Topic: Health and Religion - page 64. (Read 210871 times)

OK so I've read it. Let's say I'm unconvinced. For example this : "Now please consider what happens when we draw the biggest circle we possibly can – around the whole universe."

This is stated like this, without any explanation. I disagree that we can draw a circle around the universe. The universe is infinite.

The rest of the proof doesn't matter if that basic axiom is not agreed on.

I haven't the time to read all that right now, but from a quick look, it tries to justify the existence of a god. It doesn't explain how that god would have appeared.

You're saying that the big bang theory doesn't work because surely some conscience must have caused it. I'm simply stating that you've replaced one problem with another, not solved anything. Why would the big bang need a creator, but a god wouldn't need a creator ?

From a scientific, evidence and logic based point of view, I find the big bang theory far easier to "believe" in than a god. First because I know it's a theory in the common sense of the word, a better theory might come and I have no problem with that. Second because matter and energy appearing out of nothing seems more plausible than an omnipotent, omniscient consciousness appearing out of nothing.

  

Perhaps but there is also something to be said for insightful brevity as well.

I suspect that Perry Marshal spent quite a long time writing that essay above and the core message it conveys is essentially the same as that of your post immediately above.

I'm embarrassed, but glad at the same time, for the same reason. What reason is that? You are always finding other people who outdo the things that I say.

 

In 1931, the young mathematician Kurt Gödel made a landmark discovery, as powerful as anything Albert Einstein developed.

Gödel’s discovery not only applied to mathematics but literally all branches of science, logic and human knowledge. It has truly earth-shattering implications.

Oddly, few people know anything about it.

Allow me to tell you the story.

Mathematicians love proofs. They were hot and bothered for centuries, because they were unable to PROVE some of the things they knew were true.

So for example if you studied high school Geometry, you’ve done the exercises where you prove all kinds of things about triangles based on a list of theorems.

That high school geometry book is built on Euclid’s five postulates. Everyone knows the postulates are true, but in 2500 years nobody’s figured out a way to prove them.

Yes, it does seem perfectly reasonable that a line can be extended infinitely in both directions, but no one has been able to PROVE that. We can only demonstrate that they are a reasonable, and in fact necessary, set of 5 assumptions.

Towering mathematical geniuses were frustrated for 2000+ years because they couldn’t prove all their theorems. There were many things that were “obviously” true but nobody could figure out a way to prove them.

In the early 1900’s, however, a tremendous sense of optimism began to grow in mathematical circles. The most brilliant mathematicians in the world (like Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert and Ludwig Wittgenstein) were convinced that they were rapidly closing in on a final synthesis.

A unifying “Theory of Everything” that would finally nail down all the loose ends. Mathematics would be complete, bulletproof, airtight, triumphant.

In 1931 this young Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel, published a paper that once and for all PROVED that a single Theory Of Everything is actually impossible.

Gödel’s discovery was called “The Incompleteness Theorem.”

If you’ll give me just a few minutes, I’ll explain what it says, how Gödel discovered it, and what it means – in plain, simple English that anyone can understand.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem says:

“Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle – something you have to assume but cannot prove.”

You can draw a circle around all of the concepts in your high school geometry book. But they’re all built on Euclid’s 5 postulates which are clearly true but cannot be proven. Those 5 postulates are outside the book, outside the circle.

You can draw a circle around a bicycle but the existence of that bicycle relies on a factory that is outside that circle. The bicycle cannot explain itself.

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement


“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

OK, so what does this really mean? Why is this super-important, and not just an interesting geek factoid?

Here’s what it means:

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

All closed systems depend on something outside the system.

You can always draw a bigger circle but there will still be something outside the circle.

Reasoning inward from a larger circle to a smaller circle is “deductive reasoning.”

Example of a deductive reasoning:
1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal

Reasoning outward from a smaller circle to a larger circle is “inductive reasoning.”
Examples of inductive reasoning:

1. All the men I know are mortal
2. Therefore all men are mortal

1. When I let go of objects, they fall
2. Therefore there is a law of gravity that governs falling objects

Notice than when you move from the smaller circle to the larger circle, you have to make assumptions that you cannot 100% prove.

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. You cannot prove that the universe is rational. You can only observe that mathematical formulas like E=MC^2 do seem to perfectly describe what the universe does.

Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. These laws rest on an assumption that the universe is logical and based on fixed discoverable laws.

You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.

(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws.)

