https://evolutionnews.org/2021/06/recognizing-design-by-a-purposeful-arrangement-of-parts/

"...a mind can arrange parts to achieve its purposes. Of course, we ourselves have minds. And it is a fundamental power of mind that it can discern purposes. Thus we can recognize that a mind has acted by perceiving a purposeful arrangement of parts. There is no other way that I can think of by which we can recognize another mind.

"For purposes of detecting other minds, “parts” can be virtually anything. Examples include: the purposeful arrangement of sounds in speech; words and letters in writing; mechanical parts in machinery; the timing of events in a surprise party; combinations of all those things; and an infinite number of other ways. There are many other things to say to fill this out that I can’t go into here (especially the issue of “spandrels,” that is, features that are unintended for themselves but are the side effects of constructing designed systems). Nonetheless, the overriding point is that we can only recognize design/mind in the purposeful arrangement of parts.

"Other phrases that people use to indicate intelligent design all boil down to purposeful arrangements of parts. For example, Stephen Meyer likes to point out that we know intelligent agents produce information, so when we come across coded information in a computer program we can conclude it was produced by an intelligent agent. True enough. Yet how do we know there is information in a string of zeroes and ones — in a computer program? Only if we find that they are arranged for a purpose; that is, if the computer program has a function, if it can do something purposeful. In the same way, irreducibly complex systems resist Darwinian explanation, but how do we know they are designed? Because we see they can do something, that they have a purpose, they are a purposeful arrangement of parts. (As an aside, IC systems have two relevant properties — their discontinuous nature resists Darwinism and their manifest purposiveness strongly points to design.)

"Finally, in the case of the eye, rather than “specified complexity,” I think it is much, much easier to parse design for a lay audience (or a professional one) as a purposeful arrangement of parts. Audiences will immediately recognize the purpose in the arrangement of the eye’s components. In my view, the phrase specified complexity only obscures the same meaning as found in purposeful arrangement. The “specified” in the phrase specified complexity is pretty much the same as “purposeful,” and “complexity” the same as “arrangement.” Yet the phrase “purposeful arrangement” is at once less mathy, less forbidding, more accessible, and clearer."

Comment: As Dawkins said, it sure looks designed.

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=12245

"IAS director Robbert Dijkgraaf will be giving the CERN colloquium tomorrow, with the title The Future of Fundamental Physics. Here’s the abstract:

"The reports of the death of physics are greatly exaggerated. Instead, I would argue, we are living in a golden era and the best is yet to come. Not only did the past decades see some amazing breakthrough discoveries and show us the many unknowns in our current understanding, but more importantly, science in general is moving from studying `what is’ to `what could be.’ There will be many more fundamental laws of nature hidden within the endless number of physical systems we could fabricate out of the currently known building blocks. This demands an open mind about the concepts of unity and progress in physics.

"I don’t know of any “reports of the death of physics”, but there are a lot of reports of the death of string theory (Dijkgraaf’s specialty) and of the larger subject of attempts to go beyond the Standard Model, experimentally or theoretically. CERN yesterday announced new results from LHCb testing lepton universality (a prediction of the Standard Model). LHCb sees a ratio of decays to muons vs. electrons in a certain process that is off from the Standard Model prediction by 3.1 sigma.

***

"Dijkgraaf’s claim that “we are living in a golden era” is an odd one to be making at CERN, which has seen some true golden eras and is now facing very real challenges. Even odder is arguing at CERN that the bright future of science is due to it “moving from studying `what is’ to `what could be.’” CERN is at its core a place devoted to investigating “what is” at the most fundamental level. I’m curious to hear what those at CERN make of his talk.

"Dijkgraaf’s abstract to me summarizes the attitude that the best way to deal with the current problems of HEP theory is to change the definition of the goals of the field, thereby defining failure away. The failure of heavily promoted ideas about string theory and supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model is rebranded a success, a discovery that there’s no longer any point to pursue the traditional goals of the subject. Instead, the way forward to a brighter future is to give up on unification and trying to do better than the Standard Model. One is then free to redefine “fundamental physics” as whatever theorists manage to come up with of some relevance to still healthy fields like condensed matter and hot new topics like machine learning and quantum computing. I can see why Dijkgraaf feels this is the way forward for the IAS, but whether and how it provides a way forward for CERN is another question."

Comment: It is the same old issue. We should stick to solid realistic research, rather than pursuing fantasies like the multiverse string theory that has no physical basis

DAVID: We don't stop because we all enjoy using our searching minds to try and achieve some answers to the imponderable questions, such as why is there anything? God's obvoius purpose is to create universes and living organisms with consciousness that are broad enough in mental capacity to try and understand how God did it.

You want His underlying motives to be revealed Your questions imply why does He have this purpose. Stop and think that God has a consciousness which has no bounds that we can be aware of. We humans have limits to what mental capacities we have, so how can we really know what underlying purposes God has? That is why I at first tried to accommodate your persistent questions as His possible purposes and now I've basically given up because the avenue to inquiry has no answers we can accept as possible truths. I accept what I have see God has given us, and follow the Passover thought: 'deyanu', it is enough. Rabbis who created this service have enough wisdom to understand there is a point where inquiry has gone to a final boundary

dhw: So your God, if he exists, created universes because his purpose was to create universes, and he created life because he wanted to create minds which would try to understand how he did it. I don’t know how many of our fellow living (or dead) organisms have minds that try to understand how he did it, and I don’t know how you even know that this was his purpose anyway. And so, since all further questions are apparently pointless, I suggest the following alternative: we don’t know if God exists, but if he does, his purpose in creating the universe and life must have been to create the universe and life. I’m sure the rabbis in their wisdom would agree that this is the point where inquiry has gone to a final boundary, and we should therefore stop talking about God's purposefulness altogether.

