How is Life Justified?

[madnak]

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You are making the monistic assumption that God's being is essentially the same as all being.

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And you're simply fiating that "God is different." You aren't describing how or why he's different, and you're carefully avoiding any rigorous presentation of your position. But nevertheless you claim "oh, he's so different."

You then generate all kinds of inherently irrational conclusions out of thin air, and when challenged you claim that God is different, so the apparent contradictions don't matter.

[FortunaMaximus]

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Who says it's an ideal medium? Set a few rules and throw in a lot of chaos, patterns will emerge. You can make it happen artificially with computer algorithms. I'd wager that, if we had infinite processing power, we could easily simulate a universe as complex as this one.

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It's not THE ideal medium. It's an ideal medium for which patterns have emerged out of chaos. And certainly there should be other mediums.

You'd be surprised at how much processing power is actually needed. The energy produced by a single sun over a millennia would effectively power a virtual civilization for billions of years. Space is cheap. Just set the size parameters and scale consciousness into the smallest possible data storage spaces.

Quantum processing capabilities remove the need for intensive linear processing, and would use less energy overall than a huge series of parallel processing units.

Data isn't dependent on very high energy requirements. A stable medium, cursory checks at regular intervals. And a reasonably competent repair and patching strategy for combating entropic processes.

[NotReady]

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And you're simply fiating that "God is different."


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It's called definition.

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You then generate all kinds of inherently irrational conclusions


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Name one.

[luckyme]

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I'm not going to quibble about the difference between arguments and evidence. In any case the higher your IQ is, the more likely you can properly evaluate either one.

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The real world fails to bear this out. In fact, those with extremely high IQs typically have a high proportion of "crazy" beliefs. They also have a much higher incidence of delusion and psychosis and general trouble evaluating basic situations.

Moreover many people with very high IQs disagree with your assertions here. Should we disregard your opinions in favor of those more "properly evaluated?"

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Paraphrasing one of DS's claims - if you need an answer your best bet is to ask intelligent, knowledgable people in the field. NP.
Where he goes wrong is somehow tying the answer to the precondition - once we are given the answer, it's validity is now independant of the solver. Wile's solution to Fermat is not right because Wile's did it, if I turned it in I'd be just as valid ( even though they'd know I faked/stole it).
iow, all solutions to problems are anonymous, the nobel prize is given on the merits of the solution not the laureate. DS believes in the merits of the solver not the solution -
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Of course if you form a ratio (of the numbers in each of the two rare groups)and tack on the average IQs of the members, the uninformed observer will have little trouble coming to a conclusion.

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The rest are hopelessly biased.

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Once we're at the solution stage, bias is irrelevant, it's only a factor in the 'expected' quality of the study of the topic ... once the report is written it's on it's own and can't claim special 'status of researcher'. Vitamin C didn't work any better because Pauling advocated it.
luckyme

[Dominic]

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I don't mean suicide is the default course of action, but that we all have moments where death seems better.

"life is rationally amoral, not immoral."

Moral and immoral are human terms. Life is often immoral to us (i.e. we condemn it as immoral).

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I'm getting tired of all these "life is precious" people. You know what, it's not. There is a never-ending plethora of life, of organisms, on this planet...being born, living, dying, over and over again.

Life is not precious, or special. MY life is precious and special, though. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[madnak]

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And you're simply fiating that "God is different."


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It's called definition.

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It's called defining the terms to suit your argument.

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You then generate all kinds of inherently irrational conclusions


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Name one.

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All of them? How about the one you're making in this thread - that our existence has no purpose unless it's granted by some power higher than us. This is an irrational argument because it applies equally to that "higher power," it goes nowhere.

So you fiat a higher power to whom this argument (that you claim is seamless) magically doesn't apply. In order to your exception to be valid, you have to demonstrate that God posseses some quality that logically exempts him from your reasoning regarding purpose and meaning. Not only can't you do this, you can't even name a quality that could possibly exempt God from your argument. So you just define God as whatever has "that quality," and then you can pretend to be making sense.

Not to mention that you keep on switching your definition of God to suit new arguments - for example you define God as the source of the universe in your first cause argument. Which means that your logic is based on the assumption that the source of meaning is the same as the source of the universe. And then you turn around and talk about God as the Christian figure! Meaning now you're assuming that the Christian figure of God is the same as the source of meaning is the same as the source of the universe!

And so on and so on and so on. It's a con game.

[madnak]

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It's not THE ideal medium. It's an ideal medium for which patterns have emerged out of chaos. And certainly there should be other mediums.