Now please consider what happens when we draw the biggest circle possibly can – around the whole universe. (If there are multiple universes, we’re drawing a circle around all of them too):

There has to be something outside that circle. Something which we have to assume but cannot prove
The universe as we know it is finite – finite matter, finite energy, finite space and 13.7 billion years time
The universe is mathematical. Any physical system subjected to measurement performs arithmetic. (You don’t need to know math to do addition – you can use an abacus instead and it will give you the right answer every time.)
The universe (all matter, energy, space and time) cannot explain itself

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is boundless. By definition it is not possible to draw a circle around it.
If we draw a circle around all matter, energy, space and time and apply Gödel’s theorem, then we know what is outside that circle is not matter, is not energy, is not space and is not time. It’s immaterial.

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is not a system – i.e. is not an assemblage of parts. Otherwise we could draw a circle around them. The thing outside the biggest circle is indivisible.

Whatever is outside the biggest circle is an uncaused cause,because you can always draw a circle around an effect.

We can apply the same inductive reasoning to the Origin of Information:
In the history of the universe we also see the introduction of information, some 3.5 billion years ago (Or was it longer? Was information somehow present at the beginning?). It came in the form of the Genetic code, which is symbolic and immaterial.
The information appears to have come from the outside, since information is not known to be an inherent property of matter, energy, space or time
All codes we know the origin of are designed by conscious beings.
Therefore whatever is outside the largest circle is a conscious being.
My book Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design explores the Origin of Information question in depth. The Evolution 2.0 Prize offers a multi-million dollar award for Origin of Information.

When we add information to the equation, we conclude that not only is the thing outside the biggest circle infinite and immaterial, it is also conscious.

Isn’t it interesting how all these things sound suspiciously similar to how theologians have described God for thousands of years?

So it’s hardly surprising that 80-90% of the people in the world believe in some concept of God. Yes, it’s intuitive to most folks. But Gödel’s theorem indicates it’s also supremely logical. In fact it’s the only position one can take and stay in the realm of reason and logic.

The person who proudly proclaims, “You’re a man of faith, but I’m a man of science” doesn’t understand the roots of science or the nature of knowledge!

Interesting aside…

If you visit the world’s largest atheist website, Infidels, on the home page you will find the following statement:

“Naturalism is the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not part of the natural world affects it.”

If you know Gödel’s theorem, you know that all logical systems must rely on something outside the system. So according to Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem, the Infidels cannot be correct. If the universe is logical, it has an outside cause.

Thus atheism violates the laws of reason and logic.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem definitively proves that science can never fill its own gaps. We have no choice but to look outside of science for answers.

The Incompleteness of the universe isn’t proof that God exists. But… it IS proof that in order to construct a rational, scientific model of the universe, belief in God is not just 100% logical… it’s necessary.

Euclid’s 5 postulates aren’t formally provable and God is not formally provable either. But… just as you cannot build a coherent system of geometry without Euclid’s 5 postulates, neither can you build a coherent description of the universe without a First Cause and a Source of order.

Thus faith and science are not enemies, but allies. It’s been true for hundreds of years, but in 1931 this skinny young Austrian mathematician named Kurt Gödel proved it.

No time in the history of mankind has faith in God been more reasonable, more logical, or more thoroughly supported by science and mathematics.

I don't pretend to know how the universe started, if there was even a start. This is a very difficult scientific problem, experimentation is not very useful, at least not with our current capabilities. I don't see any logical way to go from there to the existence of a god. In fact, the existence of a god doesn't even solve the problem, because the question simply becomes, how did that god start/appear/was created ?

I'm an atheist, not because of a rejection of a deity or of religion, but because I don't believe in a higher power and never have, despite having received a religious upbringing. I never had faith, but I always had logic.


I don't pretend to know how the universe started, if there was even a start. This is a very difficult scientific problem, experimentation is not very useful, at least not with our current capabilities. I don't see any logical way to go from there to the existence of a god. In fact, the existence of a god doesn't even solve the problem, because the question simply becomes, how did that god start/appear/was created ?

I choose to embrace a different faith and take the position that creation logically implies a creator. We live in a universe that demonstrates cause and effect and this alone strongly supports belief in God over a creation of random happenstance.

In his Geography of Consciousness ('GoC' - 1974), William Arkle describes eight levels of consciousness spanning the physical and ideal worlds - at the lowest end is Man as almost unconscious: passive, instinctive and immersed in the social group; at the highest level, Man's consciousness has become that of a god: free, agent, autonomous, participating in the work of creation.

But as probably only one or a very few have ever attained Higher Man stage (Saint John the Evangelist, may be an example); it is stages 1-7 which we need to consider...

