Re: A Challenge to My Fellow Creationists

gatling wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:36:57 -0800, John Harshman
<jharshman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

gatling wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:02:00 -0800, John Harshman
<jharshman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

gatling wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:43:18 -0800, John Harshman
<jharshman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

gatling wrote:
We are the defenders of the view that God is the central reality of
existence. In an increasingly secular world, we can't defend it with
evasions - and especially not with falsehoods. If we believe our views
are true, evidenced and self-consistent, we owe it to God, to
ourselves and to the unsaved to state those views clearly and to show
why we hold them.
Sure. But isn't this also a challenge to you? What are your views, and why do you hold them? I'm suspecting a basic difference in epistemology here, such that you wouldn't accept my basis for considering something evidence, and I wouldn't accept yours. But as yet this is merely a suspicion. Try something.
It is a challenge to me. And, yes, there's a basic difference in
epistemology. I believe only the present moment exists and that I am
being born this moment. My body and thoughts are being recreated from
existing information. I am being reborn. I don't know how, exactly,
but this is my experience. This doesn't mean I doubt your evidence.
It's information and, to some considerable extent, it's reliable and
self consistent. It allows you to make and verify certain types of
prediction. I would disagree that it implies a past.
If it doesn't imply a past, then "existing information" has no meaning. There is only a pattern in the now, part of which pattern is a belief that it has experienced a past. If you want to suggest that there really is no past, you have hit upon an novel form of solipsism or omphalism. It can't be refuted, just as any form of solipsism or omphalism can't be refuted. But if we make your assumption, there isn't any point in trying to find out anything about the world.
I don't see how it's solipsism since I believe you exist in some
manner. It can't be omphalism, either, because I acknowledge that all
configurations are interconnected and interrelated.
I don't know what you mean by that. But I was trying to characterize a broad class of ideas united by the claim that the world is illusion in some way.

On the other hand,
you can't demonstrate the existence of 'the past.' It's just an idea
in your mind that allows you to orient yourself psychologically in the
eternal now, and that allows you to make predictions that can be
verified by other versions of yourself existing in other universes
farther along atemporal sequences of universes. It no more implies the
existence of time than does the unbroken sequence of real numbers.
I agree that this idea can't be refuted. But what good is it? Supposing that time exists has many practical consequences. Assuming it doesn't exist, if you take that view seriously, seems to prevent you from knowing anything.

I don't think that's the case. I exist in this eternal moment, but I
receive all manner of information from my senses and mind. I can draw
conclusions and pass them on to other versions of my self farther
along the atemporal world line.

In what way does "farther along the atemporal world line" differ from "later in time"?

Not to be snarky or anything, but this view hasn't prevented me from
presenting a hypothesis that can, if further detailed, account for all
aspects of human behavior including art,in the thread "Re: If
evolution is completely true how come humans are smart enough". If I
can't know anything, how is it that I (or a set of my previous selves)
could come up with hypothesis.

Being unable to know anything doesn't prevent you from coming up with any number of hypotheses. It merely prevents you from testing any of those hypotheses, or choosing one over another.

Perhaps you haven't seen it. It's
perfectly compatible with an evolutionary perspective so far as I can
see, but no evolutionist has come up with it. Is that because it's
full of holes? Is it because it actually has little explanatory power?
You may have missed it. No biologist has responded to it, though my
claim that it completely accounts for human behavior would seem as
outrageous as my claim that time doesn't exist. If you have time, why
don't you look at that thread and see if you can pick holes in my
evidence or reasoning? If you can't, then I feel justified in
concluding that my no-time view of the universe is compatible with the
creation of testable scientific hypotheses.

Perhaps I will, but that's another thread. What do you mean by "testable"?

Still, let's talk epistemology for a minute. What are your reasons for believing that only the present moment exists? (Aside from it being a tautology embedded in the English language: the present exists, but the past existed, the future will exist.)
Because, when you release yourself from the concepts and definitions
that you employ to define yourself and the world, existence reveals
itself as timeless eternity.
How do you know that this insight is true, rather than just a false impression?

It's my experience. And it's my experience also that this sort of
process, occurring in states of mystical prayer and meditation,
refresh and invigorate the mind. I'm not at all alone in this
realization.

So you know it's true because a) it's your experience, b) it refreshes you, and c) some other people think so. I would consider b and c wholly irrelevant, while a is impossible to evaluate, because I don't have direct access to your experience. Still, isn't it possible that you have misinterpreted your subjective experience as applying to the universe? Many people have feelings of conviction based on subjective experience, and many of these feelings contradict each other, which suggests that such feelings are not reliable guides.

