Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 21

Thread: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

  1. #1
    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    York
    Posts
    5,203
    Rep Power
    13

    Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    After all the debate on religion, I thought I’d come from a slightly different tack.

    First of all, the things that got me thinking in a different way was rereading some the Asimov SF classics in the ‘Second Foundation’ series of books. Cutting a long story short, the idea was that Earth was protected/manipulated by a secret collective of ‘homo superior’ through many millennia in a series of subtle nudges. The end result was that Earth was gently moved towards a better future.

    Right, if you then take a concept not so much of ‘intelligent creation’ but one of ‘intelligent guidance’, could this concept apply to us know . The other piece of the jigsaw was a couple of programs I saw recently that covered both key issues in the Second World War and then during the latter parts of the Cold War.

    Couple of key points in WW2

    • Hitler allows the BE Force to be evacuated from Dieppe instead of wiping them out
    • Hitler invades Russia, his ally, before finishing off Britain
    • He change the bombing from UK airfields to civilian targets during the Battle of Britain, targets of little strategic importance
    • Japan attacks US of A before Germany is in a position to give full support.


    Had any of these not taken place then we would all now have a penchant for leather boots and straight arm saluting

    In 1983 there were TWO incidents when, due to serious defects in the USSR early warning detection systems, Armageddon was very nearly unleashed. In one incident, it was only because a USSR officer, who wasn’t supposed to be on duty, disregarded the official process and refused to launch, that we are still alive today.

    Given that how our very existence today is the result of incidents that were balanced on the thinnest of knife’s edges, do you not feel that someone/something was protecting us from ourselves? Just a thought. What do you think Barry?

  2. #2
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    After all the debate on religion, I thought I’d come from a slightly different tack....Given that how our very existence today is the result of incidents that were balanced on the thinnest of knife’s edges, do you not feel that someone/something was protecting us from ourselves? Just a thought. What do you think Barry?
    This is what I think of as the bridge odds argument.

    13 cards are dealt to four of you. You say "Wow, look at this. That's a 1/52 probability that I have the first card, a 1/28 probability of the second card...and a 1/4 probability of getting the last card. My god! The probability of me being dealt this hand is billions to 1! It must have some real significance..."

    The reason why it isn't remarkable is that you are evaluating the post hoc situation; for there to be significance you need to specify what is required beforehand - then the probability becomes noteworthy. So when you are sitting at your PC saying "Wow! Humanity made it this far! What is the probability of that?" the answer is 1. Otherwise you wouldn't be here to think about it. (VERY similar to the strong anthropic principle.)

    Secondly, most of your examples might have had extremely unpleasant consequences but the thousand year reich couldn't have lasted that long even if Hitler had won war. By this time it would probably, like the Soviet Union, fractured into its component states. Not to say that it wouldn't have been dreadful in the meantime, but it wouldn't have been the end of homo sapiens.

    I know vaguely the stories of the if-somebody-hadn't-done-their-job-properly-there-would-have-been-nuclear-armageddon, but although that would have been even worse than a Nazi victory, I'm not convinced even that would have destroyed us.

    Finally, if somebody is nudging us, their doing a ****-poor job. It would have been easy to nudge Hitler out of the picture in the early 1930s avoiding WW2 altogether; likewise a couple of nudges in the right place would have prevented the development of the cold war. Nudging Stalin out of the way in the 1920s. Without a world war and the cold war we may have discovered and been using nuclear power long before its warfare capabilities were thought of.

    Greedy and self-aggrandising heads of state could have been 'nudged' out of the way in South American and African states, Mao could have been nudged out of the way on the Long March...

  3. #3
    Ceroc Teacher Lorna's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Auchenblae
    Posts
    670
    Rep Power
    11

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Hello,

    Gus, that's an old one. The argument from personal incredulity...

    Lxx

  4. #4
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    There was a Derren Brown program on this weekend "The system" which showed Derren convincing several unfortunates that he had a) developed a foolproof system for predicting horse races and b) he was giving it away.