Higher Man

7. Mystic
6. Poetic
5. Idealistic
4. Sophisticated cynical - the Dead-Centre
3. Responsible
2. Average
1. Lower man

And in particular I wish to focus on the sophisticated cynic of stage 4 - which is the typical and defining stage of Modern Western Man - or, at least, the intellectual and institutional leadership class of Modern Western Man.

To paraphrase Arkle (from pages 117-8 of GoC); the sophisticated cynic is at the Dead-Centre of the evolutionary scheme - poised, suspended, trapped between lower and higher consciousness. This is a state of wide awareness of options and possibilities; made possible by increased knowledge and learning - but experienced as a pervasive relativism.

Everything is known, but nothing known with confidence - all is suspect; one option is balanced and cancelled-out by the others. Movement upward, or downward, immediately leads to loss of confidence and a tendency to return to the Dead-Centre.

And the centre is 'dead' because there is a state of demotivation. The longer a period of time that is spent in the dead centre; the harder it gets to escape. The modern sophisticated cynic may yearn either to become a higher man, to live by pure ideals and non-material values; or (perhaps more often) he yearns to discard sophistication and cynicism and simply lapse back into passivity, instinct, spontaneity and unreflectiveness - to become natural...

But both are equally impossible. His materialism and hedonism reduces and deconstructs all higher values - while he 'knows better' than the natural, spontaneous, instinctive Man - and he finds he just cannot forget or discard his sophistication, science, philosophy, ideology... They come back, again and again, to haunt him.

The sophisticated cynic is therefore pulled in both directions; and also repelled by both directions. The sophisticated cynic is the permanent adolescent - too mature to be a child, too immature to be an adult; too bored by both immaturity and maturity, seeing-through the innocence of childhood and the responsibility of adulthood. He is cut-off from the basic satisfactions of simply getting-by in practical, material life; and also from the spiritual satisfactions of living for ideals located outwith mortal life and human limitation.

As the sophisticated cynic remains trapped by his own pre-conceptions; he may create vast belief-structures of ideology... but although initially promising, these invariably always lead-back (sooner or later) to where he began-from.(All apparent escape tunnels turn-out to be loops.)

The sophisticated cynic knows that the world of communications - of nature, of other people, of his own evanescent thoughts - are doubtful and unreliable: he has often experienced this unreliability. This insight itself implies that some other and solid form of knowing exists (with which communication is implicitly being contrasted); but when it comes to any specific knowledge, the sophisticated cynic remains unsure: he lives in an atomsphere of doubt... Yet at the same time, he doubts his own doubts, suspects there is 'more to life', and cannot embrace a fully nihilistic skepticism. 

Thus the sophisticated cynic is trapped in the Dead Centre of consciousness.

The phase is a necessary point through-which Men must pass if they are to attain the autonomy required by higher consciousness; but if the lessons are to be learned, then the phase must feel real - must indeed be real - at the time it is being experienced. There must to be a pause in progression - and this pause may become prolonged and arrested into stasis.

(The ship must slow to a standstill, and actually stop - but once forward-momentum has been lost, the ship may become becalmed; at which point momentum and friction prevent it from moving again.)

Although many people do get stuck; some do escape - and in the right direction. What gets people out from the perpetual adolescence of sophisticated cynicism? That will be the subject of another post...

Just remember entropy as the years pass, and you become old, and weak, and decrepit. Then remember God, while you still have time.

The whole universe is proof of zeus actually. You can't even figure out how to read what entropy actually is, why are you still debating me on anything? You have proven yourself already. You are desperate to prove god and make it real because otherwise there is nothing left, just death and meaningless existence, you are not strong enough to accept that.

The whole earth and universe is proof for the existence of God. You ask, indirectly: "They think the purpose is to go to heaven but they never think what is the purpose once you are in heaven or what is the purpose once you are reincarnated." But you can't even figure out a purpose for life here.

Stuff doesn't just happen anywhere. If people don't make it happen, what does? There is too much order and complexity in all of it, to say nothing about cause-and-effect, strict, rigidity of everything, to say that it happens by chance or accident. BTW, "chance" has only been found in things that people are too ignorant or incapable of understanding the true cause for.

There isn't any chance in anything. Everything is planned and programmed. Complexity points at God. Religion explains the things of God that science is to inadequate to do. God answers by providing health to the religious people.



EDIT: The sperm and egg go on to life as an embryo; the embryo goes on to life as a fetus; the fetus goes on to life as person; the person goes on to real life in Heaven. If the person goes to Hell, consider that not all sperm or egg go on to embryo; not all embryo go on to fetus; not all fetuses go on to people. And some people never become smart enough to make it to Heaven.