Vesko wrote:
Tom claims that the book is a proof (see below this paragraph) and also mathematical precision for the "intellect first" prerequisite that we are discussing. His book is touted as containing absolute, non-subjective conclusions.
Yes, I see Tom writes the word proven at the start of his description of the book. I agree that for people who do not know much about philosophy, that statement can be misleading... until you read the book itself. When I read the book, I got the distinct impression, from pages like Page 12, that Tom is saying that you cannot prove anything to anyone else, you can only prove something to yourself. Even so, I may email Tom to ask him about his use of the word 'prove'.
Have you emailed Tom and tried to resolve some of
your problems with the book?
How exactly did he show what is more likely? The statement "Great Intellect had to exist FIRST" relies on common sense and nothing else, and only our common sense makes a universe less likely than an intellect, nothing else. Tom says "From our experience, we have to conclude that a house cannot just build itself. The probability of a house creating itself is ZERO". The statement is true. But "our experience" is totally irrelevant when it is applied to the external environment. If Tom happens to know that the chances of an intellect coming from nothing are infinitely small, but are much higher than that of an universe, he has simply NOT written it in his book. Too bad that in a lot of people it leaves a false certainty that God actually exists.
You are right, he did not explicitly mention the statements about the different likelihoods in this book. I am thinking of his Chance or Choice article, which he calls The Sequel to TFOC
http://nujournal.net/choice.html . However, the main information is in TFOC: Page 15 talks about how intellect can develop itself (suggests that mind is opposite of matter and its entropy laws). This idea itself should set off alarm bells in some people and have them start thinking about some of the ideas found in the sequel.
To put forth the argument about intelligence as a mandatory prerequisite for life, one needs to rely on something more than simply "what makes sense" without any verifiable data or evidence for it. With sufficient verifiable knowledge, you can have the absolute knowledge that God does or doesn't exist. The best we can ever hope for is what makes most sense to the reader? No, the best we can hope for is a final, absolute, indisputable proof that God actually exists.
It is
impossible for us to EVER have final, absolute, indisputable proof of ANYTHING. We cannot prove anything that we experience through our senses, it could all be a dream/trick/illusion. We cannot prove anything from our logic or mind, our logic could also be interfered with/dictated.
The best we can hope for is what makes sense to us, this includes making sense of observations ("data or evidence") about the universe. Making sure that everything we observe and understand about the universe is
coherent.
I'd like to hear your input on the things I talk about in the other topic on this forum "The Freedom of Choice".
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