't change its probability distribution. Choose any of the infinitely many numbers between 1 and 0 and the probability of it being over 3/4 is still 1/4. This doesn't change anything.
well… depends on your definition of likely.but you're right, probability doesn't change.
anyway: if there were t timesteps since the beginning of our universe, then technically in every timestep a universe could have been spawned that is the same as ours but had no history.
if universes are deterministic, all t created universes are the same and won't ever differ except if they had outside influence.
if universes are not deterministic, as in, ever time a quantum throws a die (lets assume every timestep that happens once) a new universe is spawned, then there are 2^t different universes that once had the same history as ours.
in either case, it's completely irrelevant whether our universe was just created, there is a universe that has the proper history to it required to create ours.
hmm… or not, i just remembered (while typing the above) eden-patterns in cellular automata… just create any universe you want, add an eden pattern, and there's no possible history to create that universe.
I think non-determinism just represents a middle point between "something random spawned us" and "our state is completely determined by a prior state". What separates non-determinism from complete randomness is that we make more assumptions about how likely certain events are: For example if I open a box and find a cat inside, even with all the quantum physics in the world and considering all possible histories that might have led me here, the ones where the cat just sprang into existence the moment I opened the box are bound to be in the vast, vast minority. Therefore we can see cats not appearing very often and assume (at minimum) a bias in the way our world develops,
It might seem like cheating, but given X and a most plausible "Y => X" (say, requiring the least random events to coincide) we are actually allowed to accept Y with good confidence. Had to read up on it recently, it's apparently called "abduction" :)
It might seem like cheating, but given X and a most plausible "Y => X" (say, requiring the least random events to coincide) we are actually allowed to accept Y with good confidence. Had to read up on it recently, it's apparently called "abduction" :)
but isn't that the whole argument this thread is about?it's not quite clear what the most likely Y => X is, since we are guessing the causes from the effects
Lets make a Gedankenexperiment:
You have a russian roulette player. One bullet, n positions in the barrel, you re-spin the barrel every time before shooting.
at what point is it more likely that the universe spawned with a player remembering that he played m rounds compared to actually having played m rounds and survived?
every time he plays, there is a 1/n chance that it's his last round. so there's a (n-1)/n chance he can play another round.
there is a ((n-1)/n)^m chance that he was able to play m rounds and survived.
so for simplicity we choose n = 2.
if all 7billion ppl on this planet play the game 32 times, statistically one person survives.
or, there's a 2^-32 chance everyone survives.
so if we find something statistically unlikely like this, you are saying we can assume the universe was sprung into existance, or are one of the really really rare universes where that just happened to happen.
which is just like what i said of eden patterns: if you can find an eden pattern in your automaton, you know that there is no history before that.
Hmm, I'm not entirely sure the universe coming into existence is coincidence at all. The problem is, that we observe it, which kind of forces it to exist..?
kindof a different argument where you're going now: if we have a simulation, stop it for an hour, and continue it then, none of the ppl inside the simulation would notice. so if we have a simulation, stop it and delete it, does it continue without us ever being able to know about it, just because there are ppl inside that observe it?
anyway, on the coincidence part: you are saying that our universe was created deliberately? like our specific one?or just deliberately as one simulates the same thing a billion times to check some theory? and we are one of the simulation runs?
I'm not saying anything.
Err, I'm saying that nothing has been said.
Err, I'm saying that nothing has been said.
and what do you mean by that?>I'm not entirely sure the universe coming into existence is coincidence at all.
That you observe it means that the universe is at least as real as you yourself. But that's not saying much, as you are a pretty useless judge of your own existence. Just consider that every universe with Caesar in it will have you observe that you are indeed there - and every universe without you there's nobody to ask.
This program has exactly as much right to make that statement as you have, even though I didn't even run it. Once I run it and it makes said statement, it will in fact be true. Reality is a highly overrated concept :)
printf("I exist! And therefore my universe exists too!\n");This program has exactly as much right to make that statement as you have, even though I didn't even run it. Once I run it and it makes said statement, it will in fact be true. Reality is a highly overrated concept :)
Have you played Save The Date? (If not, do it)
That was beautiful.