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But then the question of meaning loses its relevance.

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You'd be surprised at how much processing power is actually needed. The energy produced by a single sun over a millennia would effectively power a virtual civilization for billions of years. Space is cheap. Just set the size parameters and scale consciousness into the smallest possible data storage spaces.

Quantum processing capabilities remove the need for intensive linear processing, and would use less energy overall than a huge series of parallel processing units.

Data isn't dependent on very high energy requirements. A stable medium, cursory checks at regular intervals. And a reasonably competent repair and patching strategy for combating entropic processes.

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I'll believe it when I see it. My view of technological advance is less optimistic.

[NotReady]

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It's called defining the terms to suit your argument.


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It's called defining the concept I'm talking about.

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So you fiat a higher power to whom this argument (that you claim is seamless) magically doesn't apply.


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Am. Her. Dict.
fiat:
1. An arbitrary order or decree

Again, I'm defining. The definition is drawn first from Scripture, then from countless works of philosophy and theology written thoughtout the history of mankind. Not exactly arbitrary.

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that our existence has no purpose unless it's granted by some power higher than us. This is an irrational argument because it applies equally to that "higher power," it goes nowhere.


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One of the premises is precisely that God is independent of His creation which reasonably leads to the conclusion that meaning is different for God than for His creation which is rational, not irrational.

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In order to your exception to be valid, you have to demonstrate that God posseses some quality that logically exempts him from your reasoning regarding purpose and meaning.


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See previous.

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Not to mention that you keep on switching your definition of God to suit new arguments - for example you define God as the source of the universe in your first cause argument.


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So where's the definition switch?

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Meaning now you're assuming that the Christian figure of God is the same as the source of meaning is the same as the source of the universe!


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Hey, now you're getting it !!

[madnak]

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Again, I'm defining. The definition is drawn first from Scripture, then from countless works of philosophy and theology written thoughtout the history of mankind. Not exactly arbitrary.

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It was arbitrary when it was first conceived, and it's still arbitrary. Repetition doesn't make an argument valid. (Particularly since many of these "countless works" of philosophy have been extensively refuted)

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One of the premises is precisely that God is independent of His creation which reasonably leads to the conclusion that meaning is different for God than for His creation which is rational, not irrational.

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No it doesn't. God being independent doesn't imply that he's exempt from the process of reasoning that you claim applies to us. Or do you claim that independence is itself the quality that defines meaning? So if I existed independently of everything else, I would be the source of all meaning? Somehow I doubt that's your argument - if it is I'd love to take you up on it. If you believe that independence from the universe implies meaning, I think it will be easy to reduce your position to absurdity.

If, however, independence is not the quality that gives God his meaning, then you must demonstrate the quality that does so. If the meaning you attribute to God is purely definitional, then you can't use it in an argument - such an argument would be circular. That is, if you define God as meaning, then any argument that "humanity has no meaning without God" resolves to "humanity has no meaning without meaning," which is puerile and circular.

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Meaning now you're assuming that the Christian figure of God is the same as the source of meaning is the same as the source of the universe!

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Hey, now you're getting it !!

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If you're combining all three of these attributes in your definition of God, and accepting that combination (and the existence of God) as your premises, then you can't argue for any of these attributes or for the existence of God. When a conclusion is the same as a premise, that's circular reasoning, it's a fallacy. You can only argue for these qualities if you don't accept them all as premises.

[NotReady]

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It was arbitrary when it was first conceived


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Your position would make any definition arbitrary. Definition of terms is necessary to even have a discussion. Definition is the beginning of discussion. I am completely mystified by your stubborness on this point.

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God being independent doesn't imply that he's exempt from the process of reasoning that you claim applies to us.


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I don't claim exemption, but that human reason isn't absolute. It's finite and flawed. God is reason, absolute reason. Human reason is a pale reflection of Original Reason. And God's reason is a reflection of His nature, what He is in Himself.

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If, however, independence is not the quality that gives God his meaning, then you must demonstrate the quality that does so


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It's not a question of demonstration, but of premise. The premise is that God is absolute, the ultimate standard by which everything else is judged. If I could demonstrate God's meaning independently of God, He wouldn't be God.

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If you're combining all three of these attributes in your definition of God, and accepting that combination (and the existence of God) as your premises, then you can't argue for any of these attributes or for the existence of God.


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I don't see three attributes here. God is the source of the universe and that's why it has meaning. If the source of the universe is non-rational or if it has no source it can have no meaning.