God's Complexity

[g0pher]

Number 1: Designed things are always less complex then the designer.

number 2: If a God or any kind of intelligence designed this universe, that intelligence must be more complex then the universe itself.

number 3: The more complex something is the less probability it has of existing.

God is therefore more improbable then the universe itself and is so unneccessariy complex that he fails to solve any problems regarding the universe, and just obscures things.

Many find it hard to believe that our universe could have come from nothing, but i'm finding it easier and easiear to believe that -much quicker then I am to in believing in an ultra-complex intelligence that was responsible for anything. It is just confounding and obscuring the problem - which itself is a lot simpler then God could possibly be. Just by virtue of his creator position he would have to be more complex then the universe itself or any problems that arise regarding our understanding of it.

We currently know that complexity only arises through simplicity, and that everything has simple origins. So to say that there was a ultra-complex intelligence existing, right from the outset, and that this ultra-complex intelligence is the origin of everything, is to say that something more improbable then everything in the universe combined (including the universe itself) exists. So as improbable as you may think any solution to a problem may be (unless that solution consists of more then one god), it is still less improbable then God as the solution. Even the idea of the universe coming from nothing, or the idea of there being more then one universe, is MUCH simpler then the idea that a complex intelligence which has existed forever created everything from nothing.

Science, from my understanding of it, has always sought to simplify things; theists have consistently wanted to complify things with the subject of God - complify them to the point that no has any clue what is going on. This makes theism the ultimate form of obscurantism.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

Thoughts?

[Mr.GoodStuff]

It still doesn't make any sense. It's just less complicated.

I think the answers to complicated problems are more likely complicated answers, but to each his own. I don't want anybody to be confused, I would rather than understand something they felt comfortable with.

Just don't try to make it sound like I shouldn't be comfortable with my stance and we'll be cool.

[dynasty]

number 3: The more complex something is the less probability it has of existing.

How do you reach this conclusion?

[mrblonde77]

Interesting theory, but I am going to have to dispute Number 1. I think it is possible to design something that is more complex than the designer. For example, I think we can create a robot that could create a more complex robot.

[cannabis]

How can one compute and interpret the properties of life and existence? If you ask me reality or the Universe doesn't abide by certain laws/properties...

[dynasty]

Originally Posted by cannabis

How can one compute and interpret the properties of life and existence? If you ask me reality or the Universe doesn't abide by certain laws/properties...

Well...the universe acts without ethical recourse. It does what it does because it does. But the universe does abide by properties. The speed of light is the same throughout the entire universe, suns are all made of helium/hydrogen, etc.

I think though that because we see all the things throughout the universe that only exist because other parts exist, there must be other life out in the universe. Like, all the laws in the universe make it so things are the way they are...and we're part of the universe...so obviously the equation of life is a universal law that in my mind must exist elsewhere.

[Ars moriendi]

all three are based on faulty logic...

the terms you use beg more questions than answers and none make god believable much less real

[stoned_soldier]

Number 1: I'm not sure on this one, maybe 50-50. Define complex then, because you can take a plain sheet of paper and make it into a plane, but that plane is more "complex" than you because it can glide and humans can't. Then again, think of why computers crash all the time. They are manmade.

Originally Posted by dynasty

number 3: The more complex something is the less probability it has of existing.

How do you reach this conclusion?

I was just gonna say.. explain this number 3.

Going by what dynasty is saying with nature taking its course: I see that g0pher is onto something but you have to see that human problems are not the problems of mindless rocks and balls of gas.

[cannabis]

Originally Posted by dynasty

Like, all the laws in the universe make it so things are the way they are...

That can be considered logical, but It's nothing more than an educated assumption. We haven't even ventured outside our own solar system...who's to say the same laws of physics apply to other galaxies let alone the enitre infinate-like demension known as the universe?

[dynasty]

Originally Posted by cannabis

That can be considered logical, but It's nothing more than an educated assumption. We haven't even ventured outside our own solar system...who's to say the same laws of physics apply to other galaxies let alone the enitre infinate-like demension known as the universe?

Well we know the speed of light is the same even outside our solar system.

Going by what dynasty is saying with nature taking its course: I see that g0pher is onto something but you have to see that human problems are not the problems of mindless rocks and balls of gas.

