Got a JW argument how would you respond? (Seems trivial)
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Posted Jun 25, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC · edited · locked
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Systems
2: not accepted.
Emergence
2 & 3 not accepted
The universe doesn’t operate on random chance (the laws of physics are not random), and two forms of life didn’t simultaneously become “invented” (they forked from one)
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These sort of arguments are speculative, post hoc, philosophical-sounding word games. Smuggling god into our gaps of knowledge adds zero explanatory power and only piles on more and more assumptions.
I don’t know how the universe, or properties/systems within the universe, arose. My ignorance - and our collective ignorance - is not evidence of a god.
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What does your intuition tell you though? Does intuition matter? People’s intuition about the source of life varies, and that obviously informs their beliefs or lack thereof. And usually people don’t get to choose what their intuitions are.
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Intuitions are often useful when they pertain to everyday experiences. But when we’re extrapolating to events and scales outside of that, like the origins of life, I don’t think intuition is helpful. At most, we can use intuition to help generate hypotheses.
Because intuitions are fed in part by our cognitive biases, and that’s something we need to diligently remove if we’re pursuing truth.
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Emergence involves the creation of something new that could not have been probable using only parts or elements.
That's quite a loaded statement. How can we ascertain how probable such an emergence could be? Eg given the right atmospheric conditions it's pretty much a certainty that humid air will turn into snow. It's also pretty much certain that said snowflake will have six-way symmetry. But it's very improbable that one specific shape of snowflake would be created.
That being said the simple answer to how the Materials(Parts) were created is "Physics" and the one for Mechanism(System) is "Physics". The matter and energy in our universe exhibits certain behaviours that we call laws of physics and it's the interaction of those things that result in what we see today.
We don't have enough other universes to compare to for us to be able to work out how likely it is that the particular arrangement of matter/energy/behaviours we see in our universe came about.
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I don't know whether I understand your point. But on a physical level you would talk about particles and interactions/laws right? I would then make the question whether particles would exist if there were no interactions? Existence (emergence) can only occur, by definition (assuming we use a corresponding definition of existence), if there are particles and interactions.
What I don't understand is why they are supposed to be considered to be two separate parts. If existence is reliant on both then for every possible existence they must both be there hence I wouldn't consider them separate parts. Particles don't exist without the interactions/laws and without particles interactions/laws don't exist (or are equivalent to non-existent). To define them without each other doesn't really make sense.
These aren't only two interdependent elements for live but for existence in the first place. Since the universe is an existence (from our point of view) it must have both elements, else it would not be an existence.
It could be that I am completely misunderstanding your point though.
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This is copy and pasted, not my point at all
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Some quick thoughts: 2) “every system…” no. What information system is a tree? 4) “highly complex system…” define complex. Is a cell complex, for example? 3) “emergence involves the creation…”how are you calculating the probability? 4 ) “ there has to be…” wetness is an emergent property? What’s the mechanism in place?
Who said nature is random!
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Instead of finding common grounf, it'd be nice to find something that is true because " Jesus is the son of God! Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ!" isnt.
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It's a JW
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Other than circular arguments of bible says so and Jesus says bible is true, what evidence do you have for this truth? Why is Vishnu or Mohammed not the path to salvation?Making naked proclamations of faith is not a contribution as anyone else's faith is equally valid, or rather invalid. Your left arguing over whose book is correct, and thats not really worked well over the last 1000 plus years, so why keep doing it?
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My response would be ‘No thanks’ as I shut the door.
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For "systems: 2).", what is an "information system"? What does that mean?
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Honestly have no idea, these are JWs we are dealing with not scientists
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Sure systems are generally greater than the sum of their parts. Calling them information systems seems to be implying more than it really means. Religious use the word information often to describe something that contains data that implies a mind. But information need not involve minds. A divot in the ground contains information about the rock that fell to make it, but no mind was involved.
