Is God complex?

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Is God complex?
OP - August 02, 2015, 07:29 PM

I was having a conversation with my dad about biology and I noted how incredible it is that our body performs so many complicated processes even as we just sit still and do nothing. He used this as an opportunity to bring in theology (a topic I've learned to just never touch around my parents after I told them I don't consider myself a Christian) and make the point that that is one of the reasons why he "could never be an atheist."

I actually just kind of made a remark like "hmm is that so" and changed the subject as quickly as I could as arguing these things only serve to hurt my relationship with my parents. It was ironic though because we had just been discussing the brain and the insane amount of complexity and physiological processes required to create and maintain human thought and reasoning. If I were to respond to him I would say that in order for an all knowing, all powerful, mind to exist, the complexity required would cause the human brain to pale in comparison. What he is doing is explaining something complex by positing something far more complex.

I've looked a bit into what theologians say on this matter. Many claim that God is not complex because he exists as one simple entity and since he is a disembodied mind he is not contingent on physical complexity which is what needs to explained. But I don't see how an all-knowing mind with infinite wisdom could ever be seen as simple and if minds can just exist without physical/biological complexity, why must we carry around this delicate, squishy computer-like contraption in our skulls that frequently causes so many problems to our mental faculties if it gets injured or infected? Also, it seems like God is generally defined by what he is not (immaterial- not material, transcendent- outside of the universe, timeless- not in time) with precious few positive attributes in order to make him exempt from the rules that we know things to exist by. We know brains to be a requisite to having a mind, but God doesn't need a brain because supposedly his mind is composed of spirit (ie not material, doesn't have to play by the rules of the real world) and is exempt from needing his own explanation despite us having no positive idea of what "spiritual" substance is composed of. Of course, I'm no expert in philosophy, so maybe there is some metaphysical concept of "spiritual" that I'm not aware of and reasons for why it doesn't require an explanation of complexity in the same way physical things do.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something here?

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Reply #1 - August 02, 2015, 07:34 PM

If one could establish that God is extremely complex it would destroy any teleological argument for God. Even with the cosmological fine tuning argument, apologists like to ask whether we just got lucky the physical constants are the values they are. But wouldn't we be far more lucky if the default state of existence was an all-knowing, all-powerful, beneficent God? If it's possible the knobs could be changed on the physical constants, whose to say the knobs couldn't be changed on the realm God lives in and it would be astronically improbable that something with a coherent, let alone infinitely intelligent, mind would exist.

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Reply #2 - August 02, 2015, 08:07 PM

The Plantinga-esque response is basically what you've highlighted. God is a disembodied mind, complexity is a function of systems with parts. God has no parts ergo God is not complex. The obvious contention is that this means that the mental ultimately gives rise to the physical. The problem is that we know of no non-physical minds. This serves as evidence for naturalism over supernaturalism.

I want to share a few things. Some related, others loosely related (or not related at all).

One of the basis of complexity theory is that complex phenomena arise from simple initial conditions. Systems can be described in terms of "positive feedback" and "negative feedback". Negative feedback systems dampen over time. Systems that exhibit positive feedback enlarge over time. So the idea that all complex things must be created by even more complex things, is not universal. Take the Lorenz system as an example:

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The Lorenz system is a system of ordinary differential equations (the Lorenz equations, note it is not Lorentz) first studied by Edward Lorenz. It is notable for having chaotic solutions for certain parameter values and initial conditions. In particular, the Lorenz attractor is a set of chaotic solutions of the Lorenz system which, when plotted, resemble a butterfly or figure eight.

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Of course, I'm no expert in philosophy, so maybe there is some metaphysical concept of "spiritual" that I'm not aware of and reasons for why it doesn't require an explanation of complexity in the same way physical things do.

There is a principle in the philosophy of science which states that the best explanation needs no further explanation. I.e. it makes no sense to ask why X is the best when X is the best explanation that we have. WLC often (abuses) invokes this principle. The challenge lies in defending the idea that God is the best explanation, the vast majority of philosophers (in academia) disagree with the idea that God is the best explanation.

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Reply #3 - August 02, 2015, 08:12 PM

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Even with the cosmological fine tuning argument, apologists like to ask whether we just got lucky the physical constants are the values they are.

