Existence of god

1. Information itself is the pattern physical things have, as I have tried to demonstrate with the analogy of the broken glass carrying its information in the way its particles are assembled. Also every other information such as the computer code fundamentally is a physical pattern whether it is the pattern of matter or just the magnetic bits on a hard drive. Again I can"t see any immaterial information. Every information lies in the pattern of our physical world and therefore there is no need to explain what immaterial information is (show me an example of immaterial (non physical) information. Computer code is actually a good example for information, which is given in the pattern of physical quantities (human language ultimately too). It is first translated in a binary system, which are then later represented by electric currents in the processor. DNA as well as all other genetic material works similarly. The ability to produce life is absolutely bound to the structure of it, from the necessity of copying it, to the later building of peptides in the ribosomes using RNA as its template. That it builds life is only due to the pattern of the bases, but it only works because to physical things (in this case the tRNA) later matching the pattern. Stephen Meyer, whom you quote, really isn"t in the picture of the actual problems which arise if you look at how life has formed. The two central questions are how the molecule carrying genetic information arose and was packaged in a vesicle and then how it replicates for Darwinian evolution. As soon as you have that, the additional information we see today is build by evolution (yes it builds information through the random and later sorted change and addition of DNA through replication). There are many possible scientific models giving the possibility for such primitive cells with most likely RNA as its genetic information to arise. They reach from clay surfaces or ice crystals as catalysts to the possibility of self assembled enzymes helping, followed by an easy mechanism building up the vesicles (I won"t go into detail but send some material in to comments). The following begin of self replication, while still very much open for debate, could be explained by inorganically catalysed self assembly, or through partial self replication catalysed by the RNA itself (while not settled it seems very much possible and to say otherwise invokes a god of the gaps) (all of this is not speculation but scientific work). The starting information for evolution can be attained, as I have described that information can (and does) arise and also is actually a physical feature, by physical processes (no not all information comes from intelligence as you can see everywhere in our universe). Now to clear up some other points. The problem of needing DNA then RNA for enzymes is resolved by the RNA world hypothesis. I can just reiterate that the time needed (about a billion years since the first evidence of microbial life) is so huge that it isn"t surprising we can"t make life in the laboratory (the parts and good amounts of the self assembly we actually can). The Cambrian explosion didn"t build new life forms as they still used the same triplet code for transcription of DNA and also had similar genomes to the other organisms at that time, allowing us to give an ancestors to all of them. All our evidence shows us a clear chain of fossils and also a clear order in the DNA allowing for a tree of life. As we have now established that we can explain both beginning and later rise in complexity of life by just referring to nature (and yes we aren"t finished with working everything out but nothing suggests that it needs a divine force), I believe that it is absolutely right to say that a divine creator is not necessary (yes in theory something above the natural is possible but needs as any other theory to evidence!!!). The lack of evidence for god in this case is the clear opposite to even more abstract theories relying more on indirect evidence. 2. I see no evidence or reason to believe that the laws of logic are everywhere. Everywhere we can see it seems to be the case. What I am positing is that the laws of logic are an emergent property which comes about from again the pattern our physical laws build into our universe. We see it everywhere because everything governed by our physical laws also has to be governed by the laws of logic. We presume the laws of logic, because we are in a universe which obeys laws of physics which then have in the pattern they create logic embedded. All the contradictions you bring up, like the water not being wine and cola at the same time are implied in the laws of nature, as they show us that the structure that makes one thing wine and the other cola, is not possible at the same time. This isn"t impossible because some immaterial thing governs it to be, but because the laws of physics don"t permit ultimately energy to have two structures at once. Now why god performing miracles goes along with the breaking of the laws of logic lies very much embedded in this point. If we have a uniform universe, which works by the laws of physics, which are embedded in the structure and pattern of physical things themselves and form the emergent property of logic, the breaking of the underlying laws also infringes on the emergent property. If god breaks conservation of energy or momentum or something like that he destroys the uniformity of the universe aligning with the physical laws. Therefore we would at some point look at our physical laws and see that they were broken. At that point we also break the implications of the emergent property, logic. I see that my example didn"t demonstrate my point very well To conclude I am not stating that our physical universe doesn"t work by logical laws, as they are the emergent property of the physical laws. If you doubt that I would like to see any evidence that logic is transcending physical laws, or that logical laws describe something this isn"t just as well implied in the breaking of the natural laws (not being two things is implied in the combination of the allowed patterns in nature combined with the necessity for time to change to another and also more complex problems arising in human thought can be broken down to that). Even if our thoughts build something from the laws of logic which isn"t physical there is no reason to belief that therefore logic has to be the governing base as there can be just as well be things imagined which are not inside the physical universe but would abide by them. It would just be a thought experiment with no basis in reality. 3. I as I have described see no reason to think that the laws of logic are either immaterial (they again are patterns of our physical universe) or in any way distinct from our laws of nature, being rather a spin off on them. Now I can"t say that all possible universes have to abide by logic, because I have no idea of what their physical laws are, but if those are similar in shape to our own we can expect it. Again the establishment of the laws of nature can be accounted for and the emergent logical laws can therefore be explained too. I think I have explained far enough how the laws of both nature and logic can be seen in the way physical properties and physical things are arranged and therefore there is not at all a contradiction to the materialistic worldview. If you though state that they are immaterial and influence the physical reality (which in itself contradicts the laws of causation) I would hope for some evidence of this extraordinary claim. Where is anything actually breaking the laws of nature to abide by a immaterial something called logic (or god). We can say scientifically that everywhere we have looked within the laws of nature the physical properties also implied the laws of logic. While this doesn"t allow open extrapolation, it is the only thing we can observe and while other things may sound nice to have, there is no reason to believe we are allowed to believe more as you think to be necessary. 4. Now I already have to object the notion that our universe seems to be fine tuned. If you mean it is fine tuned for us in an intelligent way, which is what is needed to pose a god caring for us and not just a multiverse giving the same result, I can"t actually see what you mean. Yes while there are some constants that are very narrow, there are some such as the starting entropy which just way over tuned (those which aren"t exact enough we obviously don"t experience as they don"t allow for us). It seems to be a according way better with a worldview that postulates a more random beginning of our universe. As those processes can well lead to patterns carrying information there is no reason that such patterns, which the fine tuning of some things obviously is, can"t possibly arise by natural processes as I have described above. Now very important is the fact that we can"t observe god and we can"t observe the multiverse either. Fine tuning of the kind that actually exists is working with both hypothesis but as I have shown works better with a less ordered process like the multiverse (and yes you can just explain it away with saying e.g. that god is an artist wanting to do it but it isn"t at all useful). Besides this we have all our natural laws, from time lacking the symmetry of a infinite future and a finite beginning or the problem of low entropy, which a multiverse explains. I will also give some sources on what the multiverse theory is actually based upon, as it isn"t just speculation contrary to a god. To nothing, I say that our thought concept of existence doesn"t fit with the overall view of the things that seemingly exist. As I have described above, there isn"t actually anything in total as all properties cancel each other. Therefore all that exist is a conformation or separation of nothing.