I never said they were. But to me it goes like this: Heavy elements exist because a star died. The heavy elements create meteors, planets, moons, everything. Life exists because a star died and because a star came back to life. We're alive because the star before the sun died and the star before that star died, and we're only alive because know the star lives.

I'm not really good at communicating what I'm trying to say I guess. Just basically that if stars dying and living and planets forming and elements being created can create life in our part of the universe, and all these things happen in other parts of the universe (stars changing, planets forming, etc.) can't that mean that life can also form?

[cannabis]

Originally Posted by dynasty

Well we know the speed of light is the same even outside our solar system.

How do we know for sure It remains constant everywhere?

I never said they were. But to me it goes like this: Heavy elements exist because a star died. The heavy elements create meteors, planets, moons, everything. Life exists because a star died and because a star came back to life. We're alive because the star before the sun died and the star before that star died, and we're only alive because know the star lives.

I'm not really good at communicating what I'm trying to say I guess. Just basically that if stars dying and living and planets forming and elements being created can create life in our part of the universe, and all these things happen in other parts of the universe (stars changing, planets forming, etc.) can't that mean that life can also form?

It's only a theory that the simple elements combined with other elements and compounds necessarily create life...I'm not saying I disagree with it, but it's a theory not 'fact'. And I ask you how do you suppose stars are created? If we're the product of star feces, how exactly did these stars form? And how do the simple elements that make us up come about to combining to producing and creating life?

[g0pher]

Originally Posted by mrblonde77

Interesting theory, but I am going to have to dispute Number 1. I think it is possible to design something that is more complex than the designer.For example, I think we can create a robot that could create a more complex robots.

The human retina can process 100 trillion instructions per second - Nothing we know of comes closer to this. The human brain is currently the most complex thing that we know of, The CPU is complex, but it requires an even more complex mind to invent it. everything instructed to it is a result of thought and contemplation from a higher being, Nothing built is more complex than its maker, everything we create -is just an echo of our own mind's intracate complexity.

A programme or robot, is only as advanced as the time, input, and intellectual strength put in by the programmer,. Anything complexly created has a more complex origin or source than itself .

Humans can 'seemingly' create things more complex, more useful, more powerful than themselves, But the things they create are always less complex than the source behind it.

Originally Posted by dynasty

"number 3: The more complex something is the less probability it has of existing. How do you reach this conclusion?"

Hugely complex things do not suddenly spring into existence; that is why we have the theory of evolution to explain how complexity must have arrived from simplicity. Simplicity is what we seek because the existance of God is arguably more complex than anything to have the possibility of existance, Simply stating that a complex being could suddenly come into existence seems to place an inordinate amount in the lap of chance. If God evolved, then he must have developed from simpler origins. But, if this is the case, then God does not solve the problem of how something can come from nothing, because God must have come from nothing himself.

There are lots of different uses of the word 'complex', but let's stick ) to the countable senses of it. God, as omniscient being, would appear to have an infinite number of things that he knows...

We can say, regardless, that WE are the most complex species on this planet. Part of what makes us so complex is our ability to think, have forethought, process information, as well as any of the other various activities that we attribute to the abilities of the brain. God can do all of these things - not to mention he knows everything there is to know, which vastly outweights the tiny amount of knowledge we have. Also, even with our complex nature, we are only capable of so much. God, on the other hand, is omnipotent and can assumingly do everything - that is logically possible, but there is a problem involved in the implication of this statement, So, I am to assume that a being who can do all the things that we are only capable of peforming because of our complexity, and can do them at a much greater capacity - that such a being is, of all things, a mathematical fallecy, He must be composed of a great number of parts in order to even begin looking anything like the God that we define as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. As a being becomes more complex than mathimathically possible, it breaks the simplest equation of its own alogirithm- since the existence of such complexity cannot explained, it becomes a mathematical fallecy and nullifies its own existance and thus, given the assumption that complexity requires a designer, then God’s own complexity implies that He also has to have had a intelligent designer before him.