At least my part of the thread is about that we can judge how likely it is - simply by thinking about how likely it is to appear randomly. Eden patterns would be great to see, but in a non-deterministic world there's no reason why they would have to exist - plus as far as I know physics is quite sure that every single natural process can run in reverse with some given probability.
The 2-barrel russian roulette is actually a pretty good example, because every game yields exactly one bit of information. So at what point is "The world just was created with us thinking that we played russional roullette n times" more likely than "We played russian roulette n times and survived?". The answer is: Exactly once the amount of information from the games equal the information content of the entire universe. Now there's probably no hard data on how much information we need to, say, fully describe one elemental particle, but with it being a quantum field and nobody being able to find a bound on the accuracy, we can probably safely assume that it is more than, say, a few kilobytes.
If we multiply all that together, we arrive at something like 10^100 bits of information. Once you have played roulette that often you would be allowed to assume that you didn't actually do it. You start, I'll wait ;)
The 2-barrel russian roulette is actually a pretty good example, because every game yields exactly one bit of information. So at what point is "The world just was created with us thinking that we played russional roullette n times" more likely than "We played russian roulette n times and survived?". The answer is: Exactly once the amount of information from the games equal the information content of the entire universe. Now there's probably no hard data on how much information we need to, say, fully describe one elemental particle, but with it being a quantum field and nobody being able to find a bound on the accuracy, we can probably safely assume that it is more than, say, a few kilobytes.
If we multiply all that together, we arrive at something like 10^100 bits of information. Once you have played roulette that often you would be allowed to assume that you didn't actually do it. You start, I'll wait ;)
Your logic is impeccable.I didn't know about no one being able to find a bound on the accuracy. Do you know of any theories saying there is one or there isn't one?
Well, unless I am wrong current quantum theory assumes that entangled particle groups can basically represent arbitrary many states at the same time (the basis for quantum computing). If that's true, then any given particle could actually represent infinite amounts of information. But it is very likely that there are practical limits on how much of that information we can actually measure - and that's what counts at the end of the day.
Maybe there has been a result along these lines, all I can say is that I personally haven't heard about it. I would be highly surprised if nobody was working on it, though - applying information theory to quantum physics isn't exactly a new idea.
Maybe there has been a result along these lines, all I can say is that I personally haven't heard about it. I would be highly surprised if nobody was working on it, though - applying information theory to quantum physics isn't exactly a new idea.
hmm… as i understood it, those entangled particles have a defined set of possible states they can be in, and not an infinite set.and every time you read one of the particles, the others have even less states they can be in, until you've read all of them and have a certain result… and again, while I'm writing this, i remember that you have to repeat the experiment many times and take the result that appears most often… I just always thought that's just noise like when receiving bits over wireless (due to bad hardware or outside interference)
but I haven't read up on my quantum physics since highschool :/ just whatever has been up in the news some time or another.
Well, I feel like I am completely out of my depth here, so if somebody reading this feels more competent, please correct me... :)
My take is that the number of states is not infinite, but arbitrarily large. One qubit alone represents (at minimum) 2 possible states. Two qubits can have 4 possible states, and so forth. Now we can do "calculations" depending on the states of all qubits, which means that now a qubit state depends at the same time on all the 2^N states the whole system might have been in.
If we then measure the qubit, we reduce this to something containing far less information (say 0 or 1), but the probability will depend on the calculation path for
My take is that the number of states is not infinite, but arbitrarily large. One qubit alone represents (at minimum) 2 possible states. Two qubits can have 4 possible states, and so forth. Now we can do "calculations" depending on the states of all qubits, which means that now a qubit state depends at the same time on all the 2^N states the whole system might have been in.
If we then measure the qubit, we reduce this to something containing far less information (say 0 or 1), but the probability will depend on the calculation path for
all 2^N states. No matter what the process is, the only possible explanation for seeing the probability match up is that *something* went through all the 2^N possible states. Hence this much information is required to represent the universe prior to the measurement.
