Our eyes, nose, tongue, skin, ears, and brain convert physical or chemical or electrical impact into electrical signals which are read by neurons in brain. I believe such a sophisticated machine could not have arisen on its own. I see involvement of higher power of intelligence in the creation.
My question is: Is there any proof of existence of a higher intelligence which created us?
No. Any concrete proof of a higher intelligence would have long ago been presented to the world at large, tested, experimented, and confirmed. At that point you would no longer have rational non-believers, as you do now, especially in this age of universal information.
But I see that you have a particular instance of evidence in mind- your statement that we are "sophisticated machines" and therefore a higher intelligence was involved.
This could be interpreted as strong evidence, given no rational alternatives. If there is no route for existence outside of a creator, then surely it must be the creator. if(A) then A;
However, you are missing a piece of the sophisticated machine. In a way, it is even more sophisticated than you have given it credit for. This machine builds itself, and builds copies of itself. The machine can even make random improvements to itself through successive generations by making mistakes.
It is through that mechanism that these sophisticated machines were originally much less sophisticated and much more robust. This can be seen by looking at the diversity of other creatures on Earth, and comparing the DNA and RNA markers between them. All of them appear to share the same ancestry, suggesting a much simpler root origin.
You may wish to bring up the creation of this original root organism, then. Things are a bit foggier in that regard. It's hard to "test" or "investigate" the origin of the Universe. So I don't have any good answers for you there, nor does anyone have any proof. I would caution the assumption of a creator in this case, however, since rationally speaking that would necessitate a creator of the creator too, would it not? Perhaps simpler to just say that the Universe exists because it exists.
No, proofs do not exist for the hypothesis that we have been created by an other being – besides our human parents :-)
Philosophy of religion has used the so called watchmaker argument: If one finds a watch, then one assumes that a watchmaker has crafted that watch. Watches do not exist by change. Also they do not grow just by natural forces.
The watchmaker argument has been stated in favour of creation by design. It should support the view that intelligent design needs an intelligent designer, i.e. the Christian god.
Of course a parable like the watchmaker parable does not prove anything:
… analogies prove nothing, that is quite true, but they can make one feel at home (Sigmund Freud)
A scientific explanation of the development of humans and other animals has been given by the theory of evolution. Like all scientific theories also the theory of evolution operates without the concept of a creator. In addition, the theory is not based on any teleological principle which would make the whole process goal oriented. In a broader context, the severest rival of the concept of creation is the concept of self-organisation.
Though, the old concept of being created by a higher being finds a revival in the concept of Mathematical Reality: We humans and our whole environment, i.e. our whole world, is a computer program with artifical intelligence. It is designed by a programmer and installed on his computer. See Chapter 10 in „Green, Brian: The Hidden Reality. Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.“ See also Are we living in a simulation? The evidence
The argument of a higher being that created humanity is by its own nature flawed.
As Jo Wehler pointed out, the concept that humanity is too complex to have sprung up without guidance is the watchmaker argument. The problem with this argument is that the watchmaker, in this case the entity that created humanity, would have to be more complex than that which it created.
So now we have a godlike entity that created humanity. Where did that godlike entity come from? It either was created, or came into being naturally.
If it was created, it has to have been created be something more complex than itself. This winds up in a cyclical argument with no end.
If you choose to believe it came into being of its own nature, why not just believe that humanity came into being of its own nature (evolution) instead? It's more credible to believe that a more simple form of life evolved, than a more complex form that was capable of creating a simple form.
Just because humans view biological organisms as "sophisticated" doesn't mean a higher power engineered us. The concept of "sophistication" was created by humans to measure a standard. Without the creation of the concept by humans, the biological organism would still exist and be complex all on its own.
If you think about the vastness of the universe and imagine it being a giant petri dish, and how there's quite a bit of room for random combinations of elements, molecules, gases, liquids, etc to form and create explosions and other chemical reactions, evolution may not be so far-fetched of an idea to you anymore, that sophisticated beings don't require a higher power to exist, that eventually autonomous life would sprout out of sheer chance.
It's sort of like practicing basketball -- you may be terrible at getting the ball in the basket, but enough tries and you'll eventually get it in. Enough practice and eventually you'll be a better player than the next guy. Beat a few players in games and you may end up being picked for an organized team, maybe even paid. That's evolution in a nutshell.
Is there any proof of existence of a higher intelligence which created us?
To Christians, Jesus is God. Therefore, any proof of Jesus' historical presence and/or his true nature could serve to prove the existence of God.
However, a person's freedom not to believe is acknowledged by Christian teaching. Therefore, it seems necessary that all-powerful God not provide proof of his existence, or else He would not provide people this freedom.
Christian person William Lane Craig acknowledges that this is a problem and identifies rather than proof, "warrant" as something possessed by a believer in addition to his own faith that God exists.
For a discussion of "warrant", please see here. Craig did not originate this idea: it was written earlier by Alvin Plantinga in, among other things, his book entitled "Warranted Christian Belief".
You would have to go beyond philosophy for that :). Science, as it is today, cannot prove it, no philosopher can prove it. Even logicians cannot prove it since if there is a creator then who created it & you are in existential crisis and if that creator is the source of everything because something cannot come out of nothing, then is he something or nothing, and if you say something that cannot be comprehended then you cannot also prove that.
The last resort you have is metaphysical, there is no proof a flower is beautiful or a mountain great, the subjective quality you feel is real cannot be proved physically. That's where modern science hits the fan. You feel intelligence, wisdom, beauty, grace, magnificence everything that really makes life :) so you are not wrong you are perfectly right, that mystery is the reason for all religion and it is the only reality you can call it god or life, no atheist no philosopher no logician can find it only some sensitivity, acceptance of what you feel.