The rabbis are/were wise. His purpose is beyond us.

DAVID: We might just as well wonder why you started this site. I can conjure up possibilities: primarily you are uncomfortable in your picket fence position. You are surrounded by atheists on one side and theists on the other and both groups are sure in their positions, while you squirm without any answers except 'I can't believe anything' or 'I won't believe anything'. And I don't accept your hypotheses as logical since they start from a position of not accepting the logical necessity of the designed complexity of life requires a designing mind.

dhw: The logic of the hypotheses you are disputing concerns your God’s possible purpose for creating the universe and life. Nothing to do with the logic of design hypotheses relating to his existence. As for why I started the website, I was indeed uncomfortable and even squirming at the standard of debate on both sides concerning Dawkins''The God Delusion', which was the trigger. And so initially I was hoping to encourage a more balanced approach to the whole subject, though I was also acutely aware of my own ignorance. Hence the purpose summarized on the homepage:

"The purpose of this website is to provide a forum for discussion."
"The truth is out there somewhere, and by combining our discoveries, we may help one another to gain new insights."

Thanks largely to you, but also to many others over the 10+ years of its existence, I can honestly say that it has fulfilled that purpose, even though I am still sitting quite comfortably but thoughtfully on my picket fence.

It has provided many great discussions and discoveries.

So your God, if he exists, created universes because his purpose was to create universes, and he created life because he wanted to create minds which would try to understand how he did it. I don’t know how many of our fellow living (or dead) organisms have minds that try to understand how he did it, and I don’t know how you even know that this was his purpose anyway. And so, since all further questions are apparently pointless, I suggest the following alternative: we don’t know if God exists, but if he does, his purpose in creating the universe and life must have been to create the universe and life. I’m sure the rabbis in their wisdom would agree that this is the point where inquiry has gone to a final boundary, and we should therefore stop talking about God's purposefulness altogether.

DAVID: We might just as well wonder why you started this site. I can conjure up possibilities: primarily you are uncomfortable in your picket fence position. You are surrounded by atheists on one side and theists on the other and both groups are sure in their positions, while you squirm without any answers except 'I can't believe anything' or 'I won't believe anything'. And I don't accept your hypotheses as logical since they start from a position of not accepting the logical necessity of the designed complexity of life requires a designing mind.

The logic of the hypotheses you are disputing concerns your God’s possible purpose for creating the universe and life. Nothing to do with the logic of design hypotheses relating to his existence. As for why I started the website, I was indeed uncomfortable and even squirming at the standard of debate on both sides concerning Dawkins''The God Delusion', which was the trigger. And so initially I was hoping to encourage a more balanced approach to the whole subject, though I was also acutely aware of my own ignorance. Hence the purpose summarized on the homepage:

"The purpose of this website is to provide a forum for discussion."
"The truth is out there somewhere, and by combining our discoveries, we may help one another to gain new insights."

Thanks largely to you, but also to many others over the 10+ years of its existence, I can honestly say that it has fulfilled that purpose, even though I am still sitting quite comfortably but thoughtfully on my picket fence.

dhw: What sort of God are you now trying to conjure up? A vast blob of conscious energy that has no feelings, no identity, no self? All this because although you constantly insist on how purposeful he is, you cannot stand the thought that his purpose might have been to keep himself occupied.

DAVID: As an eternal being God is not tied to a passage of time, which to humans creates a requirement to fill that time with productive efforts or pass-timing. I'm sure God contains all of the human attributes of thought in His thoughts we have but He is much more than that as He proceeds to create. We can only guess at his motives, so why bother?

dhw: So your God apparently creates universe after universe (before and after = time) containing humans whose behaviour (which requires befores and afters) he can observe with interest while also revelling in the joy of creation (which also requires befores and afters), but he does not feel any requirement to do so. He just does so with no purpose in mind, although for ten years you have hammered home the message that your God is purposeful. And now, as I continue to pursue YOUR argument, and as you can clearly find no fault in the logic of my hypothesis but dislike its implications, you resort to “why bother?” We don’t even know whether your God exists. We can’t know. So why bother to ask? Why did you bother to write two brilliant books about it, and why did I bother to set up this website? We bother because we care, and one of the inspiring things about humans is that, for all our faults and for all our ignorance, we refuse to give up.

We don't stop because we all enjoy using our searching minds to try and achieve some answers to the imponderable questions, such as why is there anything? God's obvoius purpose is to create universes and living organisms with consciousness that are broad enough in mental capacity to try and understand how God did it. You want His underlying motives to be revealed Your questions imply why does He have this purpose. Stop and think that God has a consciousness which has no bounds that we can be aware of. We humans have limits to what mental capacities we have, so how can we really know what underlying purposes God has? That is why I at first tried to accommodate your persistent questions as His possible purposes and now I've basically given up because the avenue to inquiry has no answers we can accept as possible truths. I accept what I have see God has given us, and follow the Passover thought: 'deyanu', it is enough. Rabbis who created this service have enough wisdom to understand there is a point where inquiry has gone to a final boundary.