If you measure the qubit which is entangled with N other qubits, those N qubits also collapse to either 0 or 1. Hence you measure one of the 2^(N+1) states initially available.
I don't understand what a calculation path is.
Btw, it is very hard to construct qubit states with N bigger than 10 (to my latest knowledge).
I don't understand what a calculation path is.
Btw, it is very hard to construct qubit states with N bigger than 10 (to my latest knowledge).
Example: We have two qubits that might be 0 or 1. Now we apply a logical "and" - the result is still either 0 or 1, but we can measure that it is 0 with 3/4 probability and 1 with 1/4 probability. My idea was to take that as evidence that the underlying model must store more than 1 bit at this very moment.
On the other hand, you are probably right - all qubits collapse together, which means that no matter what, in sum we only get 2^N bits of information out of N qubits, no matter what we do. I guess this doesn't really work - would have been too easy :(
Edit: Note I was trying to construct a lower bound. I imagine that the possible qubit states are severely limited by the side conditions such as being able to hold them in place, measure or combine them. Real-world particles likely have much more information to them. Main question is whether it's finite or not.
On the other hand, you are probably right - all qubits collapse together, which means that no matter what, in sum we only get 2^N bits of information out of N qubits, no matter what we do. I guess this doesn't really work - would have been too easy :(
Edit: Note I was trying to construct a lower bound. I imagine that the possible qubit states are severely limited by the side conditions such as being able to hold them in place, measure or combine them. Real-world particles likely have much more information to them. Main question is whether it's finite or not.
>Example: We have two qubits that might be 0 or 1. Now we apply a logical "and" - the result is still either 0 or 1, but we can measure that it is 0 with 3/4 probability and 1 with 1/4 probability. My idea was to take that as evidence that the underlying model must store more than 1 bit at this very moment.
That is definitely not an entangled state.
I think the information content of the universe is finite, but that is my personal opinion. At least for black holes it is known that the information content is finite (and also related to the temperature of the black hole).
Not initially (that's the point), but when applying the operation we get a sort of entanglement, as the new qubit depends on the (unknown) state of the source qubits. Measuring the result qubit should now also make the source qubits collapse - is my terminology wrong?
> hmm… as i understood it, those entangled particles have a defined set of possible states they can be in, and not an infinite set.
This depends on what kind of quantum system you have at hand. The quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator or the hydrogen atom have an infinite number of (energy) states. How you would entangle such systems in practise is then another question, of course. The spin or polarization of a particle (which are probably easier to deal with experimentally) only give a finite number of states.
An accuracy on what?
There is Heisenberg's relation which gives you some constraints on accuracy of measurements, though I don't think you two are referring to this. The problem is more: which observables are quantized. To describe an elementary particle you need to know a few quantum properties, like spin, charge, parity, etc. The accuracy on the objects is infinite in that sense, for example spin can only be up and down. But also you need to exactly give the particle's position and momenta, and as far as we know these quantities are not quantized (at least not at the energy scales we can measure nowadays). So there is still an infinite amount of bits (discrete data objects) needed to describe this particle exactly.
Actually if there is one property of a particle (or rather state) which is not quantized, I think only the state itself can be the exact description of that state.
Regarding the theories, there are of course theories which tell you space is quantized, and maybe even time (and therefore momenta). But these are not so mainstream, and certainly not testable with current experiments.
There is Heisenberg's relation which gives you some constraints on accuracy of measurements, though I don't think you two are referring to this. The problem is more: which observables are quantized. To describe an elementary particle you need to know a few quantum properties, like spin, charge, parity, etc. The accuracy on the objects is infinite in that sense, for example spin can only be up and down. But also you need to exactly give the particle's position and momenta, and as far as we know these quantities are not quantized (at least not at the energy scales we can measure nowadays). So there is still an infinite amount of bits (discrete data objects) needed to describe this particle exactly.
Actually if there is one property of a particle (or rather state) which is not quantized, I think only the state itself can be the exact description of that state.
Regarding the theories, there are of course theories which tell you space is quantized, and maybe even time (and therefore momenta). But these are not so mainstream, and certainly not testable with current experiments.
