Well like I was saying with the Rushmore analogy, it doesn't organize according to human convenience. Jeezus Krist.

It becomes clear that the evolution of apologetic thought is toward increasingly ignorant, insincere, dogmatic antics ... as each one that drops in, appearing at first perhaps reasonable, quickly reveals the desperation to support and believe the presupposed position of a magical, superstitious, supernatural belief system. Opponents to their line are never seen as, say, Jesus saw the woman at the well, but as someone to be lied about, misrepresented, disparaged, argued with disingenuously. They've even learned some of the Trump tricks: accuse the other side of exactly what you are, while clinging near-delusionally, and sometimes delusionally, to the script , the script whose very existence camouflages existential anxiety and confusion.

"Organizing" is a purposeful activity. It requires an agent that can think. Hence why we will never see the following headline:

TORNADO RIPS THROUGH FELLAGAGA'S HOUSE: CAUSES $50,000 IN IMPROVEMENTS!

On the other hand, if you were planning to level your house anyway, perhaps then the tornado would be a God-send (so-to-speak) for you.

Entropy Baby!

Time for a rant, huh? You are blinded to the Truth by your sin. You are so blinded to the Truth that you are reduced to emotionally-charged, disjointed psychobabble screeds like the above. May God have mercy on your soul.

Addendum: I don't want to feed your rage and rebellion against God, so I'll leave you alone for a couple of days.

Good gawd ... the insincere, idiotic zealot comes out of them every time with the slightest scratch of their religious veneer. And not because they are insincere, not because they are stupid ... but because the apologetics requires it. They are trapped in a dynamic they don't dare challenge.

Entropy does not mean what you think it does. There are all kinds of self organizing systems in nature, including both biological and non-biological ones. Entropy is NOT synonymous with disorder — that is just the pop science overly simplistic definition. Entropy is defined as a heat flow divided by the temperature at which that heat flow occurs. Entropy does indeed always increase, but that is a global, universal increase, not local. It is quite possible for a system to experience an entropy decrease so long as there is a corresponding increase elsewhere.

Now, remembering the actual definition of entropy, a large entropy increase occurs any time a large amount of heat is released into a low temperature environment. That sounds familiar if you think about our solar system. There is a VERY hot body sitting at the middle of it (BTW belief in Jesus inspired people to deny this fact and imprison or execute people who realized its truth — very inspirational!). The space surrounding this very hot body is at a very low temperature. This means a whole bunch of entropy generation. Any system energetically coupled to this entropy generator can easily experience a decline in its own entropy.

If you are going to argue science, then at least make sure you have at least some blue what you are talking about. Even the creationists who run Anawees in Genesis (wacky Biblical literalists) recognize that your argument about entropy is complete and utter BS.

Actually Chucky's point does seem supported by some authoritative texts:






The modern theory is I believe expressed here. The variation in microscopic states yielding the same macroscopic state... sounds rather like the extent of order/disorder. The analogy of the tidy vs messy bedroom, ie there being more ways to arrange a messy bedroom than a tidy one, appears valid and useful.





In any case, this misses the point being raised. Life begets life. Ever greater complexity of organism deriving from inorganic matter? the potential information storage required to form the DNA of the simplest lifeform arising from nothing? the very fact of conveying such information in the first instance without intelligent agent? etc etc.

If I thought the zealots would be sincere with their investigation into metaphysics, I would expound considerably more about the fallacious idea of entropy, and how the "disorganization" of entropy is itself a form of organization, obviously ON THE ORGANIZATION CONTINUUM, low organization and decreasing organization is still a phenomenon of the organization principle, AND NATURE IS DOING IT ... but none of this needs to be studied when we are operating with a "Just so" Poof Theory of cosmology.

I am quite aware of the microstates definition of entropy. It is completely equivalent to the definition I gave. The equivalence is not obvious, but results directly from considerations involving the kinetic theory of gases and quantum mechanics. It SOUNDS like disorder, but it is NOT equivalent to disorder. It also does NOT mean that a system cannot developed an increasing amount of order over time as was implied by the use of entropy increase to argue against biological evolution.

For example, black holes are very ordered systems. A black hole can be described completely by only three numbers - it’s mass, electrical charge, and it’s angular momentum. That is in direct contrast to other systems, such as stars where those values plus additional ones such as temperature, size, density, and composition (among others) must also be given. Yet, when we consider entropy, it turns out that there are systems with maximum possible entropy in the universe. Black holes are these maximal entropy systems.

The whole entropy is a measure of disorder is a popular science idea that helps with understanding a fairly difficult concept, but it should not be regarded as a definition of entropy. It is not too far wrong, though. The real error is in the notion that the entropy of a given system cannot decrease. That is true only of isolated systems. The earth is by no means an isolated system. The sun, as I mentioned in my prior post, is a huge entropy generator, so much so that entropy decreases in terrestrial systems are quite possible, as can easily be seen by something as simple as filling an ice cube tray with water and putting it in a freezer. Your ice cube tray will experience a significant decline in entropy within a span of a few hours. There is certainly nothing in violation of the second law over thermodynamics going on here, nor is a supernatural being necessary to explain the increasing order of the system.

I've been trying to come up with a cool name for my forthcoming Youtube channel. I think I'm gonna go with Wacky Biblical Literalist.! (And, no. I'm not kidding!)

