Skyhooks and Cranes -- Complexity and First Causes

A response video to OnceForgivenNowFree's video "A Challenge for Atheists".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whN-DriHIOo

This youtuber wanted to know why the "first cause" (if there is one) for the cosmos couldn't be "complex" according to Dawkins in "The God Delusion."

I don't think it's necessary for anyone to be issuing challenges to each other--I think we can just discuss it.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• atheism
• deism
• theism
• firstcause
• cosmos
• cosmology
• bigbang
• thegoddelusion
• dawkins
• skyhook
• crane
• simple
• complex
• evolution
• religion
• discussion

[onceforgivennowfree]

Hey thanks for the video resonse! I changed the name of my video to "A Question for Atheists" .....just for you! haha

But thanks for giving a clear response that you obviously actually thought through yourself!

[PlasteredDragon]

@onceforgivennowfree

my pleasure, and I've enjoyed reading the commentary on your video (well some of it anyway... apart from the rude folks.)

[Birdieupon]

Questions:

1) Is the answer to "how did this youtube video get here" a Skyhook?

2) Is the invoking of new entities, such as quantum particles and dark matter, a Skyhook?

3) Is the explanation for the simplest, earliest entity - out of which the rest of the universe evolved - a Skyhook (i.e. it was "just there" with nothing simpler to cause it)?

4) Why is God complex? Wouldn't the simplest explanation be pure consciousness instead of something made from discreet component parts?

Thanks :)

[PlasteredDragon]

@Birdieupon

2) The predictions of dark matter and certain as yet undetected quantum particles, these hypotheses can (and are) being tested. They will be discarded if shown to be false. It is important to note that these are --predictions--, and in the scientific community they'd be dismissed as poppycock if they could not be tested.

Do you have empirical means of testing the God hypothesis? Will you discard the hypothesis if it turns out to be false?

[PlasteredDragon]

@Birdieupon

3) The universe didn't "evolve". All indications are that it expanded from a supercondensed state in which baryonic matter could not exist. This is, again, a prediction, based on evidence we can directly and indirectly observe and measure.

The prior state to the supercondensed state (if there was one) is unknown. "Unknown" is not a skyhook. It's theologians who insist that the cosmic progenitor MUST be known, even though their prediction is unevidenced and untestable.

[PlasteredDragon]

@Birdieupon

4) Stating that "pure consciousness" is "simple" betrays a lack of understanding of what consciousness is. "Consciousness" is not simple. It's an emergent property of brains. Furthermore a consciousness which is supposed to be omniscient would necessarily need to be more complex than the universe itself. If your deity was simple, he could not be omniscient.

[pgm3]

PD -- well done, sir! In 7:08 you have presented an easy-to-understand explanation of epistomology, the scientific method, thermodynamics and cosmology, all without attacking anyones cherished religous beliefs. That seems to a feat beyond many of the shrill voices here, but you've done it. I think this vid should be "required reading" for all the fundamentalists and creationists who post on this site. Thanks again!

Complexity Doesn't Imply Design. The universe is nonnewtonian at the extremes.

[PlasteredDragon]

@Birdieupon

1) That depends on what answer you give, doesn't it? If you say the video got here because of pixie magic, then yes, that's a skyhook. If you say the video was recorded by me, edited in computer software, and uploaded to YouTube (as with millions of other YouTube videos--repeating phenomena which we can investigate in detail) then you've talking about a crane.

[PlasteredDragon]

@Birdieupon thanks for your comment. I'll attempt to answer your questions with one comment each.

[BaileysBeads]

@Birdieupon Yes, if you can explain the origins of that pure consciousness and how it created the universe, it's a crane.

And yes, if there's no solid reasoning behind singularities and all other quantum mechanics they're sky-hooks as well. The slight difference here is that most of these explanations are simpler than an actual personal agent.

[Birdieupon]

@BaileysBeads

And if you can't explain where singularities, quantums and universes come from, it's a Skyhook?