Proponents of the FTA make certain assumptions about the nature of probability, these assumptions don't hold in every situation. See the following for a counterexample:

Quote from: http://infidels.org/library/modern/ryan_stringer/fine-tuning.html

But the other fatal problem with the fine-tuning argument is its misuse of improbability to conjure up support for supernaturalism in general. The problem lies with the inference from P5 to P6—namely, the inference from

(P5b) It is extremely improbable for the universe's physical constants to have, by chance, the uniquely life-permitting values instead of some other, non-life-permitting set of values

to

(P6) The uniquely life-permitting values of the universe's physical constants are probably not due to chance.

Now this inference is a specific instance of the following general assumption:

(A) If it is extremely improbable for a unique outcome to occur by chance, then that outcome's occurrence is probably not due to chance.

But this assumption does not hold in every context. For instance, suppose that there was a lottery involving every single person on earth. Only one name will be drawn, and that person will win billions of dollars. The probability that any individual person will be drawn by chance is roughly 1 in 7 billion; so it is extremely improbable that any particular person will win by chance. However, some particular person will win—that outcome will occur with absolute certainly. And yet the extreme improbability of that particular person winning by chance does not at all suggest that it will not happen by chance. In fact, the default position here is that this is precisely what will happen—some particular person will win by chance despite the extreme improbability of that person winning by chance. The default position is not that the lottery is probably rigged, which would be the case if it were always true that the extreme improbability of a unique outcome occurring by chance probabilistically ruled out chance as responsible for the outcome's occurrence.

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Reply #4 - August 02, 2015, 08:51 PM

" I don't see how an all-knowing mind with infinite wisdom could ever be seen as simple"

Neither do i. But you and I know shit.
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Reply #5 - August 02, 2015, 09:44 PM

Maybe thats why God had to make a universe that's billions of lightyears across, when he only wanted one planet: so he could harvest the energy from all those bajillions of stars to support himself.

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Reply #6 - August 02, 2015, 09:51 PM

Let's assume that all religious text is true, no matter the religion it is associated with, regarding the existence and behaviour of God. We cannot pick and choose between them, because each claims itself to be most accurate.
I don't understand how an all knowing mind with infinite wisdom and infinite powers could be seen as anything other than a bully in light of what it chooses to ignore. Being that it ignores everything. Also, it used to bully races of people that were not it's chosen people, driving other groups of humans off of lands it deemed reserved for it's special favourites, advocating genocide, etc.
Fictional superheroes are far superior, with their limited supernatural powers, because they keep trying to make a positive difference in their fictional stories. They have good intentions.
So I know this is not much about complexity, what I am saying, rather it is about value.
God has no value. A God who refuses to make a difference when it has the resources to do so is just useless. I am embarrassed by my fellow man's devotion to a being who simply does not give a shit.
So it does not demonstrate any complexity, in my view. If I had to admit all religious text and prophets were true, and that God did exist, I would say it was asleep, and had fallen asleep quite some time ago, and that prophets since the last recorded meddling of God in man's affairs were dreams that God had, people inspired by it's dreams, rather than a demonstration of any intelligence or long-term planning by that God. Why would a complex and infinitely powerful being act like a shepherd to certain groups and of humans and then just fall off the face of the earth?
There is actually no evidence of long range planning by God that I can see. Just poor decisions, half assed prophets who needed more and more messengers after them, and a lack of concern for the ethical evolution of the human race.
Per religious texts, God does not even have a uniform personality, but rather is subject to fits of temper or mood that varies from book to book, too mercurial to be evaluated or assessed or agreed upon, which, if God were possessed of infinite mind, he could easily have predicted would lead to the sorts of blood baths we are currently witnessing. I don't see that as complexity. My toddler behaves the same, destroying something one minute, then being helpful the next, then threatening before the hour is out. She has no forethought to how such behaviour will affect her (or me) tomorrow. Indeed, tomorrow barely exists for her, and it seems the same for God.
So if God has infinite power and infinite wisdom, why is it that God still does not show emotional intelligence?
How could you have a being with more wisdom and more everything than us, but no empathy? My son, who lacks Theory of Mind, shows more complexity in his responses, because he shows concern for people and all lesser beings, including ants. My son would get me a bandage if I asked him to, and God would refuse, even though supposedly God could instantly heal my wound.
I obviously know nothing about philosophy. This is an emotional evaluation. More about value. It might be not worth our time to even speculate about God, since God does not interact with us any longer (assuming there was once a God who did).
Probably there is some religious text out there explaining why God went to sleep (currently ignores us). If I assume such text is true, then that might change my argument. But I think not by much.
I know most of this is rambling and not very collected. But I just seriously overloaded on chocolate and have little self control at the moment. Being a decent baker is a curse.