I'm a Bible B.I.G.O.T.

Bible
is
God's
Own
Testimony

THE GREATEST(?) ABSURDITY OF NATURALISM: EVERYTHING SOMEWAY, SOMEHOW EVOLVED INTO ITS OPPOSITE:

● Non-living matter became living things

● A purposeless, unintended universe produced purposeful, intentional beings

● A deterministic universe produced beings that could make free choices

● An uncaring, amoral universe produced beings with a moral conscience

● A physical “big bang” produced non-physical things (e.g. math, logic)

● "Nothing” produced everything

● Chaos and disorder produced a universe governed by precise physical laws

● Non-conscious matter produced conscious beings

● An uncaring universe produced beings who love others and have compassion


It's funny that many really smart folks who believe most, if not all, of the above will often mock Bible-believers for believing in "talking snakes" and the virgin birth of Jesus. I would say everything itemized above is literally a billion-times (give or take) more absurd than believing in a serpent that speaks or the virgin birth of Jesus.

"We are trying to establish this as true. The first thing we have to do is get rid of rationality demands." LOL. "We are trying to determine what this Jesus guy is. The first thing we have to do is get rid of any possibility that he is a human being teacher ..." (this would normally be a 100% probability). LOL the Lewis bogus dichotomy that he can't be just a teacher.

In both cases, we begin by throwing out everything we know about reality, then proceed with our investigation, and, voila, now we can get there quite nicely. This "Just so" fairy tale created the quantum fields, reality, and everything in it.

So absurdity is associated with falsity? Is that the claim? Can truth include the absurd or not?

Also, how can a belief be more absurd? It’s either outside of reason or it’s not. There is no ‘just outside’ and ‘far outside’. There is just outside or inside.

Yes.

Not.


I agree with you here. Apparently so does dictionary dot com:


[ ab-surd, -zurd ]

adjective

utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false:
an absurd explanation.

noun
the quality or condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world.

Of course, a claim can seem absurd, but upon further study can be found to have at least some rational grounds for it to at least possiby true, even if not likely true.

Something can simultaneously be rational (after further study) but seem irrational? How can something rational seem irrational? Can you not discern the rational from the irrational?

It’s important to develop a pause rather than automatically associating rationality with truth, goodness, and reality, and associating the absurd with the opposite. I’ll risk being annoying about this because of it’s importance.

A claim can initially seem irrational, but after further investigation/study it turns out that the claim has a rational basis after all.

Not annoying at all; I agree that the point is important.

I would distinguish between a claim appearing prima facie to be absurd (like parallel lines eventually meeting), and then finding out that parallel lines could theoretically meet if the universe was curved. (A possibility that delighted Sir Bertrand Russell, according to Will Durant in his excellent The Story of Philosophy.)

During the time that the claim seems irrational to you, is that claim rational or irrational? During that time. I’m not asking you to restate back to me that it seems irrational. What is it actually?

The claim itself is rational (i.e. it has a rational basis).

Alright, so the claim is rational, but since you subjectively experience it as irrational in the moment, you are calling it irrational 100% of the time. It would be impossible for you to do otherwise.

Now, let’s imagine that I say to you, “You know, I realize that it’s impossible to do, but instead of identifying the rational claim as irrational due to it seeming irrational, it would’ve been better had you identified it as rational instead.”

What do you make of this claim? Is this claim rational or irrational? If you call it rational, then you are saying that my impossible claim is rational. If you call it irrational, then you are saying that it’s irrational to identify something rational as rational.

This is the master that you want to hitch yourself to?

I apologize for not making myself clear.

I'll try a different approach:

Let's suppose I'm a novice chessplayer. I know how all the pieces move and their relative trade values (e.g. queen = 9 points, rook = 5 points, bishop = 3 points.)

My friend shows me the moves of a game he just played, and on move 12 he takes one of his opponent's bishops with his queen, and the opponent takes my friend's queen with a pawn. My friend's move is irrational to me because he gave up a piece that is worth nine points for a piece that is worth only three points. Seems really dumb to me. It turns out my friend's move is not only not dumb, but is actually brilliant: The bishop that was captured by the queen was the only piece that was preventing my friend from checkmating his opponent. My friend is "losing" in points by six points, but on the next move he checkmates his opponent. It's called a sacrifice; giving up material for position. Now that I am "enlightened", I recognize the brilliance and beauty of his move that I originally thought was really stupid (irrational).

So, his move was always rational, even when I thought it was irrational.

Before I return to the main topic, am I being clear at this point? Thanks.

You are saying this as if you have accessed some objective realm when all you are doing is privileging your current subjectivity over your past subjectivity. If you discover that the room you guys are in was on fire and focusing on the chess game caused serious injury, then his move is no longer rational, right?

Rationality can be reliable after filtering out a context, but how do you know you are choosing the right context? That’s at least as important as what seems rational within the context, but it’s too often ignored by rationalists.

My concern is not with the absurd that can be rationally approached - the ordered unknown. There is another category of the absurd - the chaotic unknown. Rationality will never approach this context, but what if a higher truth than rational truth is hidden there, which is my claim.

Taking the risk of transcending rationality gives you access to more contexts that were previously denied to you by rational truth. This is relevant to anyone who hasn’t yet achieved perfection in their life.