We might just as well wonder why you started this site. I can conjure up possibilities: primarily you are uncomfortable in your picket fence position. You are surrounded by atheists on one side and theists on the other and both groups are sure in their positions, while you squirm without any answers except 'I can't believe anything' or 'I won't believe anything'. And I don't accept your hypotheses as logical since they start from a position of not accepting the logical necessity of the designed complexity of life requires a designing mind.

DAVID: As an eternal being God is not tied to a passage of time, which to humans creates a requirement to fill that time with productive efforts or pass-timing. I'm sure God contains all of the human attributes of thought in His thoughts we have but He is much more than that as He proceeds to create. We can only guess at his motives, so why bother?

So your God apparently creates universe after universe (before and after = time) containing humans whose behaviour (which requires befores and afters) he can observe with interest while also revelling in the joy of creation (which also requires befores and afters), but he does not feel any requirement to do so. He just does so with no purpose in mind, although for ten years you have hammered home the message that your God is purposeful. And now, as I continue to pursue YOUR argument, and as you can clearly find no fault in the logic of my hypothesis but dislike its implications, you resort to “why bother?” We don’t even know whether your God exists. We can’t know. So why bother to ask? Why did you bother to write two brilliant books about it, and why did I bother to set up this website? We bother because we care, and one of the inspiring things about humans is that, for all our faults and for all our ignorance, we refuse to give up.

DAVID: Did you ever consider God as selfless? You can only think of Him as similar to you.

dhw: Did you ever consider that your God might have thoughts and feelings similar to ours, which is why he was able to create creatures with thoughts and feelings similar to his? Why do you tell us he wants a relationship with us, wants to prove himself to us, enjoys creation, watches us (and all the other humans in all the other universes you think he has created) with interest if you don’t think of him having these thoughts and feelings? What sort of God are you now trying to conjure up? A vast blob of conscious energy that has no feelings, no identity, no self? All this because although you constantly insist on how purposeful he is, you cannot stand the thought that his purpose might have been to keep himself occupied.

As an eternal being God is not tied to a passage of time, which to humans creates a requirement to fill that time with productive efforts or pass-timing. I'm sure God contains all of the human attributes of thought in His thoughts we have but He is much more than that as He proceeds to create. We can only guess at his motives, so why bother?

DAVID: Pure humanizing of God. The concept of pass-timing in psychology is useless filling of time, and we all do it!

dhw: It is you who have introduced the term “pass-timing”, you have not told us your criteria for usefulness, you have ignored the whole argument above (that your God was not born into a world already filled with purposes and occupations), and you refuse to acknowledge that all your own interpretations of your God’s purposes are pure humanizations. And you still haven’t explained why the hypothesis I have offered is illogical. Your only objection seems to be that it doesn’t fit your personal image of your God.

Pass-timing is a concept from my training in psychology. It should be easy for you to recognize, as I'm sure you've done it, if you think about it. Is every moment of your life purposeful? As for guessing God's purposes, that is all they can be. I've produced some possibilities when goaded by you, but why bother? Just accept what He has provided.

DAVID: You still haven't taken your human concept of God to understanding that while He fully understands our lesser way of thinking his purposeful thoughts are on creation of universes. Our similarity is only a tiny portion of His mentality.

dhw: And yet again you use the word “purposeful”. So yet again, tell us what you think was/is his purpose in creating universes?

I can only guess, which is all you can do while trying to make Him a person like us. He isn't

DAVID: Did you ever consider God as selfless? You can only think of Him as similar to you.

Did you ever consider that your God might have thoughts and feelings similar to ours, which is why he was able to create creatures with thoughts and feelings similar to his? Why do you tell us he wants a relationship with us, wants to prove himself to us, enjoys creation, watches us (and all the other humans in all the other universes you think he has created) with interest if you don’t think of him having these thoughts and feelings? What sort of God are you now trying to conjure up? A vast blob of conscious energy that has no feelings, no identity, no self? All this because although you constantly insist on how purposeful he is, you cannot stand the thought that his purpose might have been to keep himself occupied.

dhw: Unlike your eternal, bodiless God, humans and their fellow animals are born into a world which immediately presents them with occupations on which their material lives depend. As a retired doctor you are perhaps aware of this. Only when our daily material requirements are met do we have time to get bored. But then where do you draw the line between what is and is not “useful”? What are your criteria for usefulness? What “use” is philosophy, art, sport, the theatre, literature, music etc. – but all these activities take on purposes of their own, and even provide careers by which practitioners can earn their food instead of growing or hunting it. You can also argue that they broaden the mind and provide us with new experiences and give us something to think about. Your God was not born into such a world, and since according to you he was the first cause, there was nothing besides him: no material needs, no existing cultures. Absolutely nothing but himself to think about until he started creating.

DAVID: Pure humanizing of God. The concept of pass-timing in psychology is useless filling of time, and we all do it!