If you believe in time and causality in the same manner as do
evolutionists, then your only honest recourse is to state your own
views clearly and to support them with evidence and logic. How old is
the earth? Did Noah's flood create the fossil record? If you are
geocentrist, can you support that view with detailed evidence rather
than mere assertions?

God expects honesty from us and the courage to meet such challenges.
Can we meet *his* challenge? Can we shed the fears and prejudices that
smother rather than release a great quickening of the spirit?
I doubt it, judging by the creationists I have encountered. But what sort of creationist are you?
I believe that God creates and sustains me.
How do you come by this belief? Also, how and why is it different from the beliefs of various Christians who believe the same thing, but also believe in time and evolution?
It's derived from experience.
That isn't an explanation. All beliefs are derived from experience. How do you determine that some beliefs are true and others are not?

A combination of spiritual practice and empirical observation and
testing.

I would rely on the empirical observation and testing. What do you have in that vein?

Millions of instantiations of myself
have contributed to this understanding. I would say that all of them
were more ignorant of reality than me because they occurred further
back on the atemporal world-line.
I see you are required to jump through some odd linguistic hoops in order to avoid talking about time. But the ideas expressed through those hoops seem about the same as the simple idea of time. You're saying the same thing, just saying it oddly.

Newtonian mechanics and relativity seem about the same, except that
relativity accounts for aspects of the universe that the Newtonian
model can't accommodate - and relativity involves some odd concepts
and more difficult maths. But relativity and Newtonian mechanics
present radically different pictures of the nature of space and time.
Relativity, in fact, treats time as a geometrical feature of space and
mass-energy.

So? You can hardly claim that you're adopting a relativistic position. Your worldline is highly timelike, and only slightly spacelike. Which has nothing to do with an eternal now. You merely appeal to physics as window-dressing here. How does your theory of non-time differ in any practical respect from ordinary ideas about time?

But I inherit their beliefs and
insights.
Inheriting would seem to require time. You can only inherit from the past. If there is one eternal moment, why aren't you simultaneously all these versions of yourself, with no ability to single out one and call it you "now"?

Who says you only inherit from the past? I inherit information from
previous versions of me farther back on the atemporal world line. In
the same way the number 10 inherits its nature from the previous
numbers. It wouldn't be 10 if 1 and 5 didn't exist.

What does "previous" mean? And the number 10 inherits nothing from previous numbers. As far as I can see, you are playing with words, and the net effect is that your experience is identical to the experience of time.

It's different from the beliefs of others because we all
socially construct world-views by which we make sense of the world and
our experience. Those Christians understandings are partially wrong
and partially right. So are my beliefs. I don't see this as a problem.
How do you know anything is partially wrong or partially right? And is there any way to tell which parts are which? If so, what?

All concepts are just neural artifacts created by the brain. They are
ways of thinking about reality, not reality itself. But they can be
tested against empirical evidence and for logical coherence. Spiritual
insights are a bit different in that they generate an inner joy, peace
and assurance, but they can potentially be tested objectively
eventually because, as higher stages of spiritual realization are
attained, the brain will generate different, potentially measurable,
states of activation.

If you have answered my question, and I'm not sure you have, it's that we can determine truth by objective, empirical testing. Which is the scientific position, more or less (except that truth is always provisional, which you may also be assuming).

So, specifically, how do you know that Christian understandings are partly wrong and partly right? Have you tested them empirically? Which parts are wrong and which are right? What tests have you performed?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A Challenge to My Fellow Creationists
    ... I'm suspecting a basic difference in epistemology here, such that you wouldn't accept my basis for considering something evidence, and I wouldn't accept yours. ... you can't demonstrate the existence of 'the past.' ... Also, how and why is it different from the beliefs of various Christians who believe the same thing, but also believe in time and evolution? ... Is such practice a form of empiricism? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A Challenge to My Fellow Creationists
    ... This doesn't mean I doubt your evidence. ... you can't demonstrate the existence of 'the past.' ... evolution is completely true how come humans are smart enough". ... relativity accounts for aspects of the universe that the Newtonian ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Evolution and Observation Gap
    ... This includes the existence of the atom, ... Try and grapple with the evidence. ... and the Theory of Evolution. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: A Challenge to My Fellow Creationists
    ... This doesn't mean I doubt your evidence. ... you can't demonstrate the existence of 'the past.' ... relativity accounts for aspects of the universe that the Newtonian ... Who says you only inherit from the past? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Looking for a written debate
    ... I did deny the *present* existence of ... existing evidence is the same for both theories, ... biological evolution proper. ... lesser unlikeliness of the alternative hypothesis. ...
    (talk.origins)