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Reply #7 - August 02, 2015, 09:55 PM

Quote from: galfromusa on August 02, 2015, 09:44 PM
Maybe thats why God had to make a universe that's billions of lightyears across, when he only wanted one planet: so he could harvest the energy from all those bajillions of stars to support himself.

That is a really good point.

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Reply #8 - August 02, 2015, 10:46 PM

God is as complex as a fallible human brain.
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Reply #9 - August 02, 2015, 11:28 PM

God is nothing, quantified as something.
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Reply #10 - August 03, 2015, 02:08 AM

Q, I was hoping to lure you into an interesting discussion. I considered the fastest way to get you over would be to say "philosophy is useless, science kicks ass!" But I figured I didn't want to draw your ire before we had even started

The plantinga response goes back to what I saying before about God being defined in negative terms in order to side step the rules. God does not have any physical complexity, therefore we don't have to worry about nagging questions about explaining that, but his mind is perhaps made of spiritual stuff (whatever that is and however it works, we just know that it isn't complex in the way physical things are). Whenever you run into a problem or paradox in the normal way things work (like an infinite regress of events in the past) you can just appeal to God saying he solves the solution because gets all the benefits of being mysterious (can be the first cause, God of the gaps, whatever you want) without any of the drawbacks (incoherent, unfalsifiable, ad hoc). I'd like a theist to explain what an unembodied mind really is, what it is contingent on, whether it's made of anything, if yes what the properties of its constituents are, how it interacts with the universe, without a shrug of the shoulders and an appeal to the mysterious while saying "at least we know it's not impossible, unlike the universe creating itself out of nothing." My only experience with other minds involves my interactions with other biological systems (and maybe computers) that are definitely dependent upon physical brains (or hardware) so I can only assume a superhuman intelligence would have to be far more physically complex than a puny human brain.

Interesting example with the Lorenz set of how complexity can arise from simple parameters. Bottom up design is much more explanatorily powerful than any top down design and can even lead to much more intricate and elegant things.

I've been watching some of Massimo P's channel. He's got some good stuff and really illustrates the importance of philosophy

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Reply #11 - August 03, 2015, 02:14 AM

If there were some proof that this universe was the only one that exists, wouldn't that infidels analogy to a lottery fail? In a lottery there are many losers, but there will definitely be a winner. If there was only one universe that was randomly assigned constants, and there didn't have to be a winner (in fact, it was astronomically implausible that there would be a winner), I could see design as the best inference to why we are around to think about it

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Reply #12 - August 03, 2015, 02:15 AM

Quote from: happymurtad on August 02, 2015, 11:28 PM
God is nothing, quantified as something.

I like that

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Reply #13 - August 03, 2015, 04:38 AM

well read this write up on WHAT IS GOD and that is written by this man ...

Dr A Q Khan written on Monday, August 03, 2015

Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything
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Reply #14 - August 04, 2015, 02:38 AM

A mention of some sort of remorse would have helped!

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Reply #15 - August 04, 2015, 06:43 AM

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tomorrow barely exists for her, and it seems the same for God.

I thought that was a major symptom of dementia.

Therefore God is complex, but not a toddler, but senile.

Philosophers at that one!

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

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Reply #16 - August 05, 2015, 02:22 AM

That is apt, actually. God has or is dementia. I like that.

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Reply #17 - August 17, 2015, 06:33 PM

Quote from: justperusing on August 03, 2015, 02:14 AM
If there were some proof that this universe was the only one that exists, wouldn't that infidels analogy to a lottery fail? In a lottery there are many losers, but there will definitely be a winner. If there was only one universe that was randomly assigned constants, and there didn't have to be a winner (in fact, it was astronomically implausible that there would be a winner), I could see design as the best inference to why we are around to think about it

Forgot to reply, my bad.

The analogy is attacking the following intuition: "If X is extremely unlikely then we are justified in thinking that X was designed."

It's also worth noting that the above is a false dichotomy. Chance or design are not exhaustive as there could exist another option such as logical necessity.

The intuition behind this defence of the fine tuning argument seems to rely on the fallacy of false cause.

Take the following example:

(1) A single lottery, chances of me winning are 1 in 1,000,000,000

(2). Three lotteries. The chances of me winning each individual lottery is 1 in 1,000. Chances of me winning all three is 1 in 1000^3

If we don't assume that there has to be a winner, both (1) and (2) have the same likelihood as they share the same mathematical probabilities.