TLDR: There is no known evidence (as of early 2018) of any kind of higher creator.
The longer answer is structured as follows. I will first define what it means to have evidence, then I will reproduce the definitions of Occam's razor and ad hoc hypothesis, and finally explain how the data scientists currently have does not provide evidence for a higher creator. By higher, I simply mean that this hypothetical creator has created life and perhaps the universe itself. Creators certainly exist; I am one. I have created, e.g., answers on this and other Q&A sites.
Before I begin, I want to stress that the definitions below are for the sake of this answer, and are not meant to be authoritative.
By evidence for some hypothesis, I mean data gathered by observations that is interpreted and explained by said hypothesis or in a more general framework as consequences of the hypothesis. I should stress that I mean observations in a broad sense, for example looking out the window to test the hypothesis "It is raining", or hearing the reply of a friend to the question "Do you like me" to test the hypothesis "My friend likes me", count as observations.
Occam's razor is a principle that, informally speaking, states that out of many possible explanations one should choose the simplest one. By simplest, I mean making fewest additional assumptions. For an example, suppose a student failed a test. Out of several possible explanations, we can consider the following: 1) the student was ill-prepared for the test 2) the teacher fabricated the results out of dislike towards the student. Out of these, we would prefer the first explanation over the latter.
Ad hoc hypothesis is a hypothesis that is introduced for some very specific purpose, often to save a theory from being falsified. I will demonstrate the problem with ad hoc arguments with an example. For a long time it was believed that celestial bodies are perfect spheres. When the first observations with a telescope suggested that they are not, some proponents of the old theory suggested that celestial bodies are covered by an invisible shell that fills every crater and evens out all bumps such that they are perfectly spherical. This ad hoc argument was quickly countered by another, namely that the invisible matter is piled up on the bumps on celestial bodies to make them even less spherical than they seem.
We are finally in a position to answer the original question. There are currently (as of early 2018) no experimental observations that would be best explained, in the sense of Occam's razor, using a higher creator, i.e. there is no evidence for the existence of a higher creator. Since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it does not logically follow that we can say with certainty that there is no higher creator, but at this time introducing such a creator would be an ad hoc hypothesis.
Proof is something reserved for mathematicians. I strongly assert that the limitations of human perception and logic do not allow the same to perceive reality objectively or provide for irrefutable arguments.
Let me assess common arguments in favour of such a higher being.
It assumes that no being greater than God can exist, a statement itself vague inasmuch as the proper attributes of "God" have not been mentioned; neither has the evidence been laid to substantiate this God's existence.
It goes on saying that God cannot exists solely in one's minds becauss then a being "higher" than him might be imagined, which by premise is impossible. Thus , GOD exists.
Load of refutable crap, to say the least. We know the perfect island refutation. I might go on saying that I can perceive a being who created a perfect being, and who can still negate the latter's omnipotence and erase everything from existence. This might sound absurd, but that is everything!
Again based on assumptions. It asdumes that all phenomena must have a cause—including the Universe.
Prima Causa-mover of the moved=God.
One can argue that it just might have existed endlessly. What is wrong in that?
Then we encounter Intelligent Design. Seriously, waste disposal and pleasure area must not be at the same place!
No, there is no proof of the existence of any higher being who created us, But, logically, the existence of a being who resembles the Holistic or whole consciousness amounts to an axiom.
Even miracles can not prove the existence of a higher being who created us. The doer of a miracle may be an angel or demon or even a human, not the higher being who created us. But the presence of a holistic consciousness amounts to an axiom.
Atheists and consciousness:
Do atheists acknowledge the existence of Consciousness as a third to Energy and Matter?, Or Consciousness is a form of energy?, Or it's all Consciousness, energy, and matter are all Consciousness.
Is the Holistic Consciousness "thing"?, Is it "thing" from "things"?.
If all humans grew up in a world that doesn't know the idea of God, would they after a certain level of development reach the sureness of the presence of Holistic Consciousness, they call it God?.
Theories of Evolution and Big bang could be contrasted by the hypothesis of omphalos and last thursdayism, i.e: it is all Consciousness, energy, and matter are all Consciousness.
If you back off from the theology and its countervailing political forces, and consider answers other than 'God or god-like things', you can get an answer that is not completely speculation.
This question cannot really be answered without
and
And neither of these exist. We still have a problem accepting a vocabulary where the two sides of the "Hard A.I." question can agree that they are honestly addressing the same question. And by and large, we have little faith that specific measures that rank humans, such as IQ, are actually measuring intelligence.
But our genome represents a massive parallel computational system. It has clear goals (adaptive self-replication). In pursuit of those goals, it has solved problems that no group of humans have been able to solve as well.
Is computation intelligence? Do goals make it any more of a variety of intelligence? Does the fact that we cannot match the quality of many of its solutions to various problems make it more intelligent than we are? Or do we consider it an inferior form of intelligence because it works so slowly?
I would accept generous answers to these outstanding questions, and claim that our planet, as an ecosystem, is smarter than we are. We are clearly the results of this thing's computations. Evidence of its existence is not hard to come by.
So to me, that is a clear 'yes'.
This is one of those 'undecidable' statements which can't be answered by looking at scientific evidence and which has to be answered by other means: insight, intuition, revelation and so on.
For example, the Ayatollah Khomeini, for example, noted that doubt about such is generally the case for anyone below the level of a prophet.
To ask for proof, then, is misguided, and merely trying to extend the scientific method to a domain where it doesn't really apply. Of course there are such arguments called proofs, for example the Kalam cosmological argument, but they aren't as such, more like signposts as guidance.
I see involvement of higher power of intelligence in the creation.Do you also see involvement of a higher, higher power of intelligence in the creation of that creator ? If not, why? If yes, is it turtles all the way up ?