It is you who have introduced the term “pass-timing”, you have not told us your criteria for usefulness, you have ignored the whole argument above (that your God was not born into a world already filled with purposes and occupations), and you refuse to acknowledge that all your own interpretations of your God’s purposes are pure humanizations. And you still haven’t explained why the hypothesis I have offered is illogical. Your only objection seems to be that it doesn’t fit your personal image of your God.

DAVID: You still haven't taken your human concept of God to understanding that while He fully understands our lesser way of thinking his purposeful thoughts are on creation of universes. Our similarity is only a tiny portion of His mentality.

And yet again you use the word “purposeful”. So yet again, tell us what you think was/is his purpose in creating universes?

dhw: I now suggest that if your hypothesis is true, and he has kept himself eternally busy with the joy of creating and watching with interest universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, he has done so because otherwise he would have been nothing but a great big blob of pure conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. And that would have been boring to a degree beyond our human imagination. Now please tell me why this hypothesis seems illogical to you.

DAVID: The bolded area is again your very inventive (why not, you invent life in your plays) defense of your indefensible boredom theory. He is a purposeful creator and has no thoughts about empty boredom feelings, because He is constantly busy designing and creating.

dhw:I am amazed at your intimate knowledge of what goes on in your purposeful God’s mind, while the rest of us can only speculate. But what is this purpose? Your latest "very inventive" proposal of universe after universe, full of human beings whose actions he watches with interest “to see how they will conduct themselves and approach Him”, apparently keeps him fully occupied. And I am suggesting that without such an occupation he would be a blob of conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. That is why he keeps himself occupied by creating spectacles which give him the human-like joy and interest and satisfaction you have attributed to him. (my bold)

Did you ever consider God as selfless? Y ou can only think of Him as similar to you.

DAVID: Since you persist in staying at a human analysis level in looking at God, what do humans do when bored: they practice pass-timing, which is an inventive way to make time pass as recognized by psychologists but empty of anything useful. At the God level I would think His purposeful creations fill time, but there is another consideration: as an eternal Being, time is of no consequence to Him.

dhw:If he creates universe AFTER universe, and watches how all these different humans behave and approach him, there has to be a sequence of before and after. That I would define as time, regardless of what consequence it is to him. Unlike your eternal, bodiless God, humans and their fellow animals are born into a world which immediately presents them with occupations on which their material lives depend. As a retired doctor you are perhaps aware of this. Only when our daily material requirements are met do we have time to get bored. But then where do you draw the line between what is and is not “useful”? What are your criteria for usefulness? What “use” is philosophy, art, sport, the theatre, literature, music etc. – but all these activities take on purposes of their own, and even provide careers by which practitioners can earn their food instead of growing or hunting it. You can also argue that they broaden the mind and provide us with new experiences and give us something to think about. Your God was not born into such a world, and since according to you he was the first cause, there was nothing besides him: no material needs, no existing cultures. Absolutely nothing but himself to think about until he started creating.

Pure humanizing of God. The concept of pass-timing in psychology is useless filling of time, and we all do it!

dhw: Meanwhile, I don’t remember ever suggesting that an eternal and immortal mind with the power to create universes and invent life would be “us”. The significant “admission” here is yours – namely, that you believe your God may have our thoughts and feelings and logic.

DAVID: Of course God understands our level of thought. You want him to operate at our level. By definition as God, He doesn't.

dhw: Not “understands” but shares. You agreed that he had our thoughts, feelings and logic, and you are in no better a position to “define” your God than I am. “Operate at our level” is not clear. If he is capable of thinking and feeling and reasoning, and of wanting a relationship with us and of watching us with interest and enjoyment, and of wanting to prove himself to us, then he is capable of needing something to do besides thinking about himself. Of course if he exists, he operates at a different level from us. We can’t create life-bearing universes.

You still haven't taken your human concept of God to understanding that while He fully understands our lesser way of thinking his purposeful thoughts are on creation of universes. Our similarity is only a tiny portion of His mentality.

DAVID: The bolded area is again your very inventive (why not, you invent life in your plays) defense of your indefensible boredom theory. He is a purposeful creator and has no thoughts about empty boredom feelings, because He is constantly busy designing and creating.

I am amazed at your intimate knowledge of what goes on in your purposeful God’s mind, while the rest of us can only speculate. But what is this purpose? Your latest "very inventive" proposal of universe after universe, full of human beings whose actions he watches with interest “to see how they will conduct themselves and approach Him”, apparently keeps him fully occupied. And I am suggesting that without such an occupation he would be a blob of conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. That is why he keeps himself occupied by creating spectacles which give him the human-like joy and interest and satisfaction you have attributed to him.

DAVID: Since you persist in staying at a human analysis level in looking at God, what do humans do when bored: they practice pass-timing, which is an inventive way to make time pass as recognized by psychologists but empty of anything useful. At the God level I would think His purposeful creations fill time, but there is another consideration: as an eternal Being, time is of no consequence to Him.

