The mind as evidence of god

[JoeyKnothead]

Recently in another thread, someone said such as...

"The mind is evidence of God."

For debate:
Please offer some means to confirm the claim is true and factual.

Please remember this section of the site doesn't consider the bible authoritative.

[William]

Post #666

I prefer to deal with claims within the thread in which they're presented.

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #49]

The link was given that the reader might follow the clues made available. In that, your personal preferences re my providing the link, are besides the point.

[TRANSPONDER]

What we do know, is that the universe had a beginning and that something cannot come from nothing.
So we know that the universe came from something, even that we do not and may never know the fundamental nature of that something.

I've yet to find any means by which we can confirm the universe had a beginning.

Can you offer such confirmation?

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #49]


I follow what the scientists say on the matter. Are you suggesting they might be interpreting the data incorrectly?
The alternative is that the universe has always existed. Can you confirm this as being the case?

That's not the right question. The right one is based on agnosticism - nobody really knows. And on 'limited human perception' (as the believers keep saying) which means that just because we never see something come from Nothing doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. For all we know particles /energy comes from nothing and goes back to nothing all the time.

Bottom line - nobody knows and nobody knows about what we don't know. It only seems to me that appealing to an intelligent creator that either popped out of nowhere or always existed looks far more improbable than a nothing that can become the something that surely an intelligent creator would need to be made out of..

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #52]

Referring to nothing as something which actually exists, does not in itself mean that it therefore actually exists.

[JoeyKnothead]

What we do know, is that the universe had a beginning and that something cannot come from nothing.
So we know that the universe came from something, even that we do not and may never know the fundamental nature of that something.

I've yet to find any means by which we can confirm the universe had a beginning.

Can you offer such confirmation?

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #49]
I follow what the scientists say on the matter. Are you suggesting they might be interpreting the data incorrectly?

I'm saying we have no means of confirming the universe had a beginning. What scientists have to allow is not my problem.

The alternative is that the universe has always existed. Can you confirm this as being the case?

This is not a claim I make.

We have no means of confirming the universe had a beginning, or has always existed (in one form or another).

[JoeyKnothead]

Post #666

I prefer to deal with claims within the thread in which they're presented.

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #49]

The link was given that the reader might follow the clues made available. In that, your personal preferences re my providing the link, are besides the point.

I respect a difference of methodology here, as I respect you offered support.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #52]

It only seems to me that appealing to an intelligent creator that either popped out of nowhere or always existed looks far more improbable than a nothing that can become the something that surely an intelligent creator would need to be made out of..

Conflating things which have always existed with things which have not, isn't logical and explains why it 'seems to you' the way that it does.

If everything has always existed and therefore could not have been created, then consciousness also never had a beginning.

Anyone declaring that the universe has always existed 'except for consciousness' has the lights on dim.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #52]

It only seems to me that appealing to an intelligent creator that either popped out of nowhere or always existed looks far more improbable than a nothing that can become the something that surely an intelligent creator would need to be made out of..

Conflating things which have always existed with things which have not, isn't logical and explains why it 'seems to you' the way that it does.

If everything has always existed and therefore could not have been created, then consciousness also never had a beginning.

Anyone declaring that the universe has always existed 'except for consciousness' has the lights on dim.

No You are overlooking 'emergence' which is the bottom line of evolution. Unless one dismisses all the evidence, the theory had basic matter (give or take not knowing where it came from) becoming more complex and Our universe (perhaps just one of many) evolved (rather than exploded) from it, and the earth got made and biochemicals became complex enough for replication (so the theory goes) and reaction became instinct and instinct became pack identity and that became society, reason and consciousness.

It is not a problem to explain where Consciousness came from any more than where Life came from. The only Gap for God that theists have is to deny everything and say (irrationally) 'Not possible' when all the evidence suggests that it absolutely Is possible.

Cosmic origins is a tougher one, but after all it is academic.

[William]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #57]

No You are overlooking 'emergence' which is the bottom line of evolution.

You are forgetting that your complaint is about a Cosmic Mind existing and consequently responsible for shaping form [re objects in the universe] and evolution [re consciousness on this planet].
If you want to include the theory of emergence as the reason for human consciousness, then there is no practical reason to exclude the theory of emergence for Cosmic Consciousness.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #52]

Referring to nothing as something which actually exists, does not in itself mean that it therefore actually exists.

No, but it is a hypothetical alternative to a deliberate act of creation which may not actually have happened

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #57]

No You are overlooking 'emergence' which is the bottom line of evolution.

You are forgetting that your complaint is about a Cosmic Mind existing and consequently responsible for shaping form [re objects in the universe] and evolution [re consciousness on this planet].
If you want to include the theory of emergence as the reason for human consciousness, then there is no practical reason to exclude the theory of emergence for Cosmic Consciousness.

Except that you have to have existing matter for the Cosmic Mind to evolve from and either something created that or it always existed - or it somehow came from Nothing. Postulating a Cosmic Mind, evolved or not simply brings the infinite regression problem up again and that is the illogical one.

[William]

No You are overlooking 'emergence' which is the bottom line of evolution.

You are forgetting that your complaint is about a Cosmic Mind existing and consequently responsible for shaping form [re objects in the universe] and evolution [re consciousness on this planet].
If you want to include the theory of emergence as the reason for human consciousness, then there is no practical reason to exclude the theory of emergence for Cosmic Consciousness.

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #59]

Except that you have to have existing matter for the Cosmic Mind to evolve from and either something created that or it always existed

It always existed and is called the Quantum Field. [QF]

- or it somehow came from Nothing.

Illogical.

Postulating a Cosmic Mind, evolved or not simply brings the infinite regression problem up again and that is the illogical one.

Not so.

The belief that infinite regression is a problem is a false belief.
________________________________________________________

From another conversation I am having re the subject;

William: Since we are informed that the universe had a beginning, the universe is the effect. Something which has a beginning cannot be the cause of its own effect.

Bust Nak: That didn't stop you from stating "all things derive from the one thing which is all things."

William: That is because it is logical. The Universe cannot have come from nothing, so it must have come from something. Just because we do not know what the something is, doesn't change the logic.
As I pointed out, the Mandelbrot Set has made it conceptionally easier to understand that there is nothing absurd in the idea and nothing at fault in the notion of 'turtles' [or elephants or seahorses] all the way in and out. [ Infinite Regression is Possible]
Beginning points, are not significant of being separate from the one thing which is all things. They are distinct parts of what makes up the whole. {SOURCE}