![[py]](/mwf/flags/py.png "Paraguay")
May I pleas continue this in the off-topic section?
It's ok, I moved it to the off topic
Thank you Newton! :)
Click here for a fun "game" using genetic algorithms for adjusting vehicles to horrible terrainhow about something like that in clonk? animals that are actually created in the game? let a game run for a week and observe if anything cool happens. (cross - game state saving would be a problem though)
At least for the fishes I am trying a fuzzy logic system. It's not quite "learning" and "evolving" but it's at least more than what we had before. I also started to implement neural networks in C4Script once, but the floating-point numbers would be quite handy there
Before I continue further I would like to say that I am not at all trying to offend anyone and thatI love all the work that the "open clonk community" has put into the open clonk game.
I just would like to discus evolution and other beliefs in a friendly manner. :)
PS: I have been reading a book about evolution by Michael J. Behe (a biochemist) called "Darwin's Black Box",and I find it very interesting.
I recommend this book to anybody interested in evolution.
It is troubling why you even raised this completely unrelated discussion. The initial posting from pluto wasn't about evolution or beliefs/disbeliefs. You just started arguing into thin air which leaves the impression of you just wanting to force an argument.
>It is troubling why you even raised this completely unrelated discussion. The initial posting from pluto wasn't about evolution or beliefs/disbeliefs. You just started arguing into thin air which leaves the impression of you just wanting to force an argument.
True I did start this discussion/"argument",but as for "troubling" you really don't even have to look in the "off-topic/evolution"directory if you don't want to see the post here.
I think it is good for people to talk about there beliefs and purpose in life. ;)
> I just would like to discus evolution and other beliefs in a friendly manner. :)
I really think you should do so at a forum dedicated to world views. You are more likely to find good discussion partners there with insightful arguments pro and con your and other's views. I was once active in such a place, I can really recommend doing so as you'll learn a lot.
This isn't going to be the case here. For example, earlier you wrote "Even Darwin called evolution a theory", which unfortunately nobody corrected. It's a common misunderstanding, stemming from distinguishing "theory" vs "practice" in everyday terms. In contrast, something becoming a theory is the best damn thing that can happen in science, so putting something off as "just a theory" actually is an embarrassing thing to do. Yep, something I learned myself the hard way. ;)
In this forum, on the other hand, I think you'll only see shit hitting the fan. (imho it's even already happening, so I'm quickly outta here...)
> which unfortunately nobody corrected
I briefly thought about that. But then, it's always a deceptive or false argument in a discussion when criticising someone's poor choice of words. You start leaving the actual discussion behind (which I also do now by making an offtopic comment ;) and try to overpower your disputant by merely pointing out a real or assumed lack of knowledge. Lecturing is a bad way of arguing (or to say: It is no way of arguing).
The argument (just a theory) was weak to begin with but even weaker would be the counter-argument (a theory!). In this case you could say it is a rule of science that applying the term 'theory' onto something is a praise. Coming from the science-opposing faction one can easily reverse the point made, by (allegedly) exposing it as a try to mock him or her for not knowing the made-up code (theory being a praise) that is only aknowledged amongst your faction (science).
I found it hard to make this point and furthermore damaging to the progress of the discussion.
The reason I wanted to point it out, and re-iterate how important it was, was because when someone says something like "Even Darwin called evolution a theory", they're basing their argument "One of of the reasons you should not believe evolution happens is that Darwin did not think it was likely to be true and I know this because he called it a "Theory" and that means he didn't think it was right" on a misconception, which is their understanding of the meaning of the word "Theory".
It's related to the discussion. If someone says something that's incorrect in an argument, would you just reply to it as if it were true?
No it isn't. You can make all kinds of theories to say all kinds of things. It doesn't make anything more true or less true. The important thing is that after you create a theory, you look for observations that give your theory credence e.g. things that your theory predicts will happen , and you also look for things that theory predicts won't happen, because if you see this, it suggest your theory needs changing
(for example, the theory of gravity predicted that light would not be affected by gravity, as light was thought to be a wave, and waves are not affected by forces. Then, the research of people such as Einstein and Steven Hawking determined that light could be affected by gravity. This meant that our previously-established theories of light and gravity must be incorrect, and so they were adapted for this new observation. Specifically, gravity is now thought of not as an actual force, but as a bend in space-time. Light, meanwhile, can be modelled as a particle, with a mass, that can be affected by gravity.)
