The watch and the universe

[Silver Guard]

Once upon a time there was an argument for the existence of God:

If you stumble across a stone on the moon you wouldn't be surprised (except at your clumsiness), if you stubled upon a watch however, you would think about where it came from.

1. You think about what made a complex object
2. Complex objects have a designer
3. The universe is complex
4. The only possible designer is God
5. Therefore God exists

Then along came Silver Guard and destroyed the argument with a simple statement
'The universe dosn't tell the time'
This statement may seem a bit blatently obvious, and that is the nature of my argument.
The watch was designed to tell the time, as it was designed for a purpose, a maker must have had that purpose in mind upon making it. Without a purpose it would not have been made.

The universe has no purpose, that we can see anyway...
Therefore there is no reason for its creation...
Therefore there is not neccissarily a creator...
End of Argument.

This begs the question 'what created the universe then'. But this is not the topic, the topic the above argument.
Please point out any flaws in my argument, or congratulate me for being a genius, either way...

[Spiff]

The universe has no purpose, that we can see anyway

I suppose thats the problem with your theory "that we can see". A Christian may well come by and say its purpose is self evident in that immedietly after creating it, God created the earth and life in general.

Even i wouldnt say the Universe has absolutely no purpose, though as far as i know there isnt any evidence to suggest either way.


Anyway as Darth Wong used to say, complexity does not always suggest intelligence. He used the example of a piece of unrefined ore.. which is structuraly more complex than refined ore, oddly enough

[shadowarmy75]

I believe that the universe has no purpose but the things in it do.

[Tostig]

But surely the pressure is on religion (not to mention any one religion in particular) to prove that there is a purpose, rather than just saying "You can't prove there isn't x therefore..."

I cannot disprove the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster => I am unable to have an opinion on the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Lets look at it more empirically, and allow me to borrow from Dawkins, I am currently unable to prove that there is a chocolate teapot orbiting the moon, however this does not mean that I cannot make a reasonable assumption that there is no orbiting teapot composed of Cadbury's. Ockham's Razor wins again.

self evident

Descartes believed that it was self evident that mental things are separate from physical things (and that they interacted in the pineal gland of all places).

The Declaration of Independence held "that all men are created equal", and considered such a statement to be held self evident. However philosophically, that proposition is not necessarily self-evident, and the subsequent propositions surely are not.

[Denny Crane!]

Once upon a time there was an argument for the existence of God:

If you stumble across a stone on the moon you wouldn't be surprised (except at your clumsiness), if you stubled upon a watch however, you would think about where it came from.

1. You think about what made a complex object
2. Complex objects have a designer
3. The universe is complex
4. The only possible designer is God
5. Therefore God exists

Then along came Silver Guard and destroyed the argument with a simple statement
'The universe dosn't tell the time'
This statement may seem a bit blatently obvious, and that is the nature of my argument.
The watch was designed to tell the time, as it was designed for a purpose, a maker must have had that purpose in mind upon making it. Without a purpose it would not have been made.

The universe has no purpose, that we can see anyway...
Therefore there is no reason for its creation...
Therefore there is not neccissarily a creator...
End of Argument.

This begs the question 'what created the universe then'. But this is not the topic, the topic the above argument.
Please point out any flaws in my argument, or congratulate me for being a genius, either way...

You have twisted the original premise to suit your logic and thus distorted the premise. At no point does the conceptual arguement introduce purpose (though it could be argued "humans").

You need to read about the fine tuned universe concept to understand what the arguement is about, suffice to say purpose does not come into it.

Peter

[Tom Paine]

The argument originally was just as demolishable EG... "What created God, infinitely more complex than the universe? Why do we need to go that extra step back for the self-crating Creator, from the universe?"

[Keresztes]

If you handed a watch to a caveman, with no explanation, he would have no idea what it was for. This doesn't mean that the watch isn't a watch, or that it has no purpose. It just means that he's an ignorant caveman. What makes you think we're capable of comprehending the true meaning of the universe at our present state? We aren't that far removed from cavemen, you know. Just my two cents. :wink:

[DarkKnight]

If you handed a watch to a caveman, with no explanation, he would have no idea what it was for. This doesn't mean that the watch isn't a watch, or that it has no purpose. It just means that he's an ignorant caveman. What makes you think we're capable of comprehending the true meaning of the universe at our present state? We aren't that far removed from cavemen, you know. Just my two cents. :wink:

Yes but that caveman could study and examine the watch and extrapolate theories on what it is. Just because we currently do not understand the universe does not mean that we cannot study it and attempt to figure it out.

[Sétanta]

I don't know how to even respond to the poor logic of the threads original purpose

[Denny Crane!]

