Intelligent Design in an Electric Universe?

[StevenJay]

My speculation, which I can not justify beyond my gut feeling, is game playing.

Way back in the early days of the first incarnation of this forum, the topic of why do we incarnate here came up. My input then (as it is now): "Because we can. . . and because it's fun."

So, yes - "game playing."

[tayga]

Way back in the early days of the first incarnation of this forum, the topic of why do we incarnate here came up. My input then (as it is now): "Because we can. . . and because it's fun."

So, yes - "game playing."

Let's be honest. What else could be a good enough reason for an all-knowing, all-compassing entity to pretend it wasn't?

[roughone]

It seems to me that if this bottom up gamesmanship is being explored, if it is, it is to confront paradoxes which are being dictated as the structure of the game.

I am sure the mind would adapt to any reality and strive to understand it if it seemed to be coherent. And so am I to conclude from these comments that the universe is a great thought who's only reason for existence is to obscure the truth from created lesser minds at an obvious disadvantage? In what other sense can what the two of you are saying have any meaning?

[StevenJay]

It seems to me that if this bottom up gamesmanship is being explored, if it is, it is to confront paradoxes which are being dictated as the structure of the game.

And so am I to conclude from these comments that the universe is a great thought who's only reason for existence is to obscure the truth from created lesser minds at an obvious disadvantage?

"Yes," and "yes." That's what good game-playing is all about.

Haven't you ever challenged yourself, either physically, mentally or emotionally? It's a form of game-playing while simultaneously, being a conduit to better self-understanding. In other words, wherein does the greatest potential for inner growth and evolution lie; in a scenario of ease and comfort, or in a scenario of stress and uncertainty? It's always been my experience that it's the latter.

I view this physicality as a cosmic labrynth; an expression of not only intelligence, but pure incomprehensible genius.

[roughone]

StevenJay,

If that's true then historically we have been made fools of, in much the same ways, over and over again.

[tayga]

If that's true then historically we have been made fools of, in much the same ways, over and over again.

And yet we, humanity as a whole, seem to be improving our understanding of ourselves so it seems that being made a fool of is a useful experience

[roughone]

What I see as foolish is imposing human qualities including consciousness on the cosmos. Anthropomorphism has been done to death, as if the human was the zenith of creation.

It is quite likely that we will be replaced, and hopefully so by a truly rational and intelligent life. And that would be evolution.

[StevenJay]

Why is it that an array of various gadgets - both hi and lo-tech - can be demonstrated to a group of people, and most of them will agree that those gadgets were definitely intelligently designed. Yet, many in that same group of people consider the sentient biological mechanisms that designed and fabricated them - mechanisms that are orders of magnitude more complex and amazing than any of their creations - to be the result of mere happenstance?

Is it because that position carries with it a certain amount of comfort - a kind of closure to the issue of who, what and why are we? "Hey, we're nothin' but an accident that was just waitin' to happen!"

It's a position that often also accepts that "reality" as we experience it, just suddenly exploded into existence, for reasons both unknown and unknowable. Then, some of the debris from that explosion spontaneously began self-assembling into ever more complex forms of self-assembling... "debris." Then, somewhere along the line, sentience made its appearance -Ta-da! Again, for reasons unknown.

IMO, "insert miracle here" needs to be invoked way too many times in that whole scenario.

[GaryN]

Then, some of the debris from that explosion spontaneously began self-assembling into ever more complex forms of self-assembling... "debris." Then, somewhere along the line, sentience made its appearance -Ta-da! Again, for reasons unknown.

Life Likes Light, or Light Likes Life? I think after watching the Pollack videos that the Suns EM emissions are probably the initial, and perhaps ongoing organiser of matter. Matter which I believe is all created by Suns, especially in their more active periods. And there are I feel, still emanations from the Sun which we have not, and can not detect or quantify as the instruments required do not yet exist. The ancients were right I think, we must revere the Sun, the Creator of all things.

From Bob Beckwith:

We believe that infra red light, photon light, ultraviolet light, Xray light and neutrino light are all vibrations of the electromagnetic field, differing only in their frequency.

