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CopperCicada · M
The complexity argument is slippery.
One says that a toad is sufficiently complex... at least more complex than a rock or sand... so an entity must have designed it.
The first tripping point is that why does that creator need to be a deity? Why not an alien? Why not pan-spermia?
Another tripping point is that things around us are so complex that only a deity (or alien) could create them, not natural selection, then we're basically placing God behind a curtain of computational complexity. Can't know a toad, can't know God...
... but there's a tripping point there as the religious person would say that scripture says this and that about God... and that they have a personal relationship with God. So then that is a little uneasy. God is so complex and ineffable that he can make a giraffe, which is too complex for our little minds... but God tells us whether to get a #4 or a #5 at the McDonald's drive through...
... it seems that incongruity points to God and consciousness being co-emergent. It is said that consciousness is an epiphenomenon arising from complex matter. Maybe so is God? Or God is an emergent phenomenon arising from consciousness?
One says that a toad is sufficiently complex... at least more complex than a rock or sand... so an entity must have designed it.
The first tripping point is that why does that creator need to be a deity? Why not an alien? Why not pan-spermia?
Another tripping point is that things around us are so complex that only a deity (or alien) could create them, not natural selection, then we're basically placing God behind a curtain of computational complexity. Can't know a toad, can't know God...
... but there's a tripping point there as the religious person would say that scripture says this and that about God... and that they have a personal relationship with God. So then that is a little uneasy. God is so complex and ineffable that he can make a giraffe, which is too complex for our little minds... but God tells us whether to get a #4 or a #5 at the McDonald's drive through...
... it seems that incongruity points to God and consciousness being co-emergent. It is said that consciousness is an epiphenomenon arising from complex matter. Maybe so is God? Or God is an emergent phenomenon arising from consciousness?
suzie1960 · 61-69, F
@CopperCicada [quote]Another tripping point is that things around us are so complex that only a deity (or alien) could create them, [/quote]
That just adds another, unnecessary, layer. If one goes down that path, as that creator must be even more complex only a superior creator could have created it. Any alternative explanation could more easily be applied to the things around us.
That just adds another, unnecessary, layer. If one goes down that path, as that creator must be even more complex only a superior creator could have created it. Any alternative explanation could more easily be applied to the things around us.