The important thing about the Theory of Evolution is not that it is a scientific-theory, but that is a scientific-theory that has lasted for more than 150 years, and very little evidence has come-about to disprove it. Darwin himself wrote as such: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."
Were someone to make this point, it could quite easily be refuted. Pointing out someone's lack of knowledge is not mocking them, "Theory" is not "made-up code", it is a part of the English language it is not acknowledged only by "science" but by anyone who is aware of the proper-definition of the word, and science is not a faction, it is a tool.
I wanted to clarify the meaning of "theory" because when people are conversing, it's pointless if they're using the same words to mean different things. If I say "Theory" to mean the definition I explained previously, and the person I'm talking to uses it to mean "Something someone thinks" then the discussion will be pointless, because neither of us will understand what the other is saying.
Seeing that J.J. was using a different definition of the word "Theory", I explained to him what we use the word to mean. If we read other people's words as having different meanings to what they were saying, then we are not receiving their ideas, and the "conversation" becomes absolutely pointless.
>You start leaving the actual discussion behind
It's related to the discussion. If someone says something that's incorrect in an argument, would you just reply to it as if it were true?
>In this case you could say it is a rule of science that applying the term 'theory' onto something is a praise
No it isn't. You can make all kinds of theories to say all kinds of things. It doesn't make anything more true or less true. The important thing is that after you create a theory, you look for observations that give your theory credence e.g. things that your theory predicts will happen , and you also look for things that theory predicts won't happen, because if you see this, it suggest your theory needs changing
(for example, the theory of gravity predicted that light would not be affected by gravity, as light was thought to be a wave, and waves are not affected by forces. Then, the research of people such as Einstein and Steven Hawking determined that light could be affected by gravity. This meant that our previously-established theories of light and gravity must be incorrect, and so they were adapted for this new observation. Specifically, gravity is now thought of not as an actual force, but as a bend in space-time. Light, meanwhile, can be modelled as a particle, with a mass, that can be affected by gravity.)
The important thing about the Theory of Evolution is not that it is a scientific-theory, but that is a scientific-theory that has lasted for more than 150 years, and very little evidence has come-about to disprove it. Darwin himself wrote as such: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."
>Coming from the science-opposing faction one can easily reverse the point made, by (allegedly) exposing it as a try to mock him or her for not knowing the made-up code (theory being a praise) that is only aknowledged amongst your faction (science).
Were someone to make this point, it could quite easily be refuted. Pointing out someone's lack of knowledge is not mocking them, "Theory" is not "made-up code", it is a part of the English language it is not acknowledged only by "science" but by anyone who is aware of the proper-definition of the word, and science is not a faction, it is a tool.
I wanted to clarify the meaning of "theory" because when people are conversing, it's pointless if they're using the same words to mean different things. If I say "Theory" to mean the definition I explained previously, and the person I'm talking to uses it to mean "Something someone thinks" then the discussion will be pointless, because neither of us will understand what the other is saying.
Seeing that J.J. was using a different definition of the word "Theory", I explained to him what we use the word to mean. If we read other people's words as having different meanings to what they were saying, then we are not receiving their ideas, and the "conversation" becomes absolutely pointless.
*Opens thread. Starts reading. Is about to reply. Scrolls down. And down. And down. And down.* Wow. I forgot to check the forum for a day or so and this happens.
Anyway...
I'm quoting from Nachtschatten here, but I'm mainly replying to J.J., as I'd like him to read what I this.
Nachtschatten, this was a good thing to say, and you win points. If there's one thing anyone remembers from this thread, it should be this. Here's a nice definition of a scientific theory, from TVTropes
"A theory is an explanation for why something happens in nature. Theories have been tested and reproduced and can be backed up with evidence; e.g. germ theory, General Relativity theory, and atomic theory. Additionally, the "explanation" part is important: the theory of evolution, for instance, is a set of explanation regarding how evolution works,
evolution itself is a "phenomenon", i.e. something that has happened that has been directly observed."