If he creates universe AFTER universe, and watches how all these different humans behave and approach him, there has to be a sequence of before and after. That I would define as time, regardless of what consequence it is to him. Unlike your eternal, bodiless God, humans and their fellow animals are born into a world which immediately presents them with occupations on which their material lives depend. As a retired doctor you are perhaps aware of this. Only when our daily material requirements are met do we have time to get bored. But then where do you draw the line between what is and is not “useful”? What are your criteria for usefulness? What “use” is philosophy, art, sport, the theatre, literature, music etc. – but all these activities take on purposes of their own, and even provide careers by which practitioners can earn their food instead of growing or hunting it. You can also argue that they broaden the mind and provide us with new experiences and give us something to think about. Your God was not born into such a world, and since according to you he was the first cause, there was nothing besides him: no material needs, no existing cultures. Absolutely nothing but himself to think about until he started creating.

dhw: Meanwhile, I don’t remember ever suggesting that an eternal and immortal mind with the power to create universes and invent life would be “us”. The significant “admission” here is yours – namely, that you believe your God may have our thoughts and feelings and logic.

DAVID: Of course God understands our level of thought. You want him to operate at our level. By definition as God, He doesn't.

Not “understands” but shares. You agreed that he had our thoughts, feelings and logic, and you are in no better a position to “define” your God than I am. “Operate at our level” is not clear. If he is capable of thinking and feeling and reasoning, and of wanting a relationship with us and of watching us with interest and enjoyment, and of wanting to prove himself to us, then he is capable of needing something to do besides thinking about himself. Of course if he exists, he operates at a different level from us. We can’t create life-bearing universes.

DAVID: Why should He be bored? With the ability to produces universes and living beings, He is constantly busy creating. I'll agree He may be filled with a sense of accomplishment, but boredom is your problem, not His. He does have our human feelings plus more with a sense of purpose that may well accede ours. You and I cannot imagine His mental processes beyond using our own, but He is not us as you admit.

dhw: Well, now you’ve decided that for eternity your God has been creating new universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, let's make the appropriate changes. I now suggest that if your hypothesis is true, and he has kept himself eternally busy with the joy of creating and watching with interest universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, he has done so because otherwise he would have been nothing but a great big blob of pure conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. And that would have been boring to a degree beyond our human imagination. Now please tell me why this hypothesis seems illogical to you.

The bolded area is again your very inventive (why not, you invent life in your plays) defense of your indefensible boredom theory. He is a purposeful creator and has no thoughts about empty boredom feelings, because He is constantly busy designing and creating. Since you persist in staying at a human analysis level in looking at God, what do humans do when bored: they practice pass-timing, which is an inventive way to make time pass as recognized by psychologists but empty of anything useful. At the God level I would think His purposeful creations fill time, but there is another consideration: as an eternal Being, time is of no consequence to Him.

dhw: Meanwhile, I don’t remember ever suggesting that an eternal and immortal mind with the power to create universes and invent life would be “us”. The significant “admission” here is yours – namely, that you believe your God may have our thoughts and feelings and logic.

Of course God understands our level of thought. You want him to operate at our level. By definition as God, He doesn't.

dhw: I should add that I have no problem with the hypothesis that either our own universe is eternal or there have been other universes before ours, as first cause energy and matter eternally re-form themselves. That is why I regard the possibility that life and consciousness might eventually have emerged from this eternal recombining of materials as no more and no less credible than a sourceless, immaterial supermind eternally keeping itself busy creating spectacles for its own enjoyment (the “joy of creation”) because, well, what else was/is there for it to do?

A re-declaration of agnosticism.

DAVID: Why should He be bored? With the ability to produces universes and living beings, He is constantly busy creating. I'll agree He may be filled with a sense of accomplishment, but boredom is your problem, not His. He does have our human feelings plus more with a sense of purpose that may well accede ours. You and I cannot imagine His mental processes beyond using our own, but He is not us as you admit.

Well, now you’ve decided that for eternity your God has been creating new universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, let's make the appropriate changes. I now suggest that if your hypothesis is true, and he has kept himself eternally busy with the joy of creating and watching with interest universes full of who knows what kinds of life, but apparently always containing human beings, he has done so because otherwise he would have been nothing but a great big blob of pure conscious energy with nothing to do except think about himself. And that would have been boring to a degree beyond our human imagination. Now please tell me why this hypothesis seems illogical to you.

Meanwhile, I don’t remember ever suggesting that an eternal and immortal mind with the power to create universes and invent life would be “us”. The significant “admission” here is yours – namely, that you believe your God may have our thoughts and feelings and logic.

I should add that I have no problem with the hypothesis that either our own universe is eternal or there have been other universes before ours, as first cause energy and matter eternally re-form themselves. That is why I regard the possibility that life and consciousness might eventually have emerged from this eternal recombining of materials as no more and no less credible than a sourceless, immaterial supermind eternally keeping itself busy creating spectacles for its own enjoyment (the “joy of creation”) because, well, what else was/is there for it to do?

TONY: Only because the only thing to love 'in the beginning' would have been himself. Loving one's self is a good thing, and in fact I do not think it is possible to love another if you do not love yourself. But that to me is not as simple as boredom.

dhw: You can carry on speculating about the nature of love and self-love, but in the meantime you agree that (if he exists) he created the great spectacle of life because he was bored with his isolation (having only himself to love), and the spectacle gave him the opportunity to love and be loved, to enjoy and, as you said earlier, to feel good about himself and satisfied and proud. So why do you keep trying to dismiss my hypothesis when all your comments support it?

