Slashdot Mirror
MIT Making Computer Parts from DNA
Rei writes "Following in the footsteps of Lynn Conway's pioneering work on VLSI that allowed ordinary students to create their own processors, a group of MIT professors have almost completed doing the same thing
using DNA, known as synthetic biology. While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet, there is hope that some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses."
Welcome our new Treehouse overlords.
Anyway, it appears that they're actually trying to create synthetic living things, which is way beyond computer parts. If they can pull this off, it will be one hell of a hack. Humans playing God, creating life. Theology may well be shaken to its very foundations.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
"The year before, they designed microorganisms that blinked like Christmas lights."
:b
Sweet. I wish my school had clases like that.
While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet, there is hope that some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses.
[Slashdot user looks up from sketchpad] What's that? Seeds that sprout into treehouses? Yeah, I suppose that could be useful.
[Goes back to designing Angelina Jolie X7c]
aren't most illegal drugs already novel enough? Throw in some Steinbeck or Hemingway novel drugs and then the druggies will get confused.
You can't prove that I had any of the fruit or veg that has your IP in it!" the Boss blurts, placing his summons on my desk.
"You may be right," I say, "but I'm sure that a quick subpoena would sort everything out."
"Subpoena?" he asks. "What for?"
"Just a sample of your DNA - to prove that you now contain some of my IP."
"It won't show anything!"
"Oh, don't worry, I'd subpoena your tissue again if the first test was inconclusive."
"And keep on doing it until you find something I suppose?"
"Oh no. No, we only get two cracks at it - unless you've got three testicles"
"WHAT!"
"Yes, Well you realise that if you've absorbed my IP, any children you have would have to be licensed, and of course the only way I can prove absorption would be through your reproductive organs."
On a side note: ew.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
If you want to try this yourself, check out DNA Hack, the website for Amateur Genetic Engineering
It seems that the potential for abuse for this system once it is matured far outweighs the educational potential when put into a student's hands. If anyone could have access to this, then couldn't designing different, dangerous things that grow and multiply or the design of even more dangerous and incurable diseases more accessable and perhaps user friendly?
Bah, who needs drugs and treehouses. it should say: producing everything from novel sandwiches to seeds that sprout into cakes." :) Now thats an application!
I have visions of Superman 3 going through my head... (or maybe a real life version of ExistenZ)
Curious. The sci-fi approach has always been machine interfacing with man but I don't think too much thought was given to specially engineered organic components that are all wetware but serve non-organic functions. (Well, maybe Giger...)
Without stating a position either way on the existence (or nonexistence) of God, what better way to glorify a Creator than by showing Him we've learned some of His tricks?
(Allow me one assumption here: the assumption that if God exists, He's not a copyright lawyer, and will be flattered by our success, rather than whomping us with a Deistic Millenium Copyright Act violation notice in the form of a 20-mile-wide asteroid.)
God: I created you by breathing life into dirt.
Man: Cool trick, God. We've learned to do the same thing.
God: Cool trick. Now try it from first principles.
Man: What do you mean?
God: Well, next time, make your own dirt.
And before you point out - correctly - that with a sufficiently large energy input we could indeed synthesize all the components that make up "dirt" out of hydrogen, you haven't solved the problem. Ultimately, it comes down to this:
God: Look, I appreciate the flattery, and I encourage you to keep at it. But read the job description -- you qualify for My job when you derive a universe capable of evolving intelligent life based on the setting of a small number of physical constants, and you can have My job when your resume' includes experimental proof in the form of a portfolio that includes your worshippers.
We hairless apes still have a bit of work to do.
This should push stem cell research to the point where I can grow my own Shakey's right next to the existing one!
ôó
Won't be long until we can swallow a processor/WiFi "pod" and hack in, just like eXistenz. Sweeeeeeet!! Ahhhh, the joys of Diribonucleic Acid.
There's at least 50 TB of storage, 200 CPUs and some awesome NICs in my underwear
Are you happy to see me, or is that a computer you got in there?
Who's DNA to use? I suppose linus and gates would be up for it. And of course, linus DNA would be under the GPL... right?
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
Integrate these biological components into a electrical/electronical/mechanical system and you can get some neat toys.
