Why God doesn't exist

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Since you believe in God,
If I don’t answer or respond to you then for sure you will believe I exist.

You can have god respond to you here:

http://www.titane.ca/igod/

Simply click 'open' then 'enter', choose your skin and begin. Miracles can even happen to a bot.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Where is the evidence that you continue through time? That it is the same person. i am not saying someone else is using your ip, I am talking about this self that is supposedly the same at ages 7, 15 etc. Pretty much every atheist, but not all, believe in this self that exists over time. But it is just a traditional belief. And for a materialist one that's hard to back up given that all the material is replaced regularly.

Heidegger did believe in a self determined by history (time) but not Satre nor Nietzsche. You cannot pigeon hole the ideas of atheists, you do not know what 'every atheist' thinks about anything save that they do not find the need for a god.

 

[scifes]

Now prove perception or perspective is a more valid way to describe reality instead of facts. Provide factual evidence......get it?

i think this has been stretched to it's longest, but anyway:
anything you base your facts upon could be fake, if those facts are based upon other facts than the possibility one of them is fake(and hence the reality chain of the fact is broken) increases.
so the shortest way-and so less possible delusions- is to take perception as it is..

look at it this way, everything could be a lie, even you to yourself. but you have a better chance with the odds if you face the possibility that you're lying to yourself without adding to it others who might be lying to you as well.

did you read the thread i linked?

scifes,
I could tell you to take time to smell the roses but you wouldn't have a good handle as to my meaning until you were about my age.

so what's your age?

 

[Sarkus]

Where is the evidence that you continue through time? That it is the same person. i am not saying someone else is using your ip, I am talking about this self that is supposedly the same at ages 7, 15 etc. Pretty much every atheist, but not all, believe in this self that exists over time. But it is just a traditional belief. And for a materialist one that's hard to back up given that all the material is replaced regularly.

Not really that hard for a materialist to accept or back up... if one accepts that the "self" is a pattern of the material rather than the material itself.
Replace any part of the material, and as long as the pattern remains, so does "self". The pattern, though, changes over time... but there might well be a fundamental core pattern that determines "self", with the rest of the pattern merely determining the personality of the "self".

 

[earth]

anything you base your facts upon could be fake,

so what's your age?

It is your responsiblity to know the difference between facts and belief.

Ask me my age and I will lie to you, so 98 is okay.

 

[earth]

Not really that hard for a materialist to accept or back up... if one accepts that the "self" is a pattern of the material rather than the material itself.
Replace any part of the material, and as long as the pattern remains, so does "self". The pattern, though, changes over time... but there might well be a fundamental core pattern that determines "self", with the rest of the pattern merely determining the personality of the "self".

What does the instinct to survive have to do with all this? How does it fit in, if at all? Doesn’t self preservation have a say?

 

[Doreen]

Not really that hard for a materialist to accept or back up... if one accepts that the "self" is a pattern of the material rather than the material itself.
Replace any part of the material, and as long as the pattern remains, so does "self". The pattern, though, changes over time... but there might well be a fundamental core pattern that determines "self", with the rest of the pattern merely determining the personality of the "self".

1) A pattern of material can be copied. In fact this may be possible not too long in the future. Let's say they offer you the option of using a 'transporter'. You step in here on earth and a computer using nanotechnology records your 'material' down to the spin on the quanta. They across the galaxy another machine recreates your pattern exactly. The pattern will be exactly the same. The material here on earth is dissipated (given all the legal and other problems doubles would create)

You steppin in that machine?

2) The pattern is radically changed. The mass increases radically. Interconnections between neurons radically change, even in later life, we are finding: the brain is much more plastic (iow the pattern can change) than once thought. Hormone levels change radically, not just within cycles, but altogether. Patterns of behavior change.

Are you sort of you, since you are sort of the same pattern, but not really?

3) I copy the various programs on your computer. Take this home on zip drives to my computer. Now my computer has the same programs and I even copied the files you had in Word and elsewhere. I have the same make and year of computer as you. Is my computer your computer now? If you break yours do you have the right to mine? Mine can do the exact same things your can and has all the same patterns. Yet, it is the same? If not, why not? Sure the matter involved is not the same, but this is case in our bodies. DNA is just code. In computers, well, code is code.

Is this what you hang identity on?

4) just realized I am being too generous. Let's take your computer. First, slowly over time, I replace all the hardware. I do this with some parts that are the same and with some parts that are not quite the same. In the end none of the original metal, plastic, etc. is the same. I also get new updated copies of the software. This still shares much of the same attributes as the original. Word, for example, is very similar to the original Word I had, though now it can do more things. Other programs I copy to disk, then erase from the computer and then upload them again.

So we have all new matter and some changes in software. Everything else in the software is a copy. I think this is a fair parallel.

