Conversation

Notices

1. LS (lain@lain.com)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 21:23:10 JST LS
   I finished 'the return of the god hypothesis' by stephen meyers yesterday. I heard him on brian keating's podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvH14pAVl40) and found it interesting enough. Essentially, he argues that for various technical and philosophical reasons that the universe in general and life in particular is designed from the outside. He gets suprisingly technical, this is not "they found a beam of the true cross" type of apologia. He does put his finger on 'i fucking love science' type nonsense like Lawrence krauss's "Universe from Nothing" ("Nothing means different things to different people" - Krauss). Overall, I'm not persuaded, but he's not obviously wrong, and there are lots of things to check because he uses actual, technical arguments.
   • p (p@raru.re)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 21:32:31 JST p

     in reply to

     spinoza was right tbh
     @lain

     LS likes this.
   • sofia ☮️🏴 (sofia@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2024 06:12:51 JST sofia ☮️🏴

     in reply to

     @lain i watched the video now. and i think for the most part it's just that special pleading i mentioned.

     one thing else that seems worth commenting on is that "christians invented science" claim. i want to write a more in-depth post on this, but looking at ancient philosophy (check out the presocratics), it's pretty clear that people were long looking for universal principles before the idea of some god-given "law of nature".

     LS likes this.
   • sofia ☮️🏴 (sofia@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2024 06:12:52 JST sofia ☮️🏴

     in reply to

     @lain "Nothing means different things to different people", well, yes, obviously. he just talks about a zero energy state, but he constantly got confronted with concepts like "an absence of physics", which seems a pretty misguided idea. to the best of our knowledge, physics is pretty damn universal and doesn't just go missing sometimes.

     if people want to put forward some concept of "physicslessness", maybe they should first explain how that would be a possibility…

   • sofia ☮️🏴 (sofia@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2024 06:12:54 JST sofia ☮️🏴

     in reply to

     @lain i also don't know what your criticism on Laurence Krauss' argument is. he basically just points out that the the beginning of the universe seems to have needed no energy to happen. i don't know how to do the math, but i from what i heard physicists tend to agree.

     it's only tangentially related to god claims, of course. it's just that theist tend to believe that "creation" was a big effort, and if the universe can easily just happen, it's not clear what role god played in it.

   • sofia ☮️🏴 (sofia@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 22-Jan-2024 06:12:55 JST sofia ☮️🏴

     in reply to

     @lain

     > this is not "they found a beam of the true cross" type of apologia.

     yeah, but it is creationism, doesn't seem that far off. i may watch the video, but i'm calling loads of special pleading for god, "X is impossible, also god can do X". i also suspect he provides no actual model of god, which is what you would need if you want to make predictions from it. otherwise you don't have an explanation, just an outcome-independent backstory.