    The "mark" saw her 4th or 5th predicted winner aprroach the final jump many lengths behind the two leaders, but then win because the first horse fell and grossly impeded the second. She had seen a set of forcasts produce an unbroken series of winners, and "believed", despite the fact that it was obvious that nobody could have predicted with certainty what she had just seen. She believed enough to borrow several thousand pounds to put on his last "forecast", which lost.

    People seek to connect events. If they cannot find a rational explanation they will accept a supernatural one. It is also our nature to fit subsequent events to fit our prejudices. We read the newspapers that tell us we are right. We accept the religion that tells us we are blessed with a superior revelation, and it is our task to convince the less fortunate that we are right.

    "We" in this is the human race. Scientists are human too, and just as susceptible to biased perception. The difference is that the best scientists know this, and seek to prove their beliefs wrong. What is right is only right in the light of what we know.

  5. #5
    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    York
    Posts
    5,203
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Lorna View Post
    Hello,

    Gus, that's an old one. The argument from personal incredulity...

    Lxx
    I'm not so sure. Its the the Armageddon one that most disturbs me. I only saw part of the program so only got the details of the first (minor ) incident. Literally the WORLD WAS SECONDS FROM ANNIHILATION. Is it just me who finds that a little scary? I remember the early 80s very clearly and remember very clearly the feeling that we may not live to see our graduation ... To now know that those vague feelings were well founded is a bit spooky. There was a whole force of events and decisions that pushed the world to the position where, had procedures been followed, the game was over. One single man, who shouldn't have been there, took the decision not to fire ... and of course was then scape-goated. Turn of the card, maybe. Some thing else, maybe.

    NB ... I'm not saying that intelligent guidance DOES exist ... just suggesting it as a possibility

  6. #6
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    London
    Posts
    3,426
    Rep Power
    14

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    I'm not so sure. Its the the Armageddon one that most disturbs me. I only saw part of the program so only got the details of the first (minor ) incident. Literally the WORLD WAS SECONDS FROM ANNIHILATION.
    Not literally, no. Setting off every nuke on the planet wouldn't destroy the world. And in fact, mankind would probably still survive as well, though it might push us back a couple of thousand years.

    And reading about the actual events, the impression I get is not "it was a miracle someone stopped it", but "if they hadn't stopped it, someone else probably would have". Now I'll be the first to say "probably" isn't the most reassuring assessment, but it's a long way from requiring any kind of 'magic' intervention.

    I suspect the program you saw may have been somewhat sensationalised. I'm guessing the bit you sure related to the false alarm on September 26, 1983. But every report I've read says the person who decided not to escalate that alarm was the official officer on duty. And even if he'd escalated, that wouldn't have caused an automatic launch - it would have passed up the chain of command, with Andropov making the final decision. Before such a launch, there would have been checks for corroborative evidence of a launch, and they wouldn't have found any - that was one reason Petrov decided it was a false alarm: nothing was showing up on radar etc., just reports of bright lights by one satellite system.

  7. #7
    Formerly known as DavidJames David Bailey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Norf Lundin
    Posts
    17,001
    Blog Entries
    1
    Rep Power
    18

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Couple of key points in WW2
    Well, four actually, but who's counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Hitler allows the BE Force to be evacuated from Dieppe instead of wiping them out
    The Panzer forces were at the end of their supply chain. The enemy was "defeated", so they didn't want to waste resources trying to wipe them out. If they'd tried, then there's a good chance the Nazis would have taken more of a pounding, which might have made the conquest of France more difficult. Expending resources in one area would have implications in another - for example, France might have had time to transfer military forces to us or even relocate their government to North Africa.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Hitler invades Russia, his ally, before finishing off Britain
    The Soviet Union was getting stronger each month - mid-1941 was the latest time that an attack might have succeeded. In addition, there was no way for a land power to defeat a sea power - Sea Lion would have been a total disaster - so it wasn't possible for Nazi Germany to "finish Britain off".