DAVID: Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

dhw: Well, if he enjoys what he creates, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that he creates things because he WANTS to enjoy himself. And why do you think he wanted to create something interesting for himself to watch and enjoy? I suggest that it was because not creating anything and merely twiddling his immaterial thumbs for eternity would have been uninteresting – a synonym of which is boring. Please explain why this seems illogical to you.

DAVID: I didn't say He enjoys what He creates: I said "interested". I see intense purpose in His creations and I'm sure He has a sense of accomplishment, but not in our ways, because He knows what He can accomplish more surely than we do. He is a person like no other person.

dhw: If he’s “filled with the joy of creation” (your words), how could he possibly not enjoy creation? You see intense purpose, but whenever I ask you what that intense purpose might be, you come up with a list of humanizations (a relationship with us, interest and enjoyment, proving himself to us, sense of accomplishment), and then complain that my hypothesis (relieving the boredom of isolation) is humanizing. Yes, I can believe that if he exists he knows what he can accomplish, and if he can create universes and all forms of life and has been there for ever, and will never die, he is a person like no other person. That doesn’t mean that being bored with isolation is more humanizing than giving himself a sense of accomplishment etc. So once more, please explain why my hypothesis seems illogical to you.

Why should He be bored? With the ability to produces universes and living beings, He is constantly busy creating. I'll agree He may be filled with a sense of accomplishment, but boredom is your problem, not His. He does have our human feelings plus more with a sense of purpose that may well accede ours. You and I cannot imagine His mental processes beyond using our own, but He is not us as you admit .

TONY: No, I have not shifted the discussion. I stated that his primary purpose was love. Love by, nature and definition, puts others needs ahead of one's own.

Love of what? The trilobites, the dinosaurs, the flowers, the trees? Did he/does he put their needs ahead of his own? The word has a wide range of meanings, as you very well know. They also include romantic attraction (I fell in love with the girl who became my wife), caring deeply (I loved my grandfather), liking and enjoying (I love my work), loyalty (Trump says he loves his country). A few days ago you wrote: “I also see traces of sheer joy in creation...why shouldn’t he create things that are simply whimsical and fun?” Yes indeed. Enjoyment. The subject under discussion is God’s purpose in creating the universe and life, and the next two comments encapsulate (a) your agreement with my hypothesis, and (b) your attempt to shift the focus.

Dhw: You agreed that initially his purpose may have been to relieve his own isolation/boredom. If, in order to do so, he created the great spectacle of life which also gave him something to love and be loved by, that’s fine with me.

TONY: Only because the only thing to love 'in the beginning' would have been himself. Loving one's self is a good thing, and in fact I do not think it is possible to love another if you do not love yourself. But that to me is not as simple as boredom.

You can carry on speculating about the nature of love and self-love, but in the meantime you agree that (if he exists) he created the great spectacle of life because he was bored with his isolation (having only himself to love), and the spectacle gave him the opportunity to love and be loved, to enjoy and, as you said earlier, to feel good about himself and satisfied and proud. So why do you keep trying to dismiss my hypothesis when all your comments support it?

DAVID: Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

dhw: Well, if he enjoys what he creates, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that he creates things because he WANTS to enjoy himself. And why do you think he wanted to create something interesting for himself to watch and enjoy? I suggest that it was because not creating anything and merely twiddling his immaterial thumbs for eternity would have been uninteresting – a synonym of which is boring. Please explain why this seems illogical to you.

DAVID: I didn't say He enjoys what He creates: I said "interested". I see intense purpose in His creations and I'm sure He has a sense of accomplishment, but not in our ways, because He knows what He can accomplish more surely than we do. He is a person like no other person.

If he’s “filled with the joy of creation” (your words), how could he possibly not enjoy creation? You see intense purpose, but whenever I ask you what that intense purpose might be, you come up with a list of humanizations (a relationship with us, interest and enjoyment, proving himself to us, sense of accomplishment), and then complain that my hypothesis (relieving the boredom of isolation) is humanizing. Yes, I can believe that if he exists he knows what he can accomplish, and if he can create universes and all forms of life and has been there for ever, and will never die, he is a person like no other person. That doesn’t mean that being bored with isolation is more humanizing than giving himself a sense of accomplishment etc. So once more, please explain why my hypothesis seems illogical to you.

dhw: It was you who objected to my hypothesis because you said “love is not self-serving”. I took up the literal meaning of this to show that love does serve the self, by enabling humans/God to have “good feelings” about themselves. That does not in any way entail selfishness, which for me contains all the elements that prevent love! If you’re selfish, you couldn’t care less about others. This has now become a game of semantics, and you have shifted the focus from your God’s possible purposes to a definition of love. You agreed that initially his purpose may have been to relieve his own isolation/boredom. If, in order to do so, he created the great spectacle of life which also gave him something to love and be loved by, that’s fine with me, but so is David’s objection:

DAVID: And I will stick to my position and Adler's: we cannot know that God acts with love. The view that God is love is wishful human level thinking and hope.

dhw:The thought of a God who really is “selfish”, and who punishes those who don’t love him by, for instance, killing them all off in a flood, is the worst of all nightmares. Your objection to my hypothesis, then, is based entirely on your belief that your God loves us, and his pride and satisfaction and relief of isolation/boredom and good feelings about himself are merely offshoots of this love. But your objection must be right because you agree with a man called John, who wrote that “God is love”. I'm not even sure what that means, but in any case your God could be all kinds of things, and we can only speculate on what those might be.