Originally Posted by stoned_soldier

"I'm not sure on this one, maybe 50-50. Define complex then, because you can take a plain sheet of paper and make it into a plane, but that plane is more "complex" than you because it can glide and humans can't?... "

Complexity is "The quality of being intricate and compounded, A set of structure-based metrics that measure the attribute of the degree to which a system or component has a implementation that is difficult to understand or comprehend"

A consciousness capable of creating the universe, let alone our nervous system,( which is the most intracate thing we know) would have to have a vastly more complex system of his own by which he can have such a consciousness capable of such a detailed creation. Can we not say that as we have become more complex we have been able to design things of greater detail? This world of our's, with all its intricacies, if it does have a creator, he would have to be incomprehensibly complex.

An entity that is conscious, and capable of creating the universe, cannot be simple. Consciousness is known to be a complex phenomenon emerging, not from a simple algorithm, but from complex interactions within an supremely evolved intracate mind.

"... take a plain sheet of paper and make it into a plane, but that plane is more "complex" than you because it can glide and humans can't."

I just wonder how you came up with such a mindbogling conclusion...

Originally Posted by cannabis

It's only a theory that the simple elements combined with other elements and compounds necessarily create life...I'm not saying I disagree with it, but it's a theory not 'fact'. And I ask you how do you suppose stars are created? If we're the product of star feces...

If God requires no explanation and has no parts, God must necessarily be nothing; for if he were something, he would require at least one part and at least one explanation of how that part came to be sprung from the nothingness. In essence, if God is not nothing, he cannot be the prime cause; and, if God is nothing, then he cannot be the prime cause either, because something cannot come from nothing.

On the other hand, if something can come from nothing, it is still not clear how the nothing could have intentions, or be God at all as we understand it. More likely it would be some fundamental quality of nothingness, as far removed from our ideas of God as the principle of natural selection is from divine intervention. So then, this being true, what is God?

Originally Posted by cannabis

how exactly did these stars form? And how do the simple elements that make us up come about to combining to producing and creating life??

After the primordial explosion, the matter of the universe clumped together as H2 and He which clumped together as stars; these atoms then fused to form larger nuclear groupings. As stars exploded - the heavier elements were dispersed into the universe creating stars. it is pretty much similiar to smashing atoms together in a particle collider.

[cannabis]

Originally Posted by g0pher

The human retina can process 100 trillion instructions per second - Nothing we know of comes closer to this. The human brain is currently the most complex thing that we know of, The CPU is complex, but it requires an even more complex mind to invent it. everything instructed to it is a result of thought and contemplation from a higher being, Nothing built is more complex than its maker, everything we create -is just an echo of our own mind's intracate complexity.

well put. I agree with you up to here

Hugely complex things do not suddenly spring into existence; that is why we have the theory of evolution to explain how complexity must have arrived from simplicity. Simplicity is what we seek because the existance of God is arguably more complex than anything to have the possibility of existance, Simply stating that a complex being could suddenly come into existence seems to place an inordinate amount in the lap of chance. If God evolved, then he must have developed from simpler origins. But, if this is the case, then God does not solve the problem of how something can come from nothing, because God must have come from nothing himself.

There are lots of different uses of the word 'complex', but let's stick ) to the countable senses of it. God, as omniscient being, would appear to have an infinite number of things that he knows...

We can say, regardless, that WE are the most complex species on this planet. Part of what makes us so complex is our ability to think, have forethought, process information, as well as any of the other various activities that we attribute to the abilities of the brain. God can do all of these things - not to mention he knows everything there is to know, which vastly outweights the tiny amount of knowledge we have. Also, even with our complex nature, we are only capable of so much. God, on the other hand, is omnipotent and can assumingly do everything - that is logically possible, but there is a problem involved in the implication of this statement, So, I am to assume that a being who can do all the things that we are only capable of peforming because of our complexity, and can do them at a much greater capacity - that such a being is, of all things, a mathematical fallecy, He must be composed of a great number of parts in order to even begin looking anything like the God that we define as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. As a being becomes more complex than mathimathically possible, it breaks the simplest equation of its own alogirithm- since the existence of such complexity cannot explained, it becomes a mathematical fallecy and nullifies its own existance and thus, given the assumption that complexity requires a designer, then God’s own complexity implies that He also has to have had a intelligent designer before him.

I think your argument ties too much of a knot between God and the human species. God is like an unfathomable individual, and is unlike anything we can currently comprehend. No matter what we can't relate to being on a similar scale to God simply because we as humans are not immortal. Therefore regardless we can't really compare ourselves to God, If 'he' did create us in 'his' own image then sure we are similar in certain ways, but It is pretty much impossible to view things from that level of a perspective.

