But nobody is saying the power, as you put it, is an IPU. That’s adding another part to the question you’re being asked–and one that would, as you point out, make it less likely.
So to repeat
Not a god-like IPU. Not something else. Invisible. Pink. Unicorn.
In the one corner, weighing in with a probability of X%, we have the “power.” In the other corner, an invisible pink unicorn–another, completely different entity, for which there’s no empirical evidence that it does exist, and which is (or can be made to be, if you want to fight the hypothetical) exactly as plausible or implausible under the laws of physics as a “power.”
So, do you give the same, different probability to the existence of an IPU that you give to the existence of a “power”?
Oh yeah, I guess it was the dragon in somebody’s garage that was in another dimension or something.
I don’t know of any evidence of the run-of-the-mill IPU existing so I have no reason to think it might, but, like I said, I think that the fact that our brains are incapable of grasping things about the universe is evidence that a higher power MAY exist. So, based on the evidence as I see it, I give the unspecified power a higher probability of existing than the IPU.
Technically, the dragon was only in another dimension to respond to another poster trying to fight the hypothetical by saying his “god” was in another dimension; further, being in another dimension doesn’t make something god, or a “power”–it’s just a place it lives.
Very nice response! So, if I understand you correctly, you aren’t just arguing that we should keep an open mind as to a higher power based on the absence of evidence–you’re looking to circumstantial evidence, and using it to evaluate the probability of such a thing existing.
And, as you point out in the case of an IPU, the complete absence of evidence is a reason not to have any reason to think that such a thing might exist, yes? Or as you put it,
So now we get to debate the evidence in favor or against a higher power.
Our brains have nothing to do with it. The “higher power” is generally defined in such a way that - no matter how smart and well-informed we are - we still couldn’t do an exhaustive search or test that would give any evidence that it exists or not. The exact same thing is true for the IPU.
Even if we were trillions of times smarter, that wouldn’t change a thing about the argument or evidence for gods, higher powers, invisible pink unicorns or any other suitably defined hypothetical entity.
The problem is not our minds or our physical limitations, it’s that these types of entities are defined to be both undetectable and incomprehensible and therefore inherently impotent and not worthy of thought even if they did exist.
Strange ,the earth is 4.5 million years old. Man has been around a thin slice of that time. Religion has been around for 2 or 3 thousand years. Yet some people believe the worlds was all made for us . It requires a huge belief that people are something special. Some sharks, bears and lions think we are food. Not so special. Mosquitoes like our blood. We are just another life form on a rock circling a mid sized sun.
I’m sure because belief in a deity is a personal thing. I’m sure I don’t believe in any Gods because I know what my own beliefs are. I’m not telling you that you don’t believe in a God.
Yes, my unstated assumption was that the very act of assigning probabilities entailed assignment of differing values. If that’s not the case, then the notion of probability doesn’t really make any sense…unless the value being assigned to all such possibilities is “indeterminate”.
But something that lives in another dimension would be supernatural, right?
Yes that’s exactly right. I don’t think there might be a higher power just because, hey, why not? It’s true that that line of thinking would apply just as much to the IPU.
The infinite nature of time and space is something I just can’t wrap my mind around, and I don’t think any other person can either. It wouldn’t sound too likely either if we didn’t know it had to be true. So we have no idea what is behind that, but we do know it’s something our minds can’t conceive of. Doesn’t that make it beyond the scope of science?
Yes we do
I didn’t mean that we can’t detect the higher power because we’re not smart enough, I meant that we know for a fact that there ARE things that we can’t imagine. We can’t imagine the universe being infinite OR finite, but one of them has to be true. I guess my notion of a “higher power” is so vague that it all kind of blends together to me. There’s something going on that we’re incapable of comprehending. I don’t see why it would be unlikely that some type of higher power is in the mix.
And like I said, I don’t worship this vague thing that may or may not exist, I don’t get my morals from it, I don’t kill people in its name, etc. But I do like to think that there could be some kind of afterlife involving it.
Sure–but remember that the dragon was only put in another dimension to match an assertion made about “god” in an attempt to fight the hypothetical. The point is not that I’m invested in (or particularly proposing) an interdimensional dragon, but that I’m proposing a dragon that cannot be trivially distinguished from “god” by saying “well, the dragon is on earth and “god” isn’t”
This is exactly the point of the hypothetical–to determine if the argument is evidence-based, or if it is merely a “hey, why not” argument–and if it is the second, to rebut it fiercely (as is entirely appropriate–it’s a silly argument) because it could apply equally to the IPU (not that many people pushing the “open mind” argument are willing to acknowledge that it applies equally well to the IPU).
I strongly disagree that anything’s beyond the scope of science. Beyond the scope of now-known science, sure–but beyond that, aren’t you making an assumption about, as you put it, the infinite nature of time and space, by saying it’s never going to be understandable by humans, ever? I think that statement makes exactly the error you seem to be challenging–it makes an assumption about the nature about the not-currently understood, with no support for so doing.
And that may be a risky argument for those advocating “open minds”–but we can, and should objectively consider the evidence in favor of a higher power.
At this time. That’s all, by your own contention, that we can know now–that we can’t imagine at this time.
Again, unknown doesn’t to me mean unknowable. In fact, you shouldn’t take a view on whether the unknown is unknowable specifically because you don’t know what it is.