How about a tree designed specifically to hide wireless cameras/microphones?
Home biological garbage disposals, like a fast-paced compost pile.
How about some easily controlled flying insectoid? You could tap into its optical system and save yourself the power of the cameras, just have the transmitter.
Of course I am ignoring the possibilities of abuse. They are both endless and quite horrifying.
Ignorance kills, complacency kills, hatred kills, but usually not the ones guilty of them.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =5156008114
Seeman's NYU lab is at the forefront of DNA "machine" synthesis. They might even produce working "Wang Carpets", intelligent "machines" made entirely of DNA, a la Greg Egan's fictional inventions.
--
make install -not war
Redefining the way we enjoy porn.! :o
...seeds that sprout into treehouses
Was any part of design done by students living in hollow tubes under the ocean, having sex to let nanoprobes in their blood exchange information.
"...some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses, TO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRuCTION....mooohahahahah"
quick put a clamp on that craziness
Vatican condemns treehouses.
Aren't "living computers" basically what we are?
While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet...
They are still trying to figure out how to make a printer, a floppy drive, and a mouse out DNA. Definitely promising technology though.
Unknown host pong.
...Real-live, talking, thinking computers! I for one do _not_ welcome our new MIT overlords... "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, MIT..." They must be stopped!
> producing everything from novel drugs to seeds that sprout into treehouses."
How about seeds that sprout into 11" weiners for me?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This story reminds me of Neal Stephenson's work, especially "Diamond Age" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553380966 /qid=1105413152/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-1686417 -4019351), that discusses being able to create physical objects that are engineered on a computer, although this is even more advanced (in a way) than his stuff!
I'd love to see this type of thing in, say, 30 years, when it can help prolong my life, but, since I'd die soon after anyway, I wouldn't have to worry about it causing mass-extinction and killing me young!
Humans playing God, creating life. Theology may well be shaken to its very foundations.
What nonsence - humans save lives and create life every day of the week. I haven't seen any overinflated sky gods (aka Yahweh) doing much for humanity lately.
Theology would really be shaken to it's foundations if there was any proof of God's existence in any way whatsoever.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
... likely scenario?
my very own britney spears treehouse
complete with lip synching system and fake boobs
DNA computers can be further enriched with DNA chips which would hold information equivalent to a theatre full of harddisks in a cabinet used today. Just think of the possibilities it could open.
I had no idea Rejiggering was a word....
Although a quick google search assures me its in wide use....
tsunami make-y me like-y DNA
A group ... have ... completed ? Doesn't anyone pass high school English any more? Or is this a reflection on the quality of those passing out the grades?
Oh, wait. You don't even see what I mean, do you? Nevermind.
Sig not available, please try again later. If the problem persists, then the submitter is an idiot.
cause he's been doing a really shitty job on his own lately.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112083/
You think it's hard to get into MIT now? Just you wait until MIT's own DNA computers grow up and enter the applicant pool...
seeds that sprout into treehouses
:)
The only novel I've seen this in is Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith. Awesome book, if, like me, you don't mind the libertarian propaganda.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
Ordinary students can't even design computers that don't crash like a burning treehouse. Hell, teams of engineers can't do that, either. How can we expect teams of engineers to unleash genetic engineering tech that won't burn the Earth, the treehouse we all live in? Advances like these make the space program look more and more essential.
--
make install -not war
This sig is false.
There was a story on shashdot a few months ago (can't find it..) indicating that some researchers created a virus or a bacteria from non-living components.
I think this story is more about creating life for a purpose that we do not find natually. Other than that, it is already here.
A practical consequence of "Playing God" is that you open the doors to a scary problem. It is the problem where if we can make replacements for humans we lose our humanity. Its more then just the philosophical question of where we lose our humanity. What if a group wants to replace the goverment leaders by clones which they control? ok, maybe it would be an improvement, but it is still a problem.
I read about DNA based computers about 10 years ago from a "Popular Science" type magazine here in Mexico.
:(
I thought they'd ALREADY be, at least, close to releasing one.
It's interesting how many technologies take so much, much longer to come about than we'd like.
Flying car, I miss you
Dude, get a clue. You mean mountain, not sky.
