>Even if we accept that the universe was created, is it necessary that an intelligence was involved?

Yes. A code cannot come about by means of any purely material process, including the excretory system of giant snails.

A code also cannot come about by means of a purely random process.

Codes cannot be produced by deterministic processes; they cannot be produced by stochastic ones; which leaves only one more option: an intelligent one.

And to sneak an irrelevant excursus into the thread by hauling in soteriology and theodicy — when the gravamen of the discussion is simply whether or not the existence of the universe is better explained by reference to a designing intelligence or by reference to the 2nd law of thermodynamics (which governs all purely physical processes) shows once again how talented you are at balancing philosophical cluelessness with intellectual dishonesty.

Brava! (I'd shout "encore!", but you've already bored us with several.)

>This is incorrect.

Not according to Henri Poincare summarizing Lobachevsky's work. Once more:

"The number of parallel lines that can be drawn through a given point to a given line is . . . none in Riemann's, and an infinite number in the geometry of Lobachevsky."

You need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills (among other things). Maybe you have some sort of attention disorder. Who knows.

How are you coming along with Fred Hoyle, Hubert Yockey, and basic probability and combinatorics?

For the record: so far, you haven't posted a single thing demonstrating that you know what you're talking about. You don't even understand what the issues are.

You probably feel right at home in the Gulch.

EE-gad! If you think St. Louis is okay, how bad must Michigan be?

I was in St. Louis a few years ago. Another place I never want to see!

New York, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Oakland, Philadelphia - all valid arguments in favor of thermonuclear war. Washington DC? An argument for neutron weapons. St. Louis - not on the list… this year. But give it time.

>>>>Once you've accepted that equally-valid axiom, you can cannot contradict it!

>>Sure you can.

No wonder your logic is all cockeyed. You accept an axiom, but feel free to contradict it? This is contrary to the most basic rules of logic. You might as well accept as axiomatic "god exists" and in the same breath say, "god does not exist".

I was in Dearborn for a short time many years ago. Struck me as a third-world nation even then. Guess nothing's changed.

Would I be correct in assuming that the majority of the "Muzzis" are "Lincoln's People"? That the government limits the carry and employment of firearms for your self-defense?

Sounds like Yankee heaven… and a local problem. Bubba knows how to handle that sort of thing.

Your original statement was,
>> One of them said, "Let the axiom instead be 'An infinite number of parallels may be drawn through a point outside a line'"

This is incorrect.

The formal statement of the Hyperbolic Axiom is,

"In hyperbolic geometry there exist a line l and a point P not on l such that at least two distinct lines parallel to l pass through P."

(cite: p 150, Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries, Development and History", Marvin Jay Greenberg, 1972)

One schooled in mathematics would instantly recognize that the former statement is of a sort that might be susceptible to proof given the latter statement as a postulate. A student of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries would recognize that the "infinite number of parallels" is derivative from the proper statement of the postulate. An unschooled, cut-and-paste, "drive-by mathematician", such as yourself, could scarcely be expected to recognize or understand the difference.

;-)

>Your account of the development of non-Euclidean geometries is actually incorrect.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extr...

"The number of parallel lines that can be drawn through a given point to a given line is one in Euclid's geometry, none in Riemann's, and an infinite number in the geometry of Lobachevsky."

Anything else you want to know, dingbat?

>But even bright guys sometimes get carried away and make stupid statements that far-less capable people take as gospel.

And quite often ignorant girls make stupid statements that they themselves take as gospel. Thanks for living up to the stereotype with such enthusiasm.

>The universe is NOT deterministic.

dbhalling is the determinist, not I. In any case, that has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. Try to focus, OK?

>I am under no such disability.

You're in denial. You have plenty of disabilities; pretending to know anything about Fred Hoyle's ideas is just one.

Okay, now that's funny!

If the biggest worry I have is Muslims coming to my door, my life is worry-free. Statistically, we're more likely to be killed by terrorist-hunting cops than by muslim terrorists... Unless your real name is Salmon Rushdie, or these cartoons were drawn by you!

http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/censorshi... (One of my favorites)
http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_arc...

The biggest terror event in our Country's history (next to Lincoln's War of Northern Aggression) killed about as many people as a month of traffic accidents.

In short, the Muslims in America don't worry me.

Now, the Muslims in France are a bit of a different matter. France will apparently be the first of the Western European nations to have a Muslim majority. And France has nuclear weapons.

Your account of the development of non-Euclidean geometries is actually incorrect. Hyperbolic geometry does not rely upon "an infinite number of lines", but the existence of only TWO distinct lines. I am not surprised that you do not know the difference between two and infinity.

You play as fast and loose with math as you do everything else. And yes, I am laughing at you.

Being that I've asked you for the sum total of all of your proof, and this is all you have offered, we are left with only your wild and debunked assertions.

Your understanding of formal proof and the nature of an "axiom" are no better than your (mis)statement of the foundational postulate of hyperbolic geometry.

Hoyle was a bright guy. But even bright guys sometimes get carried away and make stupid statements that far-less capable people take as gospel.

Einstein is famous for saying, "god does not play dice with the universe", yet Hawking is reputed to have said, "Not only does god play dice with the universe, he rolls the dice where we cannot even see them." Now, I don't doubt that Einstein was shocked by the idea that at the most fundamental levels is not order, but chaos. It offended his sense of "godly order". Hawking, it seems, was under no such theological limitation. His statement is one of derision at the failure of a great mind to accept an obvious truth because his religious beliefs got in the way.