Originally Posted by g0pher

given the assumption that complexity requires a designer, then God’s own complexity implies that He also has to have had a intelligent designer before him.

yes given that assumption, that's all it is, an assumption...
But this is a good argument, was God created? and If God is so complex is the creator of God more complex? when referencing God you have to postulate...I can't argue whether God was created or not, no one can. You also have to clarify what you mean by complex. Suppose God has evolved into the perfect omniscient being 'he' is now. or maybe God has always existed and can't be created or destroyed like energy.

If God requires no explanation and has no parts

Who's to say God has no parts?

God must necessarily be nothing; for if he were something, he would require at least one part and at least one explanation of how that part came to be sprung from the nothingness. In essence, if God is not nothing, he cannot be the prime cause; and, if God is nothing, then he cannot be the prime cause either, because something cannot come from nothing.

That would be true only If God was nothing..and that's evidently not the case because how can nothing create something? that was a point I was making in my post.

On the other hand, if something can come from nothing, it is still not clear how the nothing could have intentions, or be God at all as we understand it. More likely it would be some fundamental quality of nothingness, as far removed from our ideas of God as the principle of natural selection is from divine intervention. So then, this being true, what is God?

Well like I was saying God is pretty unbfathable...and no one has ever really seen God, only forms of 'him'. For all we know God could be made of a completely unique matter or elements like no other in the universe. God may not even exist in this dimension and created this one outside of it in a parallel universe or something similar...like I said you have to postulate.

After the primordial explosion, the matter of the universe clumped together as H2 and He which clumped together as stars; these atoms then fused to form larger nuclear groupings. As stars exploded - the heavier elements were dispersed into the universe creating stars. it is pretty much similar to smashing atoms together in a particle collider.

...okay, but my question is how does the process go about happening? In order for compounds and complex elements to form, the simpler elements that make them up have to collide at an increadible amount of speed and force.
You didn't really identify anything I addressed In my post.

[CH3VELLE]

just thought of something really random.

do we know everything about our bodies? no, but we realize that God is more important.

does a watch know how his clock is able to tick? no, but it realizes that time is more important.

the watchmaker is infinitely more complex than the watch. therefore, God is infinitely more complex than we are.

[g0pher]

Originally Posted by cannabis

But this is a good argument, was God created? and If God is so complex is the creator of God more complex? when referencing God you have to postulate...I can't argue whether God was created or not, no one can.

If the universe needs a cause, then God needs a cause. And if God doesn't need a cause,then why should the universe need a cause?
1. Everything which has a beginning has a cause.
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

Setting aside any appeal to Darwinism for the moment, what could it possibly mean to say that complexity in living things implies the existence of an intelligent designer like God? One can only assume that God, must have at least as much complexity as anything He is supposed to have designed. Either a believer in God is arguing for an infinite regress of God-designers and designers of God-designers, etc., or he is contradicting his own assumption that complexity requires design. By using God as an “explanation”he is doing nothing more than explaining complexity (in living things) with complexity (God’s). But this amounts to assuming what one is trying to explain, which is no explanation at all. It just moves the mystery back a step.

This is the same logical flaw in using God to explain existence itself. the question is often asked, “If you don’t believe in God, then how do you explain the existence of the universe?” This question assumes that existence must be caused, and since the universe clearly exists, it too must be caused. They then conclude that God must be that cause. Now, presumably you suppose that God, like the universe, also exists, in which case you would be right back to violating your own assumptions: If God exists, and existence must be caused, then by your own assumption, God must be caused. By using God as an "explanation" you would be doing nothing more than explaining existence (the universe's) with existence (God's). His existance is so phenomenal, he is omnipontent, omnipresent, omnicient, can we possibly imagine what type a phenomenal being he must be? he simply calls himself 'the ancient of days' "the I AM" of all epitomal existance.

Originally Posted by cannabis

Who's to say God has no parts?.

'To be complex' means 'to be composed of parts':
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complex

The brain is composed of hundreds of trillions of astondingly complicated and intricate parts. However, the definition - does not specify physical parts, and in fact does says concepts and plans can also be complex.