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    He change the bombing from UK airfields to civilian targets during the Battle of Britain, targets of little strategic importance
    Definitely a big mistake, but at worst, that'd have pushed the RAF to relocate their airfields to the North of England. Fighting over home turf - combined with the fact that we were outproducing the Nazis in aircraft each month - meant that we'd always have a big advantage.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Japan attacks US of A before Germany is in a position to give full support.
    German declaration of war on the USA was also a big - massive - mistake, but in real terms the war on the land was won / lost by the time the Americans got their army geared up, so it just meant the Nazis went down a bit quicker than they would have otherwise.

    Similarly, the longer the Japanese waited, the stronger the USA was getting - again, that was the last chance they had for forcing a settlement.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Had any of these not taken place then we would all now have a penchant for leather boots and straight arm saluting
    No - if anything we were very unlucky in WWII, there were a lot of knife-edge battles we lost (Crete being the obvious example). In addition, Stalin made a lot of mistakes also.

    It's almost impossible to see how Nazi Germany could have defeated the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States, under any circumstances. It was completely insane even to try.

    So I see no sign of supernatural intervention in WWII.

    Similar arguments apply to any conflict, for that matter.

    And for that matter, a religion like Catholicism would say the same. It's that pesky free will thing.

  8. #8
    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    York
    Posts
    5,203
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames View Post
    No - if anything we were very unlucky in WWII, there were a lot of knife-edge battles we lost (Crete being the obvious example). In addition, Stalin made a lot of mistakes also.
    Unlucky???? From 39 - 41 Germany had better and more experienced troops, better strategy, better weaponry (88s, Stukas, MG42, tanks, e-boats, U-boats etc.) Britain continued to make its usual mistakes of arrogance and total lack of intelligence! If we hadn't managed to break the U boat code we would have been sunk in most senses of the word. As for luck;
    • Bismark sinking down to single torpedo that jammed the steering
    • Cambletown attack on Dieppe was heading for wrong gates till a chance flare alerted bridge to mistake at last minute
    • Key panzer divisions never given command to move to Normandie beaches because Hitler was asleep
    • Churchill survived bomb blast as bodyguard disobeyed direct order and pulled him back into cover


    ..... and don't even get me started on the Yanks and Midway ....

    OK ... I'm sure there are examples on both sides ... but I think each of your points could be argued against .... I still think there are many who believe "God was on our side". Maybe I'm one of them .. naively or not.

  9. #9
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    I still think there are many who believe "God was on our side". Maybe I'm one of them .. naively or not.
    Well, if you bump into god you can ask him why he didn't sort things out a little earlier, making the war unnecessary and saving several tens of millions of people from death, permanent disability, loss of loved ones, and so forth. You know, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, the Burma railway, the Bataan death march, Berlin and Dresden firestorms, Tokyo firestorm and, of course, Hiroshim and Nagasaki. Just to mention some of the worst ones.

  10. #10
    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    York
    Posts
    5,203
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Well, if you bump into god you can ask him why he didn't sort things out a little earlier, making the war unnecessary and saving several tens of millions of people from death, permanent disability, loss of loved ones, and so forth. You know, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, the Burma railway, the Bataan death march, Berlin and Dresden firestorms, Tokyo firestorm and, of course, Hiroshim and Nagasaki. Just to mention some of the worst ones.
    I think minds immeasurably superior to mine have debated this one so I don't see any point in commenting aside from "dunno mate". My gut feel says it all comes down to the free will thing. My faith is based on a few very personal experiences ... I make no claim to be a philosopher or theologian. I'll stick to arguing about areas I at least have some understanding about ... and try not have a go at someone just because they believe something I don't ... well, at least try not to.

  11. #11
    Registered User Ronde!'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    146
    Rep Power
    11

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    I still think there are many who believe "God was on our side". Maybe I'm one of them .. naively or not.
    Riiight. So tens of millions of people died, generally in the most appalling ways possible, but because a handful of mistakes happened over the course of a few years, you think God was watching? LoL.