Einstein was wrong. So was LaPlace. The universe is NOT deterministic. Planck, Schrödinger, Dirac, Heisenberg and Hawking are right. At the bottom of everything is a sort of chaos which Hawking, in a backhanded slap at god's "omniscience", claims even god cannot penetrate. Perhaps you worship Hoyle's opinions and are therefore unable to admit he might be wrong. I am under no such disability.

Where to begin?
Given an infinite number of universes, how many might have the carbon cycle?
Answer: You don't know.

Even if it's only one in a billion, that's still an infinite number of universes with the "rare" characteristic.

Given that the cycle is necessary for life (as we know it), what are the odds that life (as we know it) will evolve in one of the universes that does NOT have the carbon cycle?

Answer: Zero.

Given that we exist, are carbon based, and presumably need the carbon cycle, what are the odds that we would evolve in a universe with the carbon cycle?

Answer: 100%

So where's the mystery?

Your airplane analogy is complete BS.

You also don't know the difference between an assertion and speculation.

The mere fact that we are here, then, is no proof whatsoever that an intelligence is behind the existence of this particular universe.

Actually, you're the one lacking the background in mathematics. For me, it's not a matter of "philosophy". I go where the numbers lead me. You go where your superstitions lead you.

>One need only point out that if carbon were not plentiful, carbon-based life would not have evolved, and we would not be here.

A profound truism but not an answer to the technical problem of why it occurs. When a child asks daddy in an airplane, "How did the interior of this plane come to be pressurized?", it's scarcely relevant for daddy to answer (as you have), "Well, if it were NOT pressurized, we wouldn't be here to ask such question; we'd be dead."

That's true, but trivially so, and it doesn't answer the child's question: of all possible physical states for the inside of the plane to be, how did it NOT come to be the same as the outside pressure?" A perfectly valid question. If daddy doesn't know, he'd be benevolent enough to say so. When you don't know the answer — as, indeed, you usually do not — you try to shut the kid up with an irrelevant truism.

>Perhaps some other elemental combination would have given rise to "life",

Arbitrary assertion based on faith. Life as we understand it requires carbon. Period.

>but the mere fact that we are here is not proof that the universe was designed for us.

Thank God, then, no one actually made that claim. Having fun setting fire to straw men?

>Do you have similar illusions regarding life in general? For example, if a bus comes along just when you need it, do you simply accept that the bus would have come anyway?

If it happens every time I need a bus, AND in locations that have no bus service, I would think that the entire thing was rigged. Just like life.

You haven't studied the numbers; that's why you're so ignorant of the subject. And like most Objectivists, you try to argue against the math and the science by citing philosophy — and usually irrelevant philosophy at that.

>Aside from your quibble over semantics,

Definitions, not merely semantics. But I'm not surprised you're cavalier regarding the meaning — i.e., the objective referents — of words.

>I think you make my case for me.

I'm sure you do. It's called "confirmation bias."

>In order to accept the christian premise,

I don't understand. What is the "Christian premise"?

>one must abandon rationality.

Wrong again, O diva. One merely adds faith to one's intellectual toolbox. It's an addition to the toolbox, not a subtraction. It's an adoption of something, not an "abandonment."

But I'm certainly not going to waste time arguing with your feelings.

>One may pick it up later, but by then, the damage is done.

Thanks for making my case for me. If one "picks X up later," then it follows one hasn't "abandoned" it, right?

Oh, and by the way: *what* damage?

>You presumably assume that god has certain characteristics (the axiom), then proceed from that assumption.

I mentioned nothing about God. Your original post regarded *faith* being axiomatic vs. based on some kind of evidence.

>But why not substitute an equally-valid assumption, that the costumed character, "Barney the Dinosaur" is god?

One could do that. So?

>Once you've accepted that equally-valid axiom, you can cannot contradict it!

Sure you can. You can say, "Barney is NOT god" and cite an alternative, such as "Every dinosaur is God" or "No dinosaur is God" and see where the line of reasoning leads. That's how non-Euclidean geometries were invented: Riemann and Lobachevsky both denied that Euclid's 5th axiom regarding a single line through a point being parallel to some other given line was truly axiomatic. One of them said, "Let the axiom instead be 'An infinite number of parallels may be drawn through a point outside a line'" and the other said, "Let the axiom instead be 'No parallel may be drawn through a point outside of a straight line.'" Each one successfully created a useful variant of a non-Euclidean geometry.

>> But you didn't ask me to provide any empirical evidence.

True. So I ask now. Where is your evidence? Don't hold back. Let's have it all, though I warn you that if it is of the flavor, "I prayed for an unlikely event to occur and it did" I may be too wracked with laughter to properly compose a reply.

It's apparent you're wracked with a number of afflictions, involuntary laughter at mathematical impossibilities being only one.

See my other post regarding DNA/RNA being a quaternary digital code (isomorphic in all respects to recent codes of human design such as Morse Code and ASCII); and Sir Fred Hoyle's statements regarding the fine-tuning of universal physical constants and the creation of carbon in stellar nuclearsynthesis.

I'm familiar with the "My mind is made up, so don't confuse me with facts or logic" approach adopted by most christians, so your response is nothing new.

To correct your falsehood, I am not involved in a god/no god debate. I merely maintain that if there is such a thing as a god, your concept of it is almost certainly incorrect.

Ah! The battle cry of the defeated infant!