Alternatively, there is the view that God is extremely simple, and therefore requires no explanation; in this way, such a God could easily act as the prime cause for the universe in a way that a complex one could not. It is indeed feasible that an extremely simple God (i.e, one with very few interacting parts) could come naturally and immediately into being, and indeed would be a necessary base upon which everything else could build. However, I can see a flaw in this reasoning also. I'll try to explain it with a logical argument:

1. Where there are 'parts' or 'function', there must be explanation; where there are no parts, no explanation is required, for this is the default state.

2. 'Nothingness' truly requires no explanation; it has no parts, it is not anything and to explain it is therefore fruitless. Anything which exists, on the other hand, must consist of something; else it is nothing.

3. Nothing, being nothing, cannot do anything; if it were able to carry out any action, it would necessarily be something, and not nothing, because to carry out an action, there must be something to carry that action out with. If nothing can truly beget something, then there would be no problem with saying that the universe simply sprung from nothingness, without reason.

If God requires no explanation and has no parts, God must necessarily be nothing; for if he were something, he would require at least one part and at least one explanation of how that part came to be sprung from the nothingness.

On the other hand, if something can come from nothing, it is still not clear how the nothing could have intentions, or be God at all as we understand it. More likely it would be some fundamental quality of nothingness, I think we should all agree that worshipping a fundamental property of nothingness is completely fruitless? I would say so, anyway.

But What if god was just a simplicity of laws? When this simplicity of rules or laws interacted with the world, then a form of complexity formed or originated from it? maybe he's just a machine, or a shuffling system..?

Originally Posted by cannabis

That would be true only If God was nothing..and that's evidently not the case because how can nothing create something? that was a point I was making in my post.

I see, and agree, but it seems for christians, All complexity except God’s complexity must be explained, and all existence except God’s existence must be explained. But this is blatant "special" pleading. This is simply exempting oneself from his own rules: "Your explanation must meet these conditions; however, my explanation does not.(God)"

Originally Posted by cannabis

... no one has ever really seen God, only forms of 'him'. .

'Forms of him' ? i honestly do not understand this statement.

Originally Posted by cannabis

For all we know God could be made of a completely unique matter or elements like no other in the universe. God may not even exist in this dimension and created this one outside of it in a parallel universe or something similar...like I said you have to postulate.

And That is why i say his original nature would be supremely unbelievably complex.

Compared to an organism, an organ is simple. Compared to an organ, a cell is simple. Compared to a cell, membranes and other sub-cellular structures are simple. Compared to a molecule an atom is simple. Compared to an atom, protons, electrons, neutrons are simple, and compared to them quarks and gluons and neutrinos are simple. And we have no idea what's at the bottom of that rabbit hole, if there is any "thing" at all. Maybe a bit of pure energy confined to a region of "space" could be God's origin?

The nature of 'Nature' is complex. Even the "simplest" of cells are not simple at all. What is simple about an atom? or An electron?

The study of God itself assumes God exists; I will agree that so long as you are trying to discover a certain conception of God so that he may exist, because, as you were saying, if a God does exist it can be crucial to how one must think regarding everything else. But, on the whole, it's like arguing about how long angel's wings are before arguing for their existence. Unless the wings themselves have something to do with supporting the idea of their existence, then it can be seen as pointless (or, less bluntly, it can at least be seen as getting a little ahead of yourself).

Even if one wanted to grant the believer his special exemption, other problems remain, which we can see by reviewing what it means to “explain.” To say that something is "explained" means we’ve moved from the known to the unknown; it does not mean we moved from the unknown to the unknown. Put simply, you cannot explain a mystery with a mystery. If someone wants to use God to explain anything, then he would have to understand the mechanisms by which God causes something to happen, but since God is “supernatural,” then this mechanism is inherently mysterious and unknowable. For example, to use God to “explain” complexity one would have to understand the nature of God’s supposedly uncaused complexity and origin, and the means by which it causes complexity in the natural world. It will not do to say that such understanding is “beyond us,” forever unknowable to our limited intellects, etc. Doing so would be no different than “explaining” rain by appealing to the mysterious properties of an unknowable rain god like the Greeks. Explaining mysteries with other mysteries has all the explanatory power of saying, "It’s magic."