DAVID: Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

dhw: Well, if he enjoys what he creates, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that he creates things because he WANTS to enjoy himself. And why do you think he wanted to create something interesting for himself to watch and enjoy? I suggest that it was because not creating anything and merely twiddling his immaterial thumbs for eternity would have been uninteresting – a synonym of which is boring. Please explain why this seems illogical to you.

I didn't say He enjoys what He creates: I said "interested". I see intense purpose in His creations and I'm sure He has a sense of accomplishment, but not in our ways, because He knows what He can accomplish more surely than we do. He is a person like no other person.

DHW: When I say we have created a vast range of activities which we can enjoy, I am including the joy of creation, which includes my own. And I am so glad that, instead of having your God gearing every form of life to the production of the brain of Homo sapiens, you now have him observing the whole spectacle with interest and enjoyment, which suggests to me that he may have created the whole spectacle so that he could watch it with interest and enjoyment. Wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps now you will answer the question I asked you in my last post: what is the opposite of interesting?

TONY: I contention with this falls in line with my contention into your characterization of love. While I acknowledged that love does in fact bring the person demonstrating love pleasure, you take the position (or at least you seemed to in your rebuttal) that love is primarily self-serving, as opposed to the pleasure of it being a ancillary side-effect. The truism that 'there is more pleasure in giving then there is in receiving' encompasses this ideal. These words, attributed to Christ, only serve to illustrate my point. When you show selfless love you are rewarded with good feelings. Your view seems to be that if you do something pleasing to yourself, you can be loving too. This is the difference, and what I was unable to successfully articulate.
Yes, I believe Jehovah acted out of love. 1 John 4:7-8. Yes, I agree that he derived pleasure from acting out of love. That does not make love self-serving, it makes it rewarding. They are different concepts, and I do not, and can not, accept the way you try to flip them around and imply that selfishness is love and love is selfishness, regardless of whether you are talking about God or man.

DHW: It was you who objected to my hypothesis because you said “love is not self-serving”. I took up the literal meaning of this to show that love does serve the self, by enabling humans/God to have “good feelings” about themselves. That does not in any way entail selfishness, which for me contains all the elements that prevent love! If you’re selfish, you couldn’t care less about others. This has now become a game of semantics, and you have shifted the focus from your God’s possible purposes to a definition of love.

No, I have not shifted the discussion. I stated that his primary purpose was love. Love by, nature and definition, puts others needs ahead of one's own.

You agreed that initially his purpose may have been to relieve his own isolation/boredom. If, in order to do so, he created the great spectacle of life which also gave him something to love and be loved by, that’s fine with me.

Only because the only thing to love 'in the beginning' would have been himself. Loving one's self is a good thing, and in fact I do not think it is possible to love another if you do not love yourself. But that to me is not as simple as boredom.

DHW: The thought of a God who really is “selfish”, and who punishes those who don’t love him by, for instance, killing them all off in a flood, is the worst of all nightmares. Your objection to my hypothesis, then, is based entirely on your belief that your God loves us, and his pride and satisfaction and relief of isolation/boredom and good feelings about himself are merely offshoots of this love. But your objection must be right because you agree with a man called John, who wrote that “God is love”. I'm not even sure what that means, but in any case your God could be all kinds of things, and we can only speculate on what those might be.

DAVID: Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

DHW: Well, if he enjoys what he creates, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that he creates things because he WANTS to enjoy himself. And why do you think he wanted to create something interesting for himself to watch and enjoy? I suggest that it was because not creating anything and merely twiddling his immaterial thumbs for eternity would have been uninteresting – a synonym of which is boring. Please explain why this seems illogical to you.

TONY: I contention with this falls in line with my contention into your characterization of love. While I acknowledged that love does in fact bring the person demonstrating love pleasure, you take the position (or at least you seemed to in your rebuttal) that love is primarily self-serving, as opposed to the pleasure of it being a ancillary side-effect. The truism that 'there is more pleasure in giving then there is in receiving' encompasses this ideal. These words, attributed to Christ, only serve to illustrate my point. When you show selfless love you are rewarded with good feelings. Your view seems to be that if you do something pleasing to yourself, you can be loving too. This is the difference, and what I was unable to successfully articulate.
Yes, I believe Jehovah acted out of love. 1 John 4:7-8. Yes, I agree that he derived pleasure from acting out of love. That does not make love self-serving, it makes it rewarding. They are different concepts, and I do not, and can not, accept the way you try to flip them around and imply that selfishness is love and love is selfishness, regardless of whether you are talking about God or man.

It was you who objected to my hypothesis because you said “love is not self-serving”. I took up the literal meaning of this to show that love does serve the self, by enabling humans/God to have “good feelings” about themselves. That does not in any way entail selfishness, which for me contains all the elements that prevent love! If you’re selfish, you couldn’t care less about others. This has now become a game of semantics, and you have shifted the focus from your God’s possible purposes to a definition of love. You agreed that initially his purpose may have been to relieve his own isolation/boredom. If, in order to do so, he created the great spectacle of life which also gave him something to love and be loved by, that’s fine with me, but so is David’s objection:

DAVID: And I will stick to my position and Adler's: we cannot know that God acts with love. The view that God is love is wishful human level thinking and hope.