Is this the same computer?

 

[lightgigantic]

When I see the word Creationist I just can't rev things up, or down. How much more condescending do I have to become in order to have a normal conversation with one. C'mon LG, help me out here. How do you accept the creationist into the theist fold? Surely you must cringe when one of them flaps their gums.

religiousity without philosophy is just as fruitless as scientific investigation without a sense of the absolute

:shrug:

 

[earth]

Doreen,
I have finally understood your reasoning. I’m not a scientist so this link can present my thinking in a more scholarly venue than I can.
Excerpt of - DNA : When Is A Code Not A Code ?

A computer code is a set of numerical values sufficient and necessary to the production of an end state from an initial state.

DNA is necessary but not sufficient to the production of an end state from an initial state.

To claim that computer code and DNA are both codes is an abuse of the power of words. It is decidedly not scientific.


Humans are a living organism and computers are not.
Computers do not have reasoning while because of our DNA, developing our brains and cognitive abilities, humans can.

I don't think living DNA in a human can be completely replaced the way material bit by bit in a computer can. The study of the genome reveals DNA is progressively added to including mutation and not replaced.

 

[Doreen]

[Doreen,
I have finally understood your reasoning. I’m not a scientist so this link can present my thinking in a more scholarly venue than I can.
Excerpt of - DNA : When Is A Code Not A Code ?

A computer code is a set of numerical values sufficient and necessary to the production of an end state from an initial state.

DNA is necessary but not sufficient to the production of an end state from an initial state.

To claim that computer code and DNA are both codes is an abuse of the power of words. It is decidedly not scientific.

I disagree. I am responding to someone asserting that our identity is not due to the matter in us, but due to a pattern. The issue around the use of the word 'code' matters very little. My point is that our patterns can be copied, which DNA in fact goes about doing. We are copies of our younger selves. Copies made up of different atoms. And copies that in many ways differ from the earlier pattern. If you look at the examples I gave in the above post you will see that I present some cases challenging the notion of pattern = identity.

Would you, for example, step into the machine in number 1? Even if there was something of great interest to you on the other end of the 'transfer'. If not, why not? The pattern would be the same. The DNA and the RNA and in fact all the chemicals would be the same patterns and be in the same pattern on the other end.

You get the idea I hope.

Humans are a living organism and computers are not.
Computers do not have reasoning while because of our DNA, developing our brains and cognitive abilities, humans can.

Identity issues can be looked at using objects that are not the same.

I don't think living DNA in a human can be completely replaced the way material bit by bit in a computer can.

Oh, but it is. It makes copies of itself all the time using new matter.

The study of the genome reveals DNA is progressively added to including mutation and not replaced.

I am not saying that something other than DNA arrives. I am saying that all the matter in that DNA is replaced. I can have a pattern of apples and oranges on a table. Let's say they spell out the letters DNA. I can then substitute new apples and oranges one at a time and retain the same pattern. On an atomic level there will be absolutely no discernible difference.

 

[earth]

Doreen,
I need a reference I can use wherein it provides evidence that all the matter in DNA has been replaced? This way I have a reference that I can study. At this point its speculation.

I can use cloning as an example but that is copying DNA. If cloning can serve as an example, are your speaking about all three types of cloning or one particular type?

(1) recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, (2) reproductive cloning, and (3) therapeutic cloning.

 

[Doreen]

Doreen,
I need a reference I can use wherein it provides evidence that all the matter in DNA is replaced? This way I have a reference that I can study.

I can use cloning as an example but that is copying DNA. If cloning can serve as an example, are your speaking about all three types of cloning or one particular type?

(1) recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, (2) reproductive cloning, and (3) therapeutic cloning.

DNA is duplicated after splitting. We make all the stuff in our bodies over and over again from stuff we eat and drink and breath. We are constantly copying ourselves. And after a while errors start to accumulate.

try searching under mitosis.

 

[earth]

DNA is duplicated by splitting. We make all the stuff in our bodies over and over again from stuff we eat and drink and breath. We are constantly copying ourselves. And after a while errors start to accumulate.

We know strands of DNA get longer through evolution by addition to it. Cell regeneration is a process of replacing or repairing damaged cells. Maybe its cell regeneration that would fit in to your explanation? Do you have a scientific theory I could reference explaining your position? Or how about an article you can reference?

 

[earth]

Mitosis is the process by which a eukaryotic cell separates the chromosomes in its cell nucleus into two identical sets in two daughter nuclei.[1] It is generally followed immediately by cytokinesis, which divides the nuclei, cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane into two daughter cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. Mitosis and cytokinesis together define the mitotic (M) phase of the cell cycle - the division of the mother cell into two daughter cells, genetically identical to each other and to their parent cell.