I just want to emphasise this one. Saying "Even Darwin called evolution a theory" is like saying that the theory of gravity is just a theory.
Anyway...
I'm quoting from Nachtschatten here, but I'm mainly replying to J.J., as I'd like him to read what I this.
>This isn't going to be the case here. For example, earlier you wrote "Even Darwin called evolution a theory", which unfortunately nobody corrected. It's a common misunderstanding, stemming from distinguishing "theory" vs "practice" in everyday terms. In contrast, something becoming a theory is the best damn thing that can happen in science, so putting something off as "just a theory" actually is an embarrassing thing to do. Yep, something I learned myself the hard way. ;)
Nachtschatten, this was a good thing to say, and you win points. If there's one thing anyone remembers from this thread, it should be this. Here's a nice definition of a scientific theory, from TVTropes
"A theory is an explanation for why something happens in nature. Theories have been tested and reproduced and can be backed up with evidence; e.g. germ theory, General Relativity theory, and atomic theory. Additionally, the "explanation" part is important: the theory of evolution, for instance, is a set of explanation regarding how evolution works,
evolution itself is a "phenomenon", i.e. something that has happened that has been directly observed."
I just want to emphasise this one. Saying "Even Darwin called evolution a theory" is like saying that the theory of gravity is just a theory.
>I just want to emphasise this one. Saying "Even Darwin called evolution a theory" is like saying that the theory of gravity is just a theory.
One difference that I see is that the effects of gravity are predictable and observable where the changing of one species into another (evolution) is not.
It's entirely predictable. "each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection." That's the basic principle of the theory of evolution.
Evolution can be observed quite clearly by examining the fossil record.
>observable
Evolution can be observed quite clearly by examining the fossil record.
>Evolution can be observed quite clearly by examining the fossil record.
Actually the fossil record is evidence against evolution because the are no transitional forms in the fossil record and there should be millions if not billions of dead transitional forms that failed to survive after "evolving".
>Actually the fossil record is evidence against evolution because the are no transitional forms in the fossil record
Yes there are.
>there should be millions if not billions of dead transitional forms that failed to survive after "evolving".
1) Most individual creatures will not leave a fossil after they die. Corpses do not automatically become fossils.
2) The majority of the minor changes that could occur in a creature would not be visible in its fossil, if it did leave a fossil behind. The transitional fossils we find are generally successful changes, because a) There would be many of them, making it much more likely that an individual will leave a fossil and b) The changes would take place over thousands of years, across many many generations, and the difference between a specimen and its distant ancestor would be much more noticeable in their fossils than the difference between a specimen and its parent.
3) most transitions were likely taking place very fast, due to the change giving them a huge advantage in a new environment. They'd spread really fast and therefor evolve fast, too. If the whole process takes 100 year e.g. and the final creatures exist for thousands of years… which one of these will most likely result in fossils? (kindof point 2a)
+1 on this, btw. From my experience with genetical algorithms, they work as a series of "landslides" - most of the time it seems to be really slow progress, until a large enough mutation uncovers a new (less local) maximum. Then all of sudden lots of other genes flip in response, as there are dozens of "obvious" possible improvements on the new baseline.
Another angle: Genes are mostly either "on" or "off" - so if there's an A and B variant, there's doesn't have to be anything in the middle. It's not like there's a gene saying "let's make him 1.70 cm high" that gets knocked up and down a few centimeters now and then.
Another angle: Genes are mostly either "on" or "off" - so if there's an A and B variant, there's doesn't have to be anything in the middle. It's not like there's a gene saying "let's make him 1.70 cm high" that gets knocked up and down a few centimeters now and then.
>Yes there are.
Well these are deniable they could be all just normal animals that were created.
One other thing how do you account for the second law of thermodynamics because it is scientific law and "evolution" is saying the complete opposite?
Doesn't this make evolution unscientific?
