I would like to make clear I am an atheist who does not believe in the supernatural world nor do I believe in heavan or hell, nor an intelligent god. Intelligent no but possibly physical and observable? Definitely not intelligent but might exist. Anyways i want to trade questions and put up a hypothesis and put it to scrutiny. Hit me hard and make sure to prove my hypothesis wrong. But with what I’m going to present here you may not even know how to answer me or how to conceive a world where I am wrong. If that happens punch me with everything and if you offer evidence that proves im wrong it will definitively prove that not only does a biblical god not exist but no god of anykind exist. Ask me a question to start
Kay … go ahead. What’s your hypothesis?(Disclaimer: I’ve met God, so I have absolutely zero faith in your initial assertion)
The initial base line is this. What constitutes a living thing? We must first identify this to understand my hypothesis of a physical god.
Are you expecting a simple answer? Because what constitutes living vs non-living is quite blurry.
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Exactly.
Here’s a relevant definition from a well-known dictionary (sense 1c):
an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
This excludes viruses, since they do not metabolise, they don’t grow, and they depend on a host to produce new copies of itself (reproduce). If we include viruses in the definition of life, we end up with a host of other problems.
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Yes that is correct but i think we can come to a solid conclusion through observation without bias. I’ll start this with a few questions. #1 are you alive? #2 are inanimate objects allive? (Eg. Is a building alive?) #3 is language alive? And finally is the universe as a whole alive?
1: I hope so. Unless I’m just a simulation, I guess I am.
2: Is a virus inanimate? Is a virus alive or not?
3: Depends on your definition of alive. Words can have different meanings or connotations depending on context.
4: If by alive, you mean that the universe is an organism? Then I would say no. But again you have to consider different meanings of “alive”, and its connotations.
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- yes
- no
- no
- yes and no
You can’t compartmentalize the universe as a whole into one category or another. The universe as a whole contains living and non-living things. Thus the answer to four is yes and no
Ohhhh I like like this ok. So lets look at the comparison between a human and a building, say an office building. Can you campare the two I would argue you can because of information transference every microbe and bit inside of you is like a person in the office along with the other parts such as computers, printers lights and so on. Heres something to consider, do the microbes that make me well “me” have an awareness that i exist? Do they worship me? (Just a joke) or are they completely unaware because if they are they work awfully hard to keep me alive and going. Why isn’t it the same for a building when we stop and abandone a building it dies aand is reclaimed by nature. Just like my body will.
The issue is this for humans to see the world through the lens I’m attempting to present you must not see through the eyes of human labels. I recognize im asking to achieve a prospective that I don’t fully understand myself. It is asking how can we see the world through the eyes of complexity not humanity.
Well, how about a termite hill? Same deal. Little termites maintaining the hill. The hill isn’t alive or sentient.
Are you addressing “being alive” or “being sentient”?
Keep going! Let’s get this party started!
Termite hills are a well organized system that transfers information from its appendages to its central perspective ie the queen the hill itself is just an extension of its being as the hive is a sum of its parts. Look its really easy to get lost in the weeds on this one so lets try to keep it simple. First I would like to know what belief you hold rat_spit you said you’ve met god. Can you show us evidence of this claim? I want to understand your view and consider it as we continue.
I’m reminded by this of an iconoclastic panentheist on another forum. I say “iconoclastic” because he doesn’t just believe God is both present within and beyond the universe; he somehow retcons Christianity to fit that concept (not very convincingly IMO). Anyway I thought of him because he uses a similar analogy of how the cells in a complex organism like a human have no awareness of, nor any way to perceive the whole, but can only imperfectly sense that something greater exists. But if they could, a human body might seem like “god” to them. He also likes that this is an explanation for why “god” isn’t interventionist or even particularly aware of us, much as I am not aware of individual cells in my body, or of their experiences. I “sustain” them in an autonomic sense, but not a personal one.
Ultimately I don’t find this sort of thought experiment (or speculation, really) to be actionable in any way. But it is suggestive of a mechanism whereby some subjectively god-like greater reality, if you will, might explain some of our feelings of / longing for transcendence and suchlike.
Personally I am of the view that the more economical explanation is that there is nothing (or at least nothing that matters) apart from what we can discern of our place in the grand scope of existence – but we have a hard time accepting that because it makes us feel small and alone to think that we’re not more significant than that.
Nor do I feel any need (or see any use) for a deity or quasi-deity. Indeed, in my time I’ve seen such concepts cause way more harm than good.
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As a human, I am unable to eschew human labels.
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I completely agree with your claim to be entirely honest I’m not willing to believe in this either (and don’t) untill we can provide evidence for it. But i would say that if god,which i dont even think we can call it that because it suggests intelligence and that it created life which i dont think that would be the case, i think that this version would be the only one that could be accepted by science if able to be observed. I’m attempting to disprove my own world view by advocating for the existence of this thing. And I fully agree that human kind gravitate towards transcends for an evolutionary reason verses a religious one.
Exactly my point and claim that we are entirely unable to avoid see reality through our perception of it. A step I think to change that I think is doing experiments with virtual reality to experience the world through other species of life. Like what if you could experience the world through the eyes of a dragonfly? How would it effect the human brain to see that many hues of color? Or through the eyes of a tick. Im suggesting a program that would allow you empathy for other animals furthering the idea that all life is the same. Just something the think about.
All it takes to do that is imagination (or psychedelics).
Why not a computer that can simulate that. I’m very anti drugs as I’m an ex addict unless its prescribed by professionals.
You are attempting to do that using a human language with words putting human labels on things and concepts, and you are doing that with a human brain. That doesn’t give your project the best starting point. Besides, you can define, hypothesise, and assume all you want, but in the end you end up with the fact that if your model does not fit reality, your model is not correct. Data is king.
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