Basically this is copying but nothing new is added or changed because cells are genetically identical. With this understaning and within context of the definition of Mitosis we are the same and have not changed.

 

[Doreen]

We know strands of DNA get longer through evolution by addition to it. Cell regeneration is a process of replacing or repairing damaged cells. Maybe its cell regeneration that would fit in to your explanation? Do you have a scientific theory I could reference explaining your position? Or how about an article you can reference?

Mitosis. Cells making new cells. I am not talking about DNA over individuals or thruogh evolution through species. I am talking about what happens in our cells. Where do your new cells come from? Answer that and you'll see what I mean.

 

[earth]

Mitosis. Cells making new cells. I am talking about what happens in our cells. Where do your new cells come from? Answer that and you'll see what I mean.

In the Mitosis process we are the same and have not changed.
Because the divided cells are genetically identical.

 

[Doreen]

In the Mitosis process we are the same and have not changed.
Because the divided cells are genetically identical.

Sigh. Please go back to the original post I made in response to Sarkus to understand the whole argument. My point about DNA is that it also has all its matter replaced. Yes, the DNA generally stays in the same pattern in us. But my original post shows problems with basing identity on patterns. One, they can be reproduced. 2) the patterns that make us up are not simply DNA based. We have vast neuronal, hormonal, behavioral, memory and mass changes in our bodies over time. The pattern does not remain the same. If the materialist wants to base identity on matter, it fails. The matter changes. That's what our little tangent is about. If the materialist wants to base it on patterns, the patterns that we are change radically. AND we can be copied. If you want to base identity on DNA you can likely be cloned. That other clone is not you. They can never make sure the mitochondrial genetics are correct. See my number 1) for one approach to challenging this way of identifying identity.

On a physical level we are copies that have been radically modified. Copies made on new matter. And yet very few materialists consider their own belief in a persistant self to be religious. Yet they often look down on theists.

I feel like you are not getting the whole of my argument.

 

[earth]

Doreen,
I understand your argument and the links I have provided disagree with you including Mitosis. The dividing cells happening through Mitosis are genetically identical. We are remaining the same and through evolution is the way we change.

Thus far the transporting of organic material like it is portrayed in star trek is nothing more than fiction. And there is no reason to think the transporting of organic material that way can happen, actually.

Mitosis is the only word you gave me where I could check your comments. Notice you didn’t provide any links to substantiate the things you were saying. Its almost like you were trying to snow me. :scratchin:

 

[Doreen]

I understand your argument and the links I have provided disagree with you including Mitosis. The dividing cells happening through Mitosis are genetically identical. We are remaining the same and through evolution is the way we change.

This is my last response to you.

This exchange between us, for me, focused on this issue...

Doreen,
I need a reference I can use wherein it provides evidence that all the matter in DNA has been replaced?

So I suggested looking into mitosis, where it becomes clear that DNA is copied and new atoms must be used to create DNA. The word Mitosis in Google is enough to find out I am correct here. The pattern remains the same, except for mutation, but, there it is clear, in answer to your own question, the matter is replaced, over time, by statistical accretion.

I have no idea if you realized consciously or not that I was correct, but once we were talking about mitosis, you shifted the issue to the pattern, rather than the matter.

I find that kind of arguing, where the person does not acknowledge something, but shifts the focus, unpleasant, because it means I must do a lot of work, essentially yours.

Thus far the transporting of organic material like it is portrayed in star trek is nothing more than fiction. And there is no reason to think the transporting of organic material that way can happen, actually.

That does not mean that a thought experiment like that, common in physics, raises a valid challenge. If it were possible, would you do it. And by the way they have started transporting small amounts of matter.

Mitosis is the only word you gave me where I could check your comments. Notice you didn’t provide any links to substantiate the things you were saying. Its almost like you were trying to snow me. :scratchin:

As I said above, any description of mitosis will back up what I am saying. More strands of DNA are made out of......what? The original strand is doubled. Hence more matter is used. Hence over time....I thought this would be obvious to you and you would realize this if you googled Mitosis. I would hold you hand next time more thoroughly if I were to keep up this dialogue.

YOu have never responded to the first post. You have shown little clarity about the distinction between pattern and material. Any decent description of mitosis will show that new matter is needed every time mitosis occurs and that the new strands are immediately significantly different in terms of matter not pattern, let alone after, for example, two years in a human body and all the cell making going on.

Instead of acknowledging this, you shift to saying that the pattern is the same which was not the issue, which you should know given you own question which I cited above in this post.

You have never responded to a number of issues I raised about our patterns as whole which are key to the response I made to Sarkus. We have spent a good number of posts where you keep telling me that that the DNA stays the same (in terms of pattern, something I never asserted otherwise about).

From here on out I will ignore you.

 

[mike47]

If there is no God then who created this very complex world ?.
This world could not have created itself by itself .