    If that's the best an all-powerful, omniscient God can do, I'm not impressed - it's careless management to say the least, and probably more like grossly incompetent. If God was able to guide things, couldn't He have just nudged Hitler's mum down a flight of stairs while she was carrying him? Hmmm?

  12. #12
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    I think minds immeasurably superior to mine have debated this one so I don't see any point in commenting aside from "dunno mate". My gut feel says it all comes down to the free will thing. My faith is based on a few very personal experiences ... I make no claim to be a philosopher or theologian. I'll stick to arguing about areas I at least have some understanding about ... and try not have a go at someone just because they believe something I don't ... well, at least try not to.
    Well, OK, you don't want to get into the free will debate. I'm OK with that, and not trying to force one on you - honest.

    But you prompted my response by saying that you thought you might be one of the people that thought "God was on our side".

    Isn't that incompatible with the free will thing? If god's principle is - "OK, you have your free will, now go exercise it, and don't come crying to me when it all goes wrong", then he can't be taking sides in wars, now, can he? That's like the 'honest' butcher who sticks his thumb on the scales so he can charge for 1lb of steak when you're only getting 15oz.

  13. #13
    Registered User Twirly's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    SE London
    Posts
    4,204
    Rep Power
    11

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Given that how our very existence today is the result of incidents that were balanced on the thinnest of knife’s edges, do you not feel that someone/something was protecting us from ourselves? Just a thought. What do you think Barry?
    Just as likely to be someone/thing using us as lab rats. Throw various cr@p at us, see how we cope. If it looks like we are going to get it so horribly wrong that we are going to mess up the experimnet/annihilate ourselves, then they step in to stop it just in the nick of time...

    White mice anyone?

  14. #14
    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    York
    Posts
    5,203
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Well, OK, you don't want to get into the free will debate. I'm OK with that, and not trying to force one on you - honest.
    As I said, I don't count myself armed with the information to have the debate on a philosophical basis .. so it would be a very one sided debate. My personal belief in a God is based on some very personal experiences. Whether this God is wrathfull, uncaring, loving or whatever I don't know and going round the same old arguments again is unlikely to change anytghing. With all due respect to the members of the Forum ... far greater man have debated such subjects with far more time and resources at their disposal and have failed to agree. I'm not denying anyone their own beliefs or the belief in their own logic ... just making an observation.

    My original posting was just just an observation. Not really a steadfastly held belief ... just an observation.

  15. #15
    Registered User SteveK's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Cairns, Australia
    Posts
    365
    Rep Power
    9

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    Couple of key points in WW2

    • ..
    • He change the bombing from UK airfields to civilian targets during the Battle of Britain, targets of little strategic importance
      ...



    Given that how our very existence today is the result of incidents that were balanced on the thinnest of knife’s edges, do you not feel that someone/something was protecting us from ourselves? Just a thought. What do you think Barry?
    My understanding of the Battle of Britain is that the Germans started this in an attempt to gain air superiority over Britain. The air superiority was essential to have any possibility of launching an seaborne invasion, bearing in mind the British marine superiority. The germans were unable to gain superiority of the British airspace, and so switched to civilian targets in an attempt to demoralise the British civilian population. The ability of the Luftwaffe to fight in the UK was overexaggered, and the capability of the RAF was underestimated

    A quick look on Wikipedia (which we all know is 100% accurate) supports this view; that in hindsight the Battle of Britain was actually less close than previously thought. It wasn't actually based on the "thinnest of knife edges" - that's a misconception.

  16. #16
    Formerly known as DavidJames David Bailey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Norf Lundin
    Posts
    17,001
    Blog Entries
    1
    Rep Power
    18

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    { snip WWII stuff }
    It's tempting to get into a big debate about this, but that'd be massively off-topic, so I won't.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gus View Post
    OK ... I'm sure there are examples on both sides ... but I think each of your points could be argued against .... I still think there are many who believe "God was on our side". Maybe I'm one of them .. naively or not.
    But then, by that argument, God was also on the side of Stalin.