If we could prove that one universe is all that there is, then the multiverse objection would obviously break down. The actual challenge lies in defending the claim that this universe is the only one. However, I don't think that this discovery would change the fact that the "chance or design" dichotomy, is a false one.

I just want to add that I think the multiverse objection is one of the weaker responses to FT. Imo, there are stronger philosophical arguments against teleological fine tuning.

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Reply #18 - August 17, 2015, 06:52 PM

Consider the parallel "divine-pruning argument" parody.

(http://infidels.org/library/modern/ryan_stringer/fine-tuning.html)

(P1) The uniquely life-permitting values of the universe's physical constants are probably due to supernatural fine-tuning. (P7 of the fine-tuning argument)

(P2) The supernatural fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is either due to God, or to some other supernatural being or beings.

(P3) Given the enormous (perhaps infinite) number of supernatural options that could account for the fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants, it is extremely improbable that this fine-tuning is due to God instead of some other supernatural being or beings.

(P4) The fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is probably not due to God. (from P3)

(P5) The fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is probably due to some other, non-God supernatural being or beings. (from P2 & P4)

(C) Therefore, it is not defeasibly reasonable to attribute the uniquely life-permitting values of the universe's physical constants to God. (from P5)

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Reply #19 - August 17, 2015, 06:56 PM

Quote from: justperusing on August 03, 2015, 02:08 AM
I've been watching some of Massimo P's channel. He's got some good stuff and really illustrates the importance of philosophy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkSKq4B7hD0

And yeah, Massimo is a cool guy. I have communicated with him on several occasions.

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Reply #20 - August 18, 2015, 11:31 AM

great vid
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Reply #21 - August 18, 2015, 12:08 PM

Thinking to sig this:

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People that believe that complicated philosophical arguments do not reveal reality are pragmatists. Pragmatism is a particular philosophy, with thousands of books filled with complicated philosophical arguments to back up its claims. So those that believe that all philosophy is rubbish are followers of a particular philosophy. Ironic, aint it!

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Reply #22 - August 18, 2015, 12:22 PM

Another example would be logical positivism. A philosophical movement which basically made the following claim:

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for a sentence to be meaningful, it must be able to be empirically verified.

However, logical positivism currently resides in the philosophical graveyard of not so great ideas.

This is the very tl;dr version. The 'principle of verification' (that all true statements must be grounded in empirical verification) is itself not empirically verifiable. Thus, the basic principle of Logical Positivism fails to get off the ground as it violates the very rules that it proposes.

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Reply #23 - August 21, 2015, 12:59 AM

Quote from: Qtian on August 17, 2015, 06:52 PM
Consider the parallel "divine-pruning argument" parody.

(http://infidels.org/library/modern/ryan_stringer/fine-tuning.html)

(P1) The uniquely life-permitting values of the universe's physical constants are probably due to supernatural fine-tuning. (P7 of the fine-tuning argument)

(P2) The supernatural fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is either due to God, or to some other supernatural being or beings.

(P3) Given the enormous (perhaps infinite) number of supernatural options that could account for the fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants, it is extremely improbable that this fine-tuning is due to God instead of some other supernatural being or beings.

(P4) The fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is probably not due to God. (from P3)

(P5) The fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants is probably due to some other, non-God supernatural being or beings. (from P2 & P4)

(C) Therefore, it is not defeasibly reasonable to attribute the uniquely life-permitting values of the universe's physical constants to God. (from P5)

Couldn't a similar argument be made about the Kalam even if one were to accept the universe needs a supernatural cause? Actually even more possibilities abound because to be merely a spark plug for the Big Bang really does not necessitate any intelligence or much power.

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Reply #24 - August 21, 2015, 01:11 AM

I was just perusing the articles on infidel.org related to the fine tuning argument and found this interesting one: http://infidels.org/library/modern/aron_lucas/hidden-fta.html

It examines the premise that the reason the life-permitting constants must be explained is because life is deemed to be valuable. Either life is not valuable and the argument is dropped, life is valuable in the eyes of God and the argument assumes its conclusion, or the value of life is not dependent on God which destroys the moral argument because then objective values would exist without God.

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Reply #25 - August 21, 2015, 08:07 AM

Quote from: justperusing on August 21, 2015, 12:59 AM
Couldn't a similar argument be made about the Kalam even if one were to accept the universe needs a supernatural cause? Actually even more possibilities abound because to be merely a spark plug for the Big Bang really does not necessitate any intelligence or much power.

One could just argue that the theoretical singularity and it's properties are the cause.
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