It is interesting to estimate the frequency bandwidth of neutrino light. An electron is 10−14 meters in diameter. The highest possible frequency for a neutrino is then 3×108/10−14=3×1022. Light changes frequency approximately by a factor of 2 from infra red to ultra violet. Let us assume that neutrinos do the same, giving a neutrino bandwidth of 1.5×1022. If the neutrino is phase modulated by atoms off which it has bounced this is an effective distributed modulation over this entire bandwidth. The number of bits of information that neutrino light can then carry is effectively infinite. That is, it is a quantized infinity! Surely enough bandwidth to carry information describing all life forms of the universe.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6891310.html

[roughone]

I think that to describe the universe as a top down demonstration of coherence is self agrandisement. We largely understand and employ this type of understanding ourselves, and we gain this knowledge through experience only. The consensus of this knowledge, whether right or wrong shapes human destiny.

My experience says that it is a bottom up universe of coherence. It explains the paradoxes and vagaries. The top down is just a wish and that is yet another paradox, the human one.

[jtb]

Matter which I believe is all created by Suns, especially in their more active periods. And there are I feel, still emanations from the Sun which we have not, and can not detect or quantify as the instruments required do not yet exist. The ancients were right I think, we must revere the Sun, the Creator of all things.

Gary, you need to read Walter Russell's, The Secret of Light. He contends that all matter is created by light in an electric universe. The issue arising from your comment is the origin of the sun. Who created the sun and when? Russell contends that the creator of all things is light from the Son, not the Sun.
jtb

[Beata-at-home]

Intelligence is evident in the order itself. The simplicity of the Electric Universe versus the BB or gravitational model which is full of nonsense, really nonsense and contradictions, but the simplicity of the EU is beautiful. It is order in a very high degree, from the smallest known thing to the largest and most complex. As far as we know, absolutely everything in our physical world depends on the laws of electricity, because everything, from the atom's components to animals, to weather systems, to solar systems to the universe, is maintained via electricity. The more we look into these things, the more congurence and interdependence we find. It is a beautiful, repetitive pattern, one that does not, could not, happen by mistake or chance.

If we say, "I've got it! Everything came from an atom!" or, "Everything came from a sun!", we still have lost sight of the fact that we have not said where the atom, or where the sun came from. There was a beginning, obviously, and nothing can create itself.

Evolution of all things requires trashing of known physical laws of thermodynamics, plus ignoring the truth of what happens to things when they mutate, or lose information. They degenerate. They may be more adapted to a particular situation, but have not gained any genetic information to do so, just lost some or lost the use of some. Evolution also requires ignoring the facts of symbiosis and those horrid long timetables of millions or billions of earth years that cannot account for sea not being a salt bed, moon not having 28 miles of dust on its surface, all of our petroleum not having seeped completely into the ocean yet, human population not even a small fraction of what it wouid have been if humans were populating the earth since a million years ago, etc. etc, etc, And dino tracks found along with human footprints side by side in the same layer of stone, etc, etc.......

So, the EU with all its developments in the areas of astronomy and geology and biology is really coming along nicely to point out what some have already believed: that the universe has been recently, purposefully, and intelligently designed.

The other question is what or who has this intelligence? Obviously, humans did not create the universe, so we should not conclude that we can obtain that intelligence or ability through a state of higher consciousness or some other feat. We did not do it. We can not do it. We are not it. We can't be it. So Who is it??

Did we humans make up religion to pacify our fear of the unknown, to explain an uncertainty that we hope will be what we want it to be? Did we make up religion based on what we see happening in the sky or otherwise? Or is there a Superior, that Intelligence, that has designed us and our environs, and has purposed it all to go according as planned? Perhaps we had the idea of religion before we saw the images in the sky, and used those as evidences or as props in story-telling, reviewing ideas of religion using what was available and visible.

If there is a Superior Intelligence, what is our relationship with it, and what is it supposed to be?

I think the purpose is communication, first. Our purpose here on the forum is communication. Isn't it great? The best thing in the world is good communication. Even stars communicate. They are also part of the design. And it does take intelligence to communicate intentionally.