The part about emergence seems to be redundant. A system being more than the sum of its parts IS emergence. The more is what we mean by emergence. Hydrogen atoms or molecules aren't polar, nor are oxygen atoms or molecules, combine them and you have water which has polarity and a wide variety of properties the parts don't have alone.
As for the universe, this is a common lie or misconception by religious people that you either have a mind in control or just Utter chaotic chance and randomness. But the universe isn't random at all. There are some probabilistic aspects, but if you get hydrogen and oxygen together in the right conditions you always get water. You never get coal, or chairs, they never make a Llama. Always water. So you get the right kind of incredibly common atoms together, you get amino acids. Your get autocatalytic molecules that can self replicate, you get long stings of molecules.
The building blocks of life just happen when the conditions are right and the parts are there.
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... what We ALL know to be Godly, Good, Holy, Sacred…Thoughts Please. I’ll start God is God!, Jesus is the son of God! Salvation comes only through Jesus Christ!
Try adding "and Mohammed is his prophet"
or "and Brahman is the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the universe, is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes."
Then point out that what they are attributing to ALL, isn't even what's accepted by the majority.
How is it that nature(& the universe) had through random chance and variation simultaneously invented two mutually interdependent elements of life?
The universe didn't 'invent' anything, that phrase smuggles in the concept of design or a being adding purpose to things.
But if they really want to know, then the good news is that Physics, Chemistry and Biology are some of the core sciences that will explain this and that there are institutions dedicated to teaching them.
But for the purposes of a theological discussion, even if we say for the sake of argument that we will never know the answer, that doesn't do anything to justify a god claim.
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- Every system, living or mechanical, is an information system
Define what is meant by information. Is the information from a mechanical system the same as from a living system? Does the information contained in a system of pulleys correspond to the information in a cell? It's that information descriptive or prescriptive?
- Emergence happens when the parts of a greater system interact.
Define emergence please. What emergent property happens with a lever connected to a pulley? What emergent property happens with a tree?
- Every emergence, living, natural or mechanical, shows information(patterns).
Before the premises only included living and mechanical. Now we have natural included. If that's the case would a mountain be a natural system comprised of individual rocks? What emergent property that has information containing patterns comes from a mountain?
- Emergence involves the creation of something new that could not have been probable using only parts or elements.
What is something new that emerges from a system of pulleys? What makes it improbable?
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You can appeal to the anthropic principal here. If we existed in a world where those things were not true, life would not exist therefore we would not be here to consider it, in other words these things are a necessity for the existence of beings which can contemplate it.
Thus, the probability of this occurring no matter how low is ultimately irrelevant and requires no reason to explain why it is the case outside of low, random probability.
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I'm a mereological nihilist. Kinda defeats the whole thing.
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> Emergence involves the creation of something new that could not have been probable using only parts or elements.
That is so utterly not the way that the word "emergence" is used by scientists.
A classic example of emergence is the wetness of water. Individual atoms aren't wet but, collectively, the phenomena of wetness emerges from the sum of their interactions.
Now let's go ahead and try to apply that to the statement above.
Is wetness the creation of something new [no, it's an intrinsic property of how H2O acts in aggregate at certain pressures and temperatures) that could not have been probable [this has nothing to do with probability] using only parts or elements [well, yes... in this case, literally, because this is how the elements oxygen and hydrogen act in tandem, but that has nothing to do with what's being asked].
When an argument uses scientific concepts in a manner that clearly does not show any comprehension of those scientific concepts, it's a pretty safe bet to say that the argument is garbage and should be rejected out of hand.
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We don't know therefore god did it! How convenient!?
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It's "the universe is random if there's no god" bullshit again, isn't it? They've got literally no proof or evidence for that, or reason to think it, it's just a schtick that's spreading around apologists and denominations, it's probably on Facebook or something.
Has it kind of metastasized from "the second law of thermodynamics means evolution can't produce order"?
There is also a hint of irreducible complexity at the end.
We should do a really careful study of how apologist memes evolve through symbiosis into new memes which are incompatible with their ancestor memes.