The argument originally was just as demolishable EG... "What created God, infinitely more complex than the universe? Why do we need to go that extra step back for the self-crating Creator, from the universe?"

We don't that is an entirely seperate question. The question does not even neccessarily imply God just design. The concept was first theorised at least scientifically in 1973 and is called the anthropic principle. That the universe is the way it is because of many many exact things which if even slightly different would make the uiniverse completley uninhabitable to any form of life (the universe would not exist as we know it). It suggests the universe has been fine tuned for life.

Purely considering the question without the wider theological implications it is sound.

Peter

[Fenris]

1. You think about what made a complex object
2. Complex objects have a designer
3. The universe is complex
4. The only possible designer is God
5. Therefore God exists

Human only organises things to fit his needs.

But define organisation? What's the difference from chaos? Is the universe organised? What makes you think it's not chaos? And why do you say the universe is complex? It's complex by human standards only... which, last time I checked are not universal standards. What's big for us, is not nessarily big in a galaxy's standard.

You need to read about the fine tuned universe concept to understand what the arguement is about, suffice to say purpose does not come into it.

This says nothing about the organisation of the universe, it is finely tuned to present the results we can see, but if you throw a pile of paper on the ground, the chaos created by it is perfectly tuned to present the results. So basically, universe may just be chaos, and if chaos had went another way, things would have been different, but it happened to turn out this way. But at the same time... universe couldn't have gone another way, because any electron that wouldn't have went the way it did in our universe, isn't part of the universe, since it did not happen!

So what we define has universe is just what happened, and couldn't have gone another way. Because when you throw the pile of paper on the ground, everything is already set for it to fall the way it did. Destiny?

[ZaPPPa]

The universe has no purpose, that we can see anyway...
Therefore there is no reason for its creation...
Therefore there is not neccissarily a creator...
End of Argument.

Does the Universe need to have a purpose even if it has a creator?

[Fenris]

Does the Universe need to have a purpose even if it has a creator?

Philosophically no, but theologically, yes.

[ZaPPPa]

Philosophically no, but theologically, yes.

Theologically... isn't that a contradiction in terminus?

[Fenris]

Theologically... isn't that a contradiction in terminus?

Well logically comes from logos which means knowledge. But, indeed, since god is un-understandable, it is contradiction

[Garbarsardar]

Well logically comes from logos which means knowledge. But, indeed, since god is un-understandable, it is contradiction

Logos means Reason, discourse and speech in that order. Knowledge=gnosis, hence agnostic, gnosiology and all the derivatives of cognition.

[Tom Paine]

As I've said in the Existance of God thread you are reverse-engineering probability... I gave the deck of cards example, dealing five cards, giving a probability of 311875199 to 1 against. Yet it happens. Reverse engineering doesn't work; there's the same chance those tweaks would all be slightly different as there is that they are the way they are. Its unsound.

[Silver Guard]

Mudd, if you have nothing to say, don't say anything atall

Fenris, the first point you put forward has nothing to do with my argument, you are referring to the original argument, I'm not the one who put that argument forward, I'm just pointing out the flaws in it

El Guapo, I am not twisting logic, no, the original is not mentioning purpose, but for something to be designed it must have a purpose, it almost goeswith the definition of design

Spiff, what would God's purpose be in creating life? Obviously not to tell the time? To feed upon, to praise him, to have children and make more pointless life? There seems very little an omnipotent being would want humans for. (By the way, as text talk is difficult to express, all those questions were rhetorical)

Kerezstes, no, but he'll know it was for use for something, its not just a rock lying on the ground. It quite obviously has been designed (and again, this is not my argument, I am working on the premise of the original argument)

The Grim squeaker, Good points

El Guapo, Life has been shown to grow almost anywhere, cell membrane structures have been found to develop near absolute zero in outer space!

[ZaPPPa]

Spiff, what would God's purpose be in creating life? Obviously not to tell the time? To feed upon, to praise him, to have children and make more pointless life? There seems very little an omnipotent being would want humans for. (By the way, as text talk is difficult to express, all those questions were rhetorical)

Why do people keep goldfish?

[Denny Crane!]

As I've said in the Existance of God thread you are reverse-engineering probability... I gave the deck of cards example, dealing five cards, giving a probability of 311875199 to 1 against. Yet it happens. Reverse engineering doesn't work; there's the same chance those tweaks would all be slightly different as there is that they are the way they are. Its unsound.

So the arguement against it is what? You have two choices, there is one universe and it is random chance in which case I will contest with occams razor as it being a highly unlikely scenario due to the staggering odds against such an arguement.

Second choice is the multiverse in which case it is no more likely or provable a hypothesis than the one I have postulated.

This theory proves nothing except how little we know, but of course I knew that :wink:

I just had to point out the logical flaws in the original premise.

Peter