Their approach is pretty cool, where the activity of each gene corresponds to one bit (actually one analog "voltage", but I digress) that can be independently controlled. Unfortunately each cell in their "computer" is expected to behave similarly, so the approach won't scale. The problem is that each gene is gonna be at least 1000 base pairs, roughly. Compare that to a typical bacterial genome (~5,000,000 base pairs) or the human genome (~3,000,000,000 base pairs), keeping in mind that large portions of those genomes are there to, well, keep the organism alive. Right now they're not even talking about taking over whole entire genomes here, just plasmids and viruses. That'll get you in the ballpark of 100,000 base pairs, or 100 bits, at most. Oh yeah, for each transition in a circuit here you'll have to make a new batch of proteins. That'll take minutes to hours. Not exactly stellar clock speeds. Which of course begs the question of how nature gets anything done at all. It's still pretty mysterious actually, but part of it comes down to the fact that your cells use feedback in a much more nuanced way than just "on" and "off". There's also lots of parts re-use, but probably the most important thing of all is communication and coordination *between* your cells. Like the fact that each neuron in your head does something different, and all of them put together make up something interesting and useful (hopefully). Rudimentary cell-cell communication circuits are already being constructed, and I'd like to see these scientists incorporate some of that into their work.
This will change the definition of E-penis!
Soilent XP! It's made from people! It's made from people!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Radio Shack 100-mutants-in-1 kit
The Slashdot post makes it seem like the people at MIT invented the idea of synthetic biology. Well, I'm sure the good guys over at MIT would agree that the hallmark papers that started the craze didn't originate from MIT...they came from Princeton & Berkeley and there's plenty of other institutions who are making major contributions (some greater than MIT's), especially on the science end.
That being said, their idea of Biobricks is very innovative and they did host the first conference on the topic. So the popular press can be easily misled.
Favorite
I spent a bit of time the last couple of weeks checking out the exibits at the Ontario Science Center on genetics which is probably one of the best exibits they have ever put together. In looking at the concepts of DNA/RNA/... A thought came to me - Why not build a programming language coding framework that is based on the strict constructs of genetics. The language/framework would implicitly have serializability of all structures and could allow for generation of truly extensible components. The basic concepts of highly structured data frameworks is growing (ie. http://nakedobjects.org) but why not pull these constructs one step away from the business data and bring it to the business logic or core application coding level.
Anybody know of such coding or at least theortical hacks out there?
JsD
If you added too many arms or something would microsoft be able to kill it like it does with activation and windows xp?
I am currently working on building an oscillator (a basic, and very important "part" of any system) in yeast, which is in my eyes the next step up from bacteria, where most of the synthetic biology has been done (meaning I am starting basically from scatch).
Eventually, I hope to incorporate my oscillator (which has a period of 2 cell divisions) into a binary counter of cell divisions, such that I and other researchers could look at a yeast cell under a microscope and read off its age. This could be very useful for aging studies, and also will simply be very interesting in advancing synthetic biology.
What is up with you God hating Atheists?
If you have no proof for God, maybe it is because God doesn't think that you deserve the proof.
The kind of proof that the faithful have can not be shared with others. That is why it is called faith.
Oh, and by the way, if you can't prove something, that doesn't mean that it isn't so.
theology and science used to be the same thing in ancient times. Now people like you have your science and you also have a lot of hubris.
Humility is a much better trait than intelligence as far as I can see. I would rather spend a day with a down-syndrome patient than some MIT drone who wants to play at being god.
If you had seen Yahweh, you certainly wouldn't be spreading your Atheist nonsense.
Also, you seem to treat science as an idol.
These are not atomic switches, but proteins and DNA, which have not, ever, just been engineered.
What is up with you God hating Atheists?
No idea sorry, I'm agnostic myself. God would have to exist before I could hate him anyhow. A child can even prove that they exist, so why can't god manage to do such a small thing?
If you have no proof for God, maybe it is because God doesn't think that you deserve the proof.
Equally so, we have no proof for Santa Claus. Perhaps his elves have made him an invisible cloak too and we don't deserve proof from him. It's much more likely that you're just wishing.
The kind of proof that the faithful have can not be shared with others. That is why it is called faith.
Certainly, but faith and belief are merely that. They have no grounds in reality whatsoever and can never be facts. They're a conclusion without the evidence. It's cetainly possible that God exists, but no more likely than Santa Claus in actual facts.