Black holes, quasars, and so on were unknown to galileo. Unknowable, they were not, as we now know them well. Just because something is unknown, perhaps even unimagined, at the present time just plain says nothing about whether it is knowable or not.
Just curious: why would an afterlife involve some kind of higher being? I don’t believe in either, but I suppose that if there’s an afterlife, I imagine it as something “natural”.
Sure. A lot of believers mention that (at this point in time at least) humans don’t understand everything - what pre-existed the big bang for ex. But that is no surprise if you assume there is no reason the universe got to this point for the sake of being understood by humans - or that humane exist for the purpose of understanding the universe. I’m not sure “understanding the universe” confers a significant evolutionary advantage…
Most atheists think that humans are simply animals. The universe was not made for my golden retrievers to understand… Many believers seem to think humans are something special.
Even if you wish to separate the 2 questions of god’s existence and his action, do you see any evidence of either? And, do you see any evidence of one particular god(s} over any other?
The fact that gods come in and out of vogue, and that so many are downright silly in their specifics, I find contributes to the “no god” side of the ledger.
Do you agree that man has the ability to make things up - for any number of reasons? Does that not strike you as a much more likely explanation for a god belief than whatever “magical” explanation?
This is also quite a good response to the “universe is unknowable” argument–that any failure of knowledge is down to our inability to perceive it.
To take it a step further–if humans really were special, and were created by some kind of higher power, doesn’t it seem like that higher power has failed, or is flawed, because it has put us in a world that we can’t perceive, understand, or imagine fully?
Exactly! now that we’re evaluating probabilities, we have to take this one into account–and from my own viewpoint, I agree that this seems far more likely than the actual existence of a higher power (especially given the huge number of inconsistent stories about gods that fill humanity’s past).
I just don’t see how it could ever possibly make sense to us that the universe has no end. I don’t believe it’s something we can maybe figure out someday. I’m no scientist (so correct me if I’m wrong), but I don’t know of anything that’s ever been so incomprehensible on such a basic level, but then science solved the mystery.
There are a lot of scientific facts that seem amazing, maybe hard to believe, hard to understand…but IMPOSSIBLE?
I think our brains would have to change in some fundamental way for us to be able to grasp the concept of infinity.
Take time travel as an example. I don’t think it’s possible and if it is, I sure haven’t the slightest clue how it could be done…but I can IMAGINE it happening. Maybe someday people will figure out how to do it. My brain doesn’t get stuck like when I try to think about the universe never ending, or else ending, and then…?
How could it be something natural though? We know what happens to us physically when we die.
You make an interesting point. I’ll have to think about it some more.
And I don’t think humans are special either.
No, I don’t believe in any specific god, because I can’t see any evidence of one. As I’ve been saying, I do see evidence though of something that I think is beyond the scope of science.
Humans definitely can and do make things up. There have to be all kinds of things made up about various gods, since they can’t all be true. But none of that is the basis for my belief that there could possibly exist a higher power of some kind.
I meant “natural” as in “innate”; something that happens to everyone/thing. As far as I understand it, most believers in an afterlife assume a concept of “soul” or “spirit” that persists after death. Meaning there’s something that everybody already has when they’re alive that you “keep” when you die.
I’m not at all certain what a “soul” is, though I’ve tried, and the result of that is that I now believe nobody has a good definition of it, but anyway, if we (as in humans, to get rid of at least part of the problems) all have souls that can persist after death, I don’t see what any kind of higher power has to do with it.
Well, I’d disagree that infinity is particularly incomprehensible to “us”. To you, to many people, sure, but I’m not willing to generalize about humanity based on your own experience–especially as mine differs. To me, infinity–something that goes on forever is not particularly complicated. Weird, sure, but conceptually complicated, I disagree. How many numbers are there on a number line? Sixth-graders can understand that.
If you want examples, how about general relativity, quantum mechanics, the workings of the cell, as things that were incomprehensible on a basic level, but are now understood.
But beyond that, surely you agree that incomprehensible to you just plain doesn’t mean incomprehensible to anyone, everywhere. Maybe you just don’t understand it. And unless infinity is incomprehensible to anyone, everywhere, it’s just not evidence of a higher being.
The argument from personal incredulity just isn’t a very strong argument–especially when you try to generalize from that incredulity.
Assumes it’s impossible.
Because you can’t grasp it, here and now? I just see no basis for this conclusion.
From what I understand (and I’m not a scientist either, just a layman interested in physics) is that nobody knows if the universe is infinite, and actually, many if not most physicists are quite ready to state that they don’t like the idea of an infinite universe. Not just because it makes the maths more or less impossible to deal with, but also because a truly infinite universe would make everything that’s possible not just plausible but certain to exist. And that includes planets covered in chocolate.
What we know is that, given the age of the universe, we can’t “see” the edge - we can see as far back as it’s possible to see. And there might not even be an edge, even if the universe is finite (the universe might “wrap around”, though it seems unlikely on any scale we can measure, IIRC, again, I’m not a physicist).
ETA: if you mean “end” as in “end in time”, there appears to quite probably be one.
Well, yeah, if there’s an afterlife I would think it would be for everyone.
And it wouldn’t need a “god” exactly…but if there’s an afterlife then that must mean there is some supernatural stuff going on, which would be a type of higher power, I think? I wasn’t thinking of it as some personified God, necessarily.