The thought of a God who really is “selfish”, and who punishes those who don’t love him by, for instance, killing them all off in a flood, is the worst of all nightmares. Your objection to my hypothesis, then, is based entirely on your belief that your God loves us, and his pride and satisfaction and relief of isolation/boredom and good feelings about himself are merely offshoots of this love. But your objection must be right because you agree with a man called John, who wrote that “God is love”. I'm not even sure what that means, but in any case your God could be all kinds of things, and we can only speculate on what those might be.

DAVID: Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

Well, if he enjoys what he creates, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suppose that he creates things because he WANTS to enjoy himself. And why do you think he wanted to create something interesting for himself to watch and enjoy? I suggest that it was because not creating anything and merely twiddling his immaterial thumbs for eternity would have been uninteresting – a synonym of which is boring. Please explain why this seems illogical to you.

DHW: When I say we have created a vast range of activities which we can enjoy, I am including the joy of creation, which includes my own. And I am so glad that, instead of having your God gearing every form of life to the production of the brain of Homo sapiens, you now have him observing the whole spectacle with interest and enjoyment, which suggests to me that he may have created the whole spectacle so that he could watch it with interest and enjoyment. Wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps now you will answer the question I asked you in my last post: what is the opposite of interesting?

Tony:I contention with this falls in line with my contention into your characterization of love. While I acknowledged that love does in fact bring the person demonstrating love pleasure, you take the position (or at least you seemed to in your rebuttal) that love is primarily self-serving, as opposed to the pleasure of it being a ancillary side-effect. The truism that 'there is more pleasure in giving then there is in receiving' encompasses this ideal. These words, attributed to Christ, only serve to illustrate my point. When you show selfless love you are rewarded with good feelings. Your view seems to be that if you do something pleasing to yourself, you can be loving too. This is the difference, and what I was unable to successfully articulate.

Yes, I believe Jehovah acted out of love. 1 John 4:7-8. Yes, I agree that he derived pleasure from acting out of love. That does not make love self-serving, it makes it rewarding. They are different concepts, and I do not, and can not, accept the way you try to flip them around and imply that selfishness is love and love is selfishness, regardless of whether you are talking about God or man.

And I will stick to my position and Adler's: we cannot know that God acts with love. The view that God is love is wishful human level thinking and hope.

DAVID: His thoughts are full of His purposes of creating a life bearing universe and the evolution of its inhabitants. Have you ever created a new play or novel out of boredom? I doubt it.

dhw: Once again: with your apparent insight into his mind, you had him observing with interest what we are doing, and how we approach him, and presumably he also watched with interest the spectacle of the billions of pre-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders coming and going. But now apparently his only purpose was to create the spectacle without any reason for doing so!

DAVID: Why did you skip over my question about your creations? You are a creator. Didn't you have reasons (?), and you full well know the reasons I have given you for his creations.

dhw: I didn’t skip over it. This was my answer:

dhw: As for me, if I were starving to death, I would not look for food out of boredom. But humans have also created a vast range of activities (that’s what makes us so interesting) which we can enjoy when we do not have to fight for our survival. I doubt if your God had to fight for survival, so what activities could he enjoy?

DAVID: The joy of creation. As a creator you should understand that point.

dhw: When I say we have created a vast range of activities which we can enjoy, I am including the joy of creation, which includes my own. And I am so glad that, instead of having your God gearing every form of life to the production of the brain of Homo sapiens, you now have him observing the whole spectacle with interest and enjoyment, which suggests to me that he may have created the whole spectacle so that he could watch it with interest and enjoyment. Wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps now you will answer the question I asked you in my last post: what is the opposite of interesting?

Just consider: God may not need enjoyment. He may be filled with purpose and the joy of creation and nothing more. Just as likely as any other supposition about Him, since all we can do is analyze from his works, and He isn't giving any current expositions indirectly or in person. Opposite of interesting is uninteresting. He is obviously interested in what He creates.

DHW: When I say we have created a vast range of activities which we can enjoy, I am including the joy of creation, which includes my own. And I am so glad that, instead of having your God gearing every form of life to the production of the brain of Homo sapiens, you now have him observing the whole spectacle with interest and enjoyment, which suggests to me that he may have created the whole spectacle so that he could watch it with interest and enjoyment. Wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps now you will answer the question I asked you in my last post: what is the opposite of interesting?

I contention with this falls in line with my contention into your characterization of love. While I acknowledged that love does in fact bring the person demonstrating love pleasure, you take the position (or at least you seemed to in your rebuttal) that love is primarily self-serving, as opposed to the pleasure of it being a ancillary side-effect. The truism that 'there is more pleasure in giving then there is in receiving' encompasses this ideal. These words, attributed to Christ, only serve to illustrate my point. When you show selfless love you are rewarded with good feelings. Your view seems to be that if you do something pleasing to yourself, you can be loving too. This is the difference, and what I was unable to successfully articulate.

Yes, I believe Jehovah acted out of love. 1 John 4:7-8. Yes, I agree that he derived pleasure from acting out of love. That does not make love self-serving, it makes it rewarding. They are different concepts, and I do not, and can not, accept the way you try to flip them around and imply that selfishness is love and love is selfishness, regardless of whether you are talking about God or man.