Oh, and by the way, if you can't prove something, that doesn't mean that it isn't so.
True indeed, but if your god is so afraid of showing himself, then why all the miracles in the past? God may exist but He certainly hasn't parted any Red Seas recently or raised any dead, which is quite suspicious considering he was up to all sorts of tricks a while back. It's safer to infer that God is fiction just like any other fiction one is likely to cook up in ones head.
theology and science used to be the same thing in ancient times. Now people like you have your science and you also have a lot of hubris.
Actually, it was the occult (magic) and science that used to be one - Alchemy, astrology etc. Christianity hated and persecuted that too. Deep down I guess you Christians knew that it was only a mater of time before people realised that there is no disernible god or gods.
Humility is a much better trait than intelligence as far as I can see. I would rather spend a day with a down-syndrome patient than some MIT drone who wants to play at being god.
Humility to what? Truth isn't a matter of taste you see regardless of your personal preferences. Your elusive god isn't impressive enough for my tastes anyhow.
If you had seen Yahweh, you certainly wouldn't be spreading your Atheist nonsense.
I agree. If he corrected my denial of him, I'd gladly repent. If you see him, tell him to pop by and tell me off ASAP. I'd gladly be proven wrong, because I would prefer that there was indeed a benevolent creator looking over us. Unfortunately however, this just isn't likely.
Also, you seem to treat science as an idol.
Generally I see Christians treating their own silly opinions about God as idols. Nonethless, I don't believe that science is the panacea to mankind, but certainly rationality and beliefs based on what can be seen to be true is indeed my guiding light. The alternative is to believe in any number of unprovable fairy stories made by foolish men pretending to be or know god.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
The Viruses computer programmers made were bad enough. I'd hate to think what their bio counterparts will do. Either way as long as Microsoft doesn't get into this i think we're safe.
Being able to re-create life from dead things does not mean making them alive again... it just means you create a new life from the remains (inert) of another life form. Let's not get into "Pet Cemetary" like arguments here =)
IMHO, abiogenesis is inevitably possible. But I also think that that raises another point which you did not:
What is life worth if it can actually be created from inert matter? My personal belief is that life isn't actually worth that much, but the consciousness that it implements is priceless. I also happen to think that life is not the only medium possible for consciousness, and that there *has* to be conscious systems out there that are not based on living organisms. (Computers maybe in the distant future)
I also happen to think that consciousness is very fundamentally linked with quantum physics and how nothing is deterministic. But that's just really far out there, and people are going to call me crazy...
The 1954 novella "The Houses of Iszm" by Jack Vance postulated custom-grown treehouse homes. From Rich Horton's review:
Nice link to the DNA hack site....also, does anybody know where to get a copy of the biobrick compiler, the MIT people should make the bibricks technology and compiler open source, after all, why should we let the big drug industry sit on all this technology when it's a new age much like when the personal computer revolution started. After all, big medicine and the pharma industry world-wide have had it too easy for far too long and had a lock on biotech much like microsoft has had a lock on the PC industry, it's time to open source this new frontier!
I read a book about that once - Copernick's Rebellion . Amusing SF novel, apparently out of print.
The only problem with the trees in the book was that sometimes toilets would sprout in the middle of beds and digest people in their sleep.
Did anyone else here know that? She used to be a transsexual. Admittedly, she's beautiful as a woman, just thought others might find this of interest.
From the Article: "He believes in an open source approach to the task of programming life, modeled explicitly on the open source approach to programming computers, long popular at MIT." My friend recently met a man who invented the "shotgunning" technique for DNA (it was either that or improved the speed drstically, and I can't for the life of me remember his name), but he also held the idea of Open Sourcing all DNA he found to be important. He now travels around the world and collects specimens to release into the public domain, for the fear that corporations might one day have a stranglehold on organisms' DNA. And all us linux geeks here think a Microsoft World (tm) is scary; imagine buying an Starbucks Cat from the local petstore.
"...some day ordinary students may be able to design living computers, producing everything from novel drugs ..."
;-)
Ok, so it's not novel, but what's wrong with just growing your own cannabis? It's much easier !
You guys are really hyper-paranoid for no reason at all. While the original post says "While not all of the components of a basic computer are working yet," it would be more accurate to say, "We hope that in a year or so, we may be able to build a full-adder*." Seriously, the only parts that work reliably are NOT and OR gates, and you can only use about three of each in your system before cumulative stochastic error makes it fail. (Not to mention that you can't use the same gate twice -- if you've got two NOT gates, but need three in your system, you've got to go back and design a whole new gate from more basic parts.) We're not anywhere near "playing God;" we're not even at the "playing Electrical Engineers" stage of being able to design and build systems. Yes, the long-term goal is to create a seed which grows into whatever we want, but at the moment, we can barely make E. coli fluoresce in response to a complex input. I know you fear slippery-slope effects, but really, when we get into eukaryotes, never mind multicellular organisms, then you may have some justification to worry.
* I was trying to use MIT's paradigm to design a full adder this past summer, and realized that even a half-adder would require parts which had not yet been characterized or even synthesized. The best system which has actually been built can direct a cell to secrete a specific chemical when bright light shines on it. Really.
Of course it is equally possible to prove the existance of God as it is to disprove his existance through raw logic.
Namely both are impossible.
God of the Christian faith (or at least my interpretation there of) is an infinite being
in all respects. (Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, ect...) Man is a finite being, and therefore would not be able to perceive anything that is truly infinite. Just as it is impossible to find if a mathmatical set is infinite just by iterating through it with a finite value.
To interact with man God can take a finite part of himself of arbitrary non-infinite size and expose man to it. Man however can only truly interact with this finite segment, and because the segment is finite, man can not determine whether the whole itself is infinite.
Thus God popping by would prove nothing to you either way. You could determine that this person claiming to be God is standing in your yard shooting fire from eyes and parting your birdbath is more powerful than an actual human, but you could never logically establish that he is God.
The main point I'm trying to make here is that your belief system is no more or less irrational than anyone else's, and nobody gains anything from sweeping statements from either side.
I personally am getting very tired of proselytizers on both sides shoving their supposed axioms on others without provocation.
I am also tired of people actually giving provocation that stirs the proselytizers up into such an indiscriminate rage.
Even if you are agnostic your original post was heavilly atheistic.
MIT Making Computer Parts from DNA
Of course they are, it's just another day at MIT.
This too, will end.
If you are female, I'd like to marry you.
I say preach on. Theological beliefs are the downfall of our modern world.
The point you fail to see that you're in fact making yourself is that no person with fire shooting from his eyes is currently parting the water in the birdbath. Nor has there been, nor will there be.
The "finite part of god" that you hypothesize might interact with man... doesn't. There is no call for "determining if the whole itself is finite", since not even the part is there.
That's what I would do as a young student with a DNA machine.
-- thinkyhead software and media
To interact with man God can take a finite part of himself of arbitrary non-infinite size and expose man to it. Man however can only truly interact with this finite segment, and because the segment is finite, man can not determine whether the whole itself is infinite.
I'm sorry, but god would likely first have to exist for any interaction to actually occur and the rest of your comment is quite the mystic mumbo jumbo. As you've failed to demonstrate how this can happen, the rest of your argument are unquantifiable mystical ideas here and clearly conjecture.
You could determine that this person claiming to be God is standing in your yard shooting fire from eyes and parting your birdbath is more powerful than an actual human, but you could never logically establish that he is God.
By this argument, Abraham, Moses and Jesus also were incapable of recognising their "God". Therefore, no god. God is a human idea and so a human would define their god acording to their capacity however flawed this fantasy may be.
The main point I'm trying to make here is that your belief system is no more or less irrational than anyone else's, and nobody gains anything from sweeping statements from either side.
You don't seem to have made the point sufficiently to convince me that doubting the existence of god is irrational or that all beliefs are irrational. In the world as we know it, there is no hint whatsoever of a god. No god in dna, no god in atoms, no god in gravity, no god anywhere whatsoever. To therefore conclude that doubting god is irrational is a very flawed argument. The onus is on you to prove in non existant things. I can prove computers exist, as I can prove that rainbows exist. I can also infer quite easily that the tooth fairy and santa claus are non existent, just like god. Oh, and if you think holding any view whatoever is irrational, then you should aim that argument on your own views.
I personally am getting very tired of proselytizers on both sides shoving their supposed axioms on others without provocation.
If you tire of discussion, it's likely that your participation is beyond your ability. I'm not here to shape my views acording to your personal tastes.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
hehehe - you'd have to take a number, but unfortunately I'm male.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
What is up with you God hating Atheists?
You need some punctuation to make sense of that, either "What is up with you God, hating Atheists?" or "What is up with you God-hating Atheists?"
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Heh. The word debugging now takes on a whole new world of meaning!
"He believes in an open source approach to the task of programming life, modeled explicitly on the open source approach to programming computers, long popular at MIT."
How long before companies start getting patents for specific DNA sequences?
Creating life from possibly dead tissue? See the title of this post.
blah blah DNA blah blah computing. Old repeating stuff. Is MIT still ranked first ? Bet they are smoking pot for some time.
...if I downloaded Britney Spears' DNA?
Would they consider that stealing if someone just happened to be sharing it with me?
The critical thing to understand is that this is OPEN SOURCE BIOLOGY ... bringing the same resources, intellectual curiosity and viewpoint fostered by the open source software community. There's not a biological GPL yet, but I believe there will be.
On the Dark Side, open source software's Darth Vader -- Bill Gates -- is an early player in synthetic biology. Check out that, the MIT story and a lot of other information at: taqdot. taqdot proudly runs Slash Code.
The Clone Song
;-)
By: Isaac Asimov
Tune: Home On The Range
Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to X.
And after it's grown,
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.
Hey, Rimmer actually did that in an episode of Red Dwarf!
Started a whole civilisation of smeag-heads... didn't turn out right
You can't take the sky from me...
The reductionistic approach of science has been pretty powerful in explaining many of the mechanisms of life and mind and finding remdies for their defects (disease). The construction of operations life from shelf chemicals would seal this argument.
A scientist, I still have to keep all possible hypothesis in my mind, include that of an unmeasured "life force", unlikely as that seems to be necessary, until shown otherwise.
Simple DNA manipulations have been undergradate lab projects and now high school science fair projects for years. ....
Not that the nerdy kid next door is going to stumble onto a Frankenstein
seeds that sprout into treehouses? Sounds like Stephenson's Seed Technology from The Diamond Age.
Go Gusties
My post was really more philosophical then anything else. In short "There are more things on this Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of
in your Philosophy"
Saying that someone is wrong about their beliefs serves no purpose when those beliefs aren't readily demonstrable. To say that there is no god implies that you possess such a full knowledge of the world that you in fact would be god.
Saying that it is very unlikely that god exists is valid.
Saying that such a powerful god exists that he can exist without being detected by current or future means is equally valid.
Really? So you fully understand the intricate functioning of dna, atoms, gravity, and everything else? Man what are you doing posting on slashdot? Go write a book explaining general relativity and make millions. Otherwise don't speak of what you can't prove.
This statement is most defiantly atheistic.
You claim to be agnostic, but things like this make it apparent that you refuse to acknowledge even the possiblity of a god. That requires as much faith and blind trust in a doctrine as the most devout religious.
Then prove that computers exist.
I am currently typing on something that seems solid to the touch, and appears to reflect, absorb, and emit light in such ways that my eyes percieve it, but last night I had a dream that I was standing on a banana floating through space and in the dream the banana seemed equally real.
My views are agnostic. I am just coming at agnostic from the religious side of it.
agnostic ag-nos-tik
n.
1. a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
My belief is that it is possible, but not likely that there is no god. I believe this way due to a combination of being raised in a religious household, and my personal unwillingness to accept a universe without a purpose coupled with some probabilty and mathematic theories.
My belief is by definition irrational because all belief is irrational. I am not trying to make you believe as I do because that is impossible through rational discourse, and rational discourse is all I feel like doing at the moment.
Tell you what I'll bet you five dollars that God exists.
I'll come to collect after we are both dead and you can do the same. (Of course if you win then you won't be able to collect what with there being no afterlife and all, but thems the breaks I guess.)
Enjoy your heathenistic lifestyle!
My post was really more philosophical then anything else. In short "There are more things on this Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of
in your Philosophy"
I certainly wouldn't disagree with this, but my essential point is that unless a thing is known and proven then it is fantasy unless proven.
Saying that someone is wrong about their beliefs serves no purpose when those beliefs aren't readily demonstrable. To say that there is no god implies that you possess such a full knowledge of the world that you in fact would be god.
One doesn't need full knowledge of the world however to arrive at understanding.
Your paradox of perfect knowledge also defeats it's own argument. You would need to have perfect knowledge of the world in order to make any statement about perfect knowledge and the existence of god - as you clearly don't have this knowledge, so your argument defeats itself.
There isn't any demonstration of god whatsoever in the modern world, none whatsoever. If these are the facts, then one could conclude that god is outside of reality as mankind knows it, but this is merely superstitious belief.
Saying that such a powerful god exists that he can exist without being detected by current or future means is equally valid.
This is a self defeating argument. If it thing can not be known then it is unknowable and non existent. Unknowable is exactly the same as non existent. A thing with no cause, no effect and no characteristics whatoever - just doesn't exist.
In the world as we know it, there is no hint whatsoever of a god. No god in dna, no god in atoms, no god in gravity, no god anywhere whatsoever.
Really? So you fully understand the intricate functioning of dna, atoms, gravity, and everything else? Man what are you doing posting on slashdot? Go write a book explaining general relativity and make millions. Otherwise don't speak of what you can't prove.
Yes really, there's no God pushing the electrons around, and there's no god making the tides go back and forth. It's all easily explained by science and God hasn't been found under any microscope anywhere.
To therefore conclude that doubting god is irrational is a very flawed argument. The onus is on you to prove in non existant things.
This statement is most defiantly atheistic.
If you are prepared to claim in the existence of god, then by all means demonstrate this belief. Otherwise, I can't believe in your non existent thing.
You claim to be agnostic, but things like this make it apparent that you refuse to acknowledge even the possiblity of a god. That requires as much faith and blind trust in a doctrine as the most devout religious.
The god that I hear about from Christians is a simpleton god. He spends all his time worrying about evolution and abortion, and is really quite uptight and overally moralistic. His powers are limited - parting seas and so forth - not very impressive compared to modern technology really. I mean medicine heals more people than Jesus was ever claimed to have healed. A paramedic brings more people back to life - frankly, the god of mankind is clearly man's own left hand being pointed to by their right hand. Childish nonsence. If there is a god, god is certainly not the god of mankind. The atheists might be wrong, but the evidence is in their favour. I'm an agnostic because I don't think that this is neccesarily the final conclusion, but it certainly appears to be so.
Then prove that computers exist.
Simple - here's some. The fact that you're using one also shouldn't ellude you. Now let's see you do the same with god.
I am currently typing on something that seems solid to the touch, and appears to reflect, absorb, and emit light in such ways that my eyes percieve it, but last night I had a dream that I was standing on a banana floating through space and in the dr
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Time for a living, breathing AND computing spaceship eh? Life in space just got a whole lot less lonely. Riley
Yep. I figured it out a few months ago... How-To program artificial intelligence. But I'm not telling any of these NUTS and MANIACS in today's scientist pool. I will say ONE THING for them tho. They're about to figure out how to make each of us begin continually self-cloning ourselves. Now if they can make us grow a forcefield to protect us from the robots... Riley
No idea sorry, I'm agnostic myself. God would have to exist before I could hate him anyhow. A child can even prove that they exist, so why can't god manage to do such a small thing?
God's existance, or lack thereof, is either undetermined or indeterminable, or that's how I understand the agnostic perspective. Stating "God doesn't exist" (or implying it as you do above) would be an atheist perspective - that either God's lack of existance is determined, or that the preponderance of evidence leads them to believe that God doesn't exist. So I'm not sure that "I'm agnostic" and "God would have to exist before I could hate him" quite go together. Now, if you mean "I would have to believe God exists before I could hate him," then that makes much more sense.
And just because god didn't prove that he exists to you doesn't mean he didn't prove that he exists to himself ;-)
Certainly, but faith and belief are merely that. They have no grounds in reality whatsoever and can never be facts.
I disagree. My faith and belief are strongly grounded in reality. That they are not formal proofs acceptable to the whole world, I'm ok with. I'm not asking you to accept them as scientific truths, merely as one rational way of viewing the world. We all have our coloured glasses when we look at the world, whether that colour is one of faith in a god, faith in the lack of gods, or abject disinterest to the entire subject of gods. While the latter is certainly quite pragmatic, only one of the first two will be right ;-). We just can't prove either to everyone's satisfaction, which is where the agnostics are entirely correct.
It's safer to infer that God is fiction just like any other fiction one is likely to cook up in ones head.
Just out of curiosity ... safer in what definition? Safer for your eternal soul, if we even have them? Or safer in a contemporary intellectual perspective? If even the answer is more along the lines of "safer from the perspective of a more self-consistant answer", then I'd like to point out those coloured glasses again. Many rational human beings believe that the existance of god(s) is more self-consistant. It's just the perspective of their viewpoint.
Actually, it was the occult (magic) and science that used to be one - Alchemy, astrology etc. Christianity hated and persecuted that too. Deep down I guess you Christians knew that it was only a mater of time before people realised that there is no disernible god or gods.
I always thought that the Catholic Church's funding of various sciences (as long as they didn't contradict Holy Teaching ;->) was indicative of the ties between science and theology. But that's not a history I'm so strong in.
God's existance, or lack thereof, is either undetermined or indeterminable, or that's how I understand the agnostic perspective. Stating "God doesn't exist" (or implying it as you do above) would be an atheist perspective - that either God's lack of existance is determined, or that the preponderance of evidence leads them to believe that God doesn't exist. So I'm not sure that "I'm agnostic" and "God would have to exist before I could hate him" quite go together. Now, if you mean "I would have to believe God exists before I could hate him," then that makes much more sense.
;-)
;-). We just can't prove either to everyone's satisfaction, which is where the agnostics are entirely correct.
... safer in what definition? Safer for your eternal soul, if we even have them? Or safer in a contemporary intellectual perspective? If even the answer is more along the lines of "safer from the perspective of a more self-consistant answer", then I'd like to point out those coloured glasses again. Many rational human beings believe that the existance of god(s) is more self-consistant. It's just the perspective of their viewpoint.
I'm open to the God's existence, but I think that the atheist point of view is the most compelling given the evidence. I'm happy with my comments as they were given.
And just because god didn't prove that he exists to you doesn't mean he didn't prove that he exists to himself
Possibly also true, but you could just as easily replace the word "God" here for the Easter Bunny. In any case, I would imagine that perhaps existence and non existence wouldn't be a limiting factor for a god. Nonetheless, most Christians seem to think that God and existence are mutually exclusive. So their god is merely a god that exists within the universe, and is subject to existence which is of course a physical law. So really their god is just a bearded man with super powers.
I disagree. My faith and belief are strongly grounded in reality. That they are not formal proofs acceptable to the whole world, I'm ok with. I'm not asking you to accept them as scientific truths, merely as one rational way of viewing the world.
To be rational, they would have to be based on some form of valid evidence, and there isn't any to be found whatsoever. So it's not likely that something can be grounded in reality when reality shows no signs of God. You of course think your faith is rational, but still there's no god whatsoever to be found. you may still be right all the same, but the only reason that I can see why people would belive in God is to rationalise their fear of death and make sense of the senselessness and brutality of their mortal existence.
We all have our coloured glasses when we look at the world, whether that colour is one of faith in a god, faith in the lack of gods, or abject disinterest to the entire subject of gods. While the latter is certainly quite pragmatic, only one of the first two will be right
I think however that the burden of proof lies with those who claim that god does in fact exist. I don't claim other unprovable things exist, so there's no argument to be had with me claiming absurd. So if you claim that something exists, I think unless you're able to prove it, you're merely wishing that God exists - you really don't know one way or the other.
Just out of curiosity
(Safer in terms of being correct). Trying to blur the lines because people have varying viewpoints is a common muddying the water tactic, but it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. We can argue about the relative moral worth of this or that, but if you have to reduce all knowledge to nihlistic relativism, I'm afraid you already have your hands full. We can argue for instance that canibalism is a subjective idea and that it is not necessarily wrong, but this isn't a ethical question - it's a question of reality. A chair either exists and can be seen or not - there's no relativism whatsoever. In
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.