>Well these are deniable they could be all just normal animals that were created.
They are not deniable. Please let me explain to you something called falsifiability. No-one can prove that God did not just create those fossils. But no-one needs to, because no-one can prove that he did. To make a statement like that, you need evidence for it, which you don't have. Thus the statement cannot be proved true or false, and so it has no meaning.
And besides that, even if (and that is a huge if) God did create creatures like that, if he made them change to adapt to their environment over thousands of years, which he must have to make those transitional fossils, then that doesn't disprove evolution, it proves it correct, with the addition being that God makes it happen. Which is exactly what Charles Darwin himself (who was a Christian) believed.
>One other thing how do you account for the second law of thermodynamics because it is scientific law and "evolution" is saying the complete opposite?
No they don't. Aside from that essay, the second law of thermodynamics only applies to a closed-system (That is, no energy going in or out). The Earth is not a closed system, it receives energy from the Sun. So the second law of thermodynamics and the theory of evolution do not contradict in any way.
The essay states:"A simpler analogy to the airplane/junkyard scenario would be the stacking of three blocks neatly on top of each other. To do this, intelligent design is required, but stacking does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. The same relations hold for this activity as for any other activity involving thermodynamical energy changes. It is true that the blocks will not stack themselves, but as far as thermodynamics is concerned, all that is required is the energy to pick them up and place them one on top of the other. Thermodynamics merely correlates the energy relationships in going from state A to state B. If the energy relationships permit, the change may occur. If they don't permit it, the change can not occur. A ball will not spontaneously leap up from the floor, but if it is dropped, it will spontaneously bounce up from the floor. Whether the ball is lifted by intelligent design or just happens to fall makes no difference. "
This indicates that an "intelligent being" had to have created the universe. Somehow the ball had to get up there in order to fall.
>They are not deniable. Please let me explain to you something called falsifiability. No-one can prove that God did not just create those fossils. But no-one needs to, because no-one can prove that he did. To make a statement like that, you need evidence for it, which you don't have. Thus the statement cannot be proved true or false, and so it has no meaning.
Following this thread of reasoning, falsifiability would equally apply to evolution.
>This indicates that an "intelligent being" had to have created the universe. Somehow the ball had to get up there in order to fall.
it is entirely possible that an "intelligent being" created our universe. i don't think anyone in this thread denies that possibility. it is simply irrelevant whether it's true or false, since it's outside our universe and therefor we cannot interfere with it.
What we're discussing right here, is whether evolution is actually happening, and it is. Even if it were by design. Again, it's irrelevant, it's happening and we can prove that the only thing pushing it forward today is random chance and the evolving entities' environment.
>Following this thread of reasoning, falsifiability would equally apply to evolution.
not quite. It's impossible to prove that God created everything. This is something we need to believe. Anything that is discovered, might simply have been created, but it might also have gotten there by evolving from something earlier. Which itself might have either been created, or evolved from something earlier… and so on. you get the picture?
On the other hand: if you can repeat an experiment over and over again, e.g. create a new species out of another (give me a definition of species that pleases you, and i will give you an example), then you have prove that whatever you are repeating can have happened before without interference of a deity.
>This indicates that an "intelligent being" had to have created the universe. Somehow the ball had to get up there in order to fall.
No, it indicates that intelligent design is required to stack three blocks on top of each other. And as ker said, even if one or more gods did create the Universe (which there is no evidence for, and there is just as much evidence that it would be God specifically as Vishu or Ra or TFSM or whoever else) that has no bearing on Evolution whatsoever.
Even if someone somehow proved that God created the Universe, it would not disprove Evolution in the slightest.
>Following this thread of reasoning, falsifiability would equally apply to evolution.
No, because evolution is falsifiable, as I said earlier. Allow me to quote myself quoting Darwin:
>"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."
Evolution could be proved wrong, if we found an animal that had, say, a diesel engine, or we saw a giraffe giving birth to a dolphin. These would disprove evolution, as evolution states those things would never happen.
"God created the fossils" however, cannot be proved wrong, which means it also cannot be proved true.
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