[tayga]

The other question is what or who has this intelligence? Obviously, humans did not create the universe so we should not conclude that we can obtain that intelligence or ability through a state of higher consciousness or some other feat.

There is no justification for concluding either than we can or that we can't. There's no information on which to base a conclusion.

We did not do it. We can not do it. We are not it. We can't be it. So Who is it??

Some, myself included, would argue that the part of every conscious being that wants to know the answer to that question is also a part of what created the universe.

“You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

Did we humans make up religion to pacify our fear of the unknown, to explain an uncertainty that we hope will be what we want it to be?

It's important to distinguish religion from spiritual enquiry. Logically, spiritual enquiry must have come before religion which is, by nature and definition, organised. It turns out that religion also tends to suppress and frustrate spiritual enquiry by demanding faith in doctrine. So I don't think we made up religion for that reason. I think we made up religion to control each other by exploiting our inherent spiritual curiosity.

But returning to your original thought:

Intelligence is evident in the order itself. ...the simplicity of the EU is beautiful. It is order in a very high degree, from the smallest known thing to the largest and most complex.

I think any inquiring mind would observe the order and try to account for it. Those who wish to avoid spiritual connotation call it Nature, others call it God, Consciousness or The Universal Mind, for example.

As StevenJay said, it is remarkable that people are willing to accept that technology is the product of intelligence but dismiss the idea of an intelligence behind the design of a unified, interwoven universe that shows the same principles of organisation at every scale. Because it embraces interconnectedness and the fractal quality of organisation from atomic to supergalactic, I think the Electric Universe concept is the way forward for Science whether you accept Intelligent Design or not.

[StevenJay]

So, the EU with all its developments in the areas of astronomy and geology and biology is really coming along nicely to point out what some have already believed: that the universe has been recently, purposefully, and intelligently designed.

I've never come across anything published by the primaries of EU theory that promotes anything of the sort. The age and extent of the physical universe are simply beyond the scope of our current technology and are, therefore, not addressed by EU theory.

Where are you getting your "information?"

[jtb]

[quote]how is "Intelligent Design" testable? Can we think of a test that will falsify the hypothesis? Nobody to my knowledge has ever proposed such a test, and is not falsifiability a key tenet of science?[quote]

The scientific method supposedly devises experiments to falsify a theory explaining something or some phenomena. A theory is simply a guess, usually, but not always, based on self evident evidence and assumptions. However, it’s impossible to prove that something is false, or a negative. All that can be done is to supply more or better evidence through experimentation and observation that the original guess is superior to opposing alternatives. Through deductive reasoning, since the evidence supports the original, rather than opposing alternatives, an explanation is constructed as to why the theory is superior, and by consensus, it is accepted as true, or a fact (until further evidence is discovered).

There are two very important principles to consider when applying the scientific method: It’s impossible to prove a negative and opposites exist (up--down, left--right, east--west). For example, it’s impossible to scientifically prove that John Doe is not dead. The opposite alternative to dead is alive. You can only provide evidence available to you at an instant of time that John Doe is alive (“Hey look, I’m here”) or that he is dead (a stiff corpse). Keep in mind that there may be evidence not yet discovered (he’s really Joe Smith). By deduction, since John Doe is standing in front of me, is breathing, and has a heart beat, the opposite alternative, John Doe is dead, must be false. There is no conceivable test to prove that something is false. You can only provide evidence that something is true, or a fact, and by deduction, explain that the opposite alternative must be false.

Existing evidence, however, may be discredited or alternative opposing evidence provided, and a new or modified theory and explanation developed. Since the original theory and explanation has been accepted by consensus, and no longer questioned, opposing evidence must be overwhelming, and rightly so.

The present scientific method is effective if the principles of negativity and opposite alternatives are kept in mind and society is open to considering new evidence.

Since “Dumb Luck” is the alternative to “Intelligent Design”, to scientifically falsify intelligent design, an experiment must be created to provide evidence that dumb luck produces better outcomes than intelligence. I guess a dummy winning the lottery trumps a genius designing a bridge.
jtb