Time, Mass, Energy, Perception vs. Reality, etc.

[Nielk1]

Incredibly complex machinery that's been functioning and improving itself for about 3.6 billion years?

Yep

[Psychedelic Rhino]

nature is magic

Magic implies something meta-physical and not within our capability to comprehend. Classical nature/physics is fairly understandable on the macro scale. But I would agree, everything around us is based on the quantum nature of reality, which, for all practical purposes and definition IS magic.

As everyone knows, we have been aware of this magic since the early 1900's and saw the magic much earlier, but had little idea what we were seeing. We are now playing with the magic, and soon may be like an apprentice of Merlin, knowing just enough to be dangerous. . .potentially giving rise to a quantum system many millions of times more intelligent than ourselves.

[Nielk1]

So long as we don't convert the macro world into a quantum state I see no disastrous side effects from a few qbits here or there.

[Red Devil]

understanding how things work is not the same as understanding why they work. i know you are limited by your philosophies of, "if i can't see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, it doesn't exist!", but there comes a point - or there will come a point - when you realize that you are not sufficient to the task.

imagine you are a caveman and someone leaves a flashlight for you to find. you might smash it or you might accidentally turn it on. you might figure out how to unscrew it and find the batteries inside and remove/replace the light bulb and play with it until you figure out how it operates, but you don't know - nor can you know - why it works.

it's the same now as that example: you don't have the capacity. you may fool yourselves in your vanity and believe that logic will lead you to your answer(s), but there are things beyond your comprehension that no logic will explain.

[Ded10c]

understanding how things work is not the same as understanding why they work. i know you are limited by your philosophies of, "if i can't see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, it doesn't exist!", but there comes a point - or there will come a point - when you realize that you are not sufficient to the task.

imagine you are a caveman and someone leaves a flashlight for you to find. you might smash it or you might accidentally turn it on. you might figure out how to unscrew it and find the batteries inside and remove/replace the light bulb and play with it until you figure out how it operates, but you don't know - nor can you know - why it works.

it's the same now as that example: you don't have the capacity. you may fool yourselves in your vanity and believe that logic will lead you to your answer(s), but there are things beyond your comprehension that no logic will explain.

Now you're tripping over the distinction between theory and fact.

What is more arrogant? Thinking "We will understand eventually" or "We are so perfect that we must have been designed"?

[Zenophas]

"We are so perfect that we must have been designed"?

I got a little chuckle out of that one.

[Ded10c]

Glad to please.

[Red Devil]

who said anything about design? oh, that's right, you did.

[Ded10c]

Isn't one of the major points of Christianity that we were created in God's image? Sorry, but you don't get to pick and choose.

[MrTwosheds]

but there are things beyond your comprehension that no logic will explain.

Logic is actually a rather tricky and elusive thing, use of it is entirely dependent on the state your existing knowledge. If you start from a position of error, logically it will only deliver only more errors. Those with existing firmly held beliefs should exercise caution when using Logic.

[Red Devil]

you cannot use logic - no matter how hard you try - to explain something outside of logic. it's like trying to explain 3D to someone living in 2D. you just don't have the ability.

[Ded10c]

Show me something you can prove exists outside of logic and I'll believe that.

[Red Devil]

that's easy, get married

[Ded10c]

That's not an answer. And as it happens, I find interpersonal relationships to be extremely logical once you know a person well enough.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Show me something you can prove exists outside of logic and I'll believe that.

The first page of this thread is rooted on quantum decoherence or wave function collapse, the phenomenon is completely crazy by all standards of logic, yet we can witness most of the 'magic' with $10 worth of lab equipment.