    My point was, for every example of "good luck" I can see similar examples of "bad luck" - they're just not so noticeable to us.

    Although you could, for example, see the entirety of WWI as "bad luck" - a World War? Just because some guy in Sarajevo got shot? - Or, you could just see it as pretty much inevitable, given the power structures and alliances developing at that time.

  17. #17
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveK View Post
    ... A quick look on Wikipedia (which we all know is 100% accurate) supports this view; that in hindsight the Battle of Britain was actually less close than previously thought. It wasn't actually based on the "thinnest of knife edges" - that's a misconception.
    The stats I looked at long ago suggested that in land bombing campaigns the attacker loses aircraft in the ratio 4 to 1 over the defender. It is very difficult to get and maintain air domination.

    OTOH a succession of hits on control centres and radar installations could have swung the battle dramatically.

  18. #18
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    London
    Posts
    3,426
    Rep Power
    14

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveK View Post
    My understanding of the Battle of Britain is that the Germans started this in an attempt to gain air superiority over Britain. The air superiority was essential to have any possibility of launching an seaborne invasion, bearing in mind the British marine superiority. The germans were unable to gain superiority of the British airspace, and so switched to civilian targets in an attempt to demoralise the British civilian population. The ability of the Luftwaffe to fight in the UK was overexaggered, and the capability of the RAF was underestimated.
    More fundamentally, even if the Luftwaffe had "won", geography gave the UK a "safe haven" for it's airforce: as DavidJames said, withdraw the planes to northern England/Scotland, and the German airforce simply couldn't get there. But those planes would still be ready and able to defend in case of invasion.

  19. #19
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    bedford
    Posts
    4,899
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    There was a Derren Brown program on this weekend "The system" which showed Derren convincing several unfortunates that he had a) developed a foolproof system for predicting horse races and b) he was giving it away.

    The "mark" saw her 4th or 5th predicted winner aprroach the final jump many lengths behind the two leaders, but then win because the first horse fell and grossly impeded the second.,.
    Corrections. The program is available "On Denand" for free for the next few days. Friday 1st, Ch4. The race is at 27 minutes.

    The lady had been given 5 winning forecasts in a row before she got to the track. At the final fence her "cert" was three lengths behind in third place, having made up some ground. Her forecast looked like it was done for the day. She says "How can it possibly win?".

    If Derren Brown had told her that the forecasts had been coming from God, and told her to "have faith" at that point it would be very hard for her not to be convinced when the "miracle" happened.

  20. #20
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Southampton
    Posts
    6,709
    Rep Power
    13

    Re: Intelligent Design OR Intelligent Guidance

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    Corrections. The program is available "On Denand" for free for the next few days. Friday 1st, Ch4. The race is at 27 minutes.

    The lady had been given 5 winning forecasts in a row before she got to the track. At the final fence her "cert" was three lengths behind in third place, having made up some ground. Her forecast looked like it was done for the day. She says "How can it possibly win?".

    If Derren Brown had told her that the forecasts had been coming from God, and told her to "have faith" at that point it would be very hard for her not to be convinced when the "miracle" happened.
    It's very difficult to assess these things because of the presence of a TV crew. These things are like a coarse and gross example of the Uncertainty principle! Would she have been so ready to believe if it wasn't a TV program? Or more ready?

    Unsurprisingly, telling me the forecasts were coming from God would be a sure way to tip me off that they're rubbish. If he told me he had some kind of system - I might be a smidge more likely to be taken in.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Lady needing guidance
    By purplehyacinth in forum Beginners corner
    Replies: 40
    Last Post: 5th-January-2007, 01:50 PM
  2. Time Breakdown of Modern Web Design
    By straycat in forum Geeks' Corner
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 10th-July-2006, 10:08 AM
  3. Web Design.
    By Bigger Andy in forum Chit Chat
    Replies: 41
    Last Post: 23rd-April-2005, 02:21 PM
  4. Web site design software (PC)
    By RogerR in forum Chit Chat
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 8th-February-2005, 02:50 PM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •