Don't know if this is a philosophical question, but oh well

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Batz
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13 Oct 2008, 9:19 am

I have a question for you guys: Why did God make something that look so simple so complex?

Forgive me if this is a stupid question or if it's not a philosophical question.

Sand
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13 Oct 2008, 11:09 am

The obvious assumption seems to accept God as a creator and questions His capability. That's a good beginning.

Landaree
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13 Oct 2008, 11:23 am

Maybe because, despite appearances and/or individual perceptions, it can't possibly be any simpler.

bheid
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13 Oct 2008, 2:56 pm

Landaree wrote:

Maybe because, despite appearances and/or individual perceptions, it can't possibly be any simpler.

but that's assuming that god had to use atoms and energy, and it's challenging his omnipotence to assume he couldn't make it simpler.

(the concept of omnipotence is fun to mock)

Fnord
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13 Oct 2008, 2:58 pm

The OP question further begs the question of the existance of God.

bheid
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13 Oct 2008, 3:02 pm

Fnord wrote:

The OP question further begs the question of the existance of God.

for once, please, just for once, assume he does. just this once. don't make this another generic 50+ page thread of whether religon is true. Further assume he is the monotheists' god too.

Originality and variety demand your compliance.

twoshots
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13 Oct 2008, 3:02 pm

Fnord wrote:

The OP question further begs the question of the existance of God.

In this situation, it is appropriate to assume God's existence for the sake of argument.

As for the question, I'm not sure why God should be terribly interested in human perception of things. We may as well ask why people are so bad at gauging how complicated things actually are.

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carturo222
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13 Oct 2008, 8:26 pm

Do we even have a scale for measuring degrees of complexity? When is something too complex? Where is the threshold?

Fnord
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13 Oct 2008, 8:40 pm

bheid wrote:

Fnord wrote:

The OP question further begs the question of the existance of God.

for once, please, just for once, assume he does. just this once.

No. I'm not at all accustomed to assuming that irrational beliefs are true, and there is no point in starting now. My statement was a mere observation of fact.

bheid wrote:

don't make this another generic 50+ page thread of whether religon is true.

If you'll check the facts, I do not make 50+ page threads of any kind.

bheid wrote:

Further assume he is the monotheists' god too.

Which montheist's god? There are several.

bheid wrote:

Originality and variety demand your compliance.

Originality and variety are irrelevant in this discussion. As I said, my original statement was a mere observation of fact, made without malice or rancor. Let this thread continue to be so.

Fnord
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13 Oct 2008, 8:49 pm

twoshots wrote:

Fnord wrote:

The OP question further begs the question of the existance of God.

If I may, I'll replace the word 'God' with the word 'Engineer' and restate the question.

Q: "Why do engineers make something that looks so simple so complex?"
A: It is the underlying complexity of a system that is required to construct and maintain the apparent simplicity of the system.

Consider the monitor that you are looking at right now. Did you know that there are over a million individual transistors involved in displaying this post? Did you also know that those transistors are not all configured the same way? Finally, did you know that at any given microsecond, as much as 90% of those transistors are inactive, and thus are not even being used?

For the more simple-minded, conside an apparently simple cupcake - vanilla, with white frosting. Can you name all of the ingredients? Can you elaborate on the chemical composition of each of those ingredients? Finally, can you describe, in minute detail, the entire process of making that cupcake, including where the energy to cook the batter came from?

Complexity supports simplicity / simplicity conceals complexity.

Sand
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13 Oct 2008, 9:27 pm

The primary assumption beyond the mere existence of a god (which has no justifiable evidence) is that this super creature thinks like a human which is, frankly, an idiotic assumption considering its capability to perform actions beyond the comprehension of humanity. Secondly, what may seem complicated to a human mind may appear to be obvious simplicity to the postulated super-being. You are attempting to analyze the thoughts of a super being in human terms. That's silly.

Awesomelyglorious
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13 Oct 2008, 10:59 pm

I might tend to side with the answer twoshots gives, why do all of these complex things end up seeming rather simplistic to human beings? I won't precisely go his direction though, as I think a human-centered approach is useful, not necessarily an acceptance of abstract deism.

To me, there are a few solutions to this problem:

1) People tend to overlook complexity due to our need for a functional simplicity to work with. Take for instance other people. How many times have you labeled or stereotyped somebody? Probably a lot, even if you aren't conscious of doing so and even hate those practices. We recognize people as being complex, but we obviously simplify them for our own purposes as we cannot deal with the level of information complexity brings.

2) Good design principles demand that complex systems are protected, take a computer. The outside is a box, but the inside is very complex. If the complex inside were on the outside, it would become very damaged, therefore complexity is protected by a simpler, more basic systems.

3) Things are designed by God to be interacted with simplistically for whatever reason, including the human need for simplicity, or perhaps some more aesthetic reason.

Notions 1 and 2 do not demand a deity, however solution 3 does.

Batz
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15 Oct 2008, 8:17 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote

Quote:

I'm getting at what your saying. It could be that since God knows what he was doing, he had to make things look simple. Things would look akward and probably creepy too if it was complex on the outside like the computer or human body.

Besides making the physical object, the concept of a subject is complicated too. Let's take the brain for example. Knowing what the brain looks like is simple; however, we know only about so much about how the brain works (about 1%.)

oscuria
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15 Oct 2008, 8:22 pm

Why do topics concerning religion always seem to be derailed and trolled?

Discuss.

ontopic: Complex or confusing?

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just-me
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17 Oct 2008, 1:12 am

Batz wrote:

I have a question for you guys: Why did God make something that look so simple so complex?

Forgive me if this is a stupid question or if it's not a philosophical question.

Perhaps he wanted us to reach beneath the surface of everyday things and try to firure them out. This would explain why human beings are so curious.

In short, it spurs on our intelect and makes us think

just-me
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17 Oct 2008, 1:13 am

And dont worry , there is no such thing as a stupid question. :wink:

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