Evolution and the universe
This is a thread in which we can discuss evolution, probability, and God. Species, or its members, change in themselves and in their offspring. The future we will discover but the past is remembered only by the sciences. Mutations happen only to individuals. A species doesn't exist. So if, just for example, a cat was to evolve into a dog through a long line of other individuals descended from the cat, each mutation would happen randomly to one or more of the group. And what are the odds that this mutation would happen across the group? So we have a mutation and this individual(s) has to survive and and reproduce, keeping the mutation alive. This new feature of the group is kept for the same reason it saved the first member: survival. But then the process has to happen again latter to one or more of the group where a mutation is advantageous and these members, although with the new mutation, are still not a large group (because how can random mutations happen across a group at once) and they have to survive just as the first mutated members were in the first example. So getting from a single cell to the human race by evolution seems hugely unlikely. Every mutation happens at a point and must survive (lots of small groups along the long long way). So the historical dice was thrown on the planet and an unlikely result occurred. Its no wonder that people think a person (God) was the dice thrower and the game was rigged. There is a large group, then a small that becomes large, then a small again, and onward. Who protected all those small groups from extinction? Now I don't believe this is an argument for God, but I understand how it can be for other people. I realize that if humans do not have real value then one can argue another species could have evolved instead of our unlikely scenario. But if we are just matter, what does it matter what form the matter took for 13 billion years? It's all the same thing. Unless you think humans are unique...
Comments (251)
Only because those people do not comprehend the time-scale, the rate of reproduction and mutation in one-celled organisms and the reproductive advantage of beneficial mutation.
(And, of course, cats don't evolve into dogs; dogs and cats both evolved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/343965/cats-and-dogs-had-a-common-ancestor-and-here-it-is/story/ and so did a whole bunch of other animal species. It took 40+million years. )
I am punos and i endorse this message.
The longer ago it goes the more unlikely it was
Now there is an unanswerable argument!
The older the alleged evolutionary line is the less likely its real because it's just a greater amount of time the living beings didn't go extinct. If you understand this and the OP, state my argument in your own words before you try to answer it
Living beings didn't go extinct for 3.7 billion years. That may be unlikely, but if it hadn't happened, you would not be here to question that it happened. Evolution is a continuous - which is to say uninterrupted, unbroken - line of descent from pond-scum to whales, redwoods, humans, daffodils, ants, bluebirds, wolverines and everything else that's alive today. The longer ago an evolutionary line branched off from the descendants of pond-scum, the fewer relatives we had.
If you understand any of this, blink twice.
Evolution is discrete because there are individuals involved. It can't be continuous
How does a species start to shape? How so you get from one group to another by step by step evolution, noting how each member can mate with the ones before and after it. I really would like to know. Dont just say "it was slow". That's a cop-out. Evolution may have happened, it's not very important anyway. What it tries to replace may be far more important
Here is a start:
What it tried to replace?
IT = evolution doesn't try anything. It is a process whereby organisms adapt to environments and circumstances.
REPLACE = to take the place of some thing or process that existed previously. In this case, the absence of life.
How was the absence of life more important than the process whereby life is perpetuated?
This shows a misunderstanding of how speciation is understood to take place. Most changes take place in small, isolated populations separated geographically or genetically. Darwin was struck by the diversity of species in the Galapagos Islands apparently similar to, but distinct from, species on the mainland. The Galapagos are very isolated from the nearest mainland in South America. South America itself was very isolated from the northern hemisphere for millions of years so that species there were significantly different from North America, including a large proportion of marsupials. When a land bridge formed between the continents, many species in the south were unable to compete with placental mammals and went extinct.
Single cell organisms are believed to have first developed about 3.5 billion years ago, but multicellular life didn't evolve till about 500 or 600 million years ago. As soon as multicellular life evolved, the rate of evolution became much more rapid.
Why did you go get a video (which I've seen) instead of doing the chore yourself? Lame
Who does the first member of a species mate with?
You are trying to make it continuous, when individuals and organs, all that, are all discrete. If there is a cat then there was a first cat. Your theory is just a blur
There is no first member of a species.
https://www.cbd.int/gti/taxonomy.shtml
I'm not giving a course in elementary biology.
Because you are not my child to educate.
So we have a cat. No first just like it?
It's an easy introduction to the theory that covers the physical evidence.
Now, probability or God -- that you will not find in the book. But evolution -- yes.
And I think, even if you disagree with evolution, it'd be useful for you to know what those who do believe in it believe and why they believe.
This is a philosophy forum.
We debate from the point of philosophy and if philosophy finds evolution impossible then science is wrong
I didn't, for instance, say that it's a true book. I just said I like it, and it'd be useful for you to read because it'd develop your philosophy better -- you'd be better able to appeal to people who disagree with you.
Now, to be honest, I believe evolution is true. But that shouldn't matter for all the points I'm making.
Why not address my arguments at least. We have a dog. What is the first member of its ancestor that is just like it such that our perception recognizes it as a dog.?Now that dog came from non-dog parents? That's not possible my friend. Who did it mate with? If you know how this works then explain it. This is all about philosophy and has nothing to do with how scientists see the world.
I'll address the actual argument later. To treat it fairly, I'd have to do a bit more work -- and I'm not feeling like doing that now ;).
Ok
As I noted, you have no understanding of the theory you are arguing against. Nuff said.
But you didn't answer my arguments
This is easily answered by by the fact that the Big Bang created a multitude of environments, so much so that at least one was capable of sustaining life. That is, we are still able to rely upon our theory that given enough trials, most every combination will occur.
The next question though, is whether it was possible that the primordial mass that constituted the Big Bang could have lacked the components to ever yield life. If the answer is it could, then the only way to assure it was statistically likely it would, would be through the existence of many Big Bangs.
That is, if we're locked into the argument that given enough time most everything will happen, then we'll need to accept there was a Big Bang that happened and it yielded no life only to be over-ridden by one of billions of other Big Bangs that yielded life.
This analysis I've done is not generally accepted, but it does seem b to logically follow doesn't it?
Which, unfortunately, makes it sophomoric babble. But not unpleasant, like a stream bubbling along.
You're choice
There is no evidence that everything that can happen will. It's not relevant. My first point was that evolution resulting in humans is greatly unlikely. You can't bring in other probabilities from "many Big Bangs" to rig evolution's probability. That's like someone seeing something random and saying to himself "well other random things happen out there so this is not random". Evolution denies what we see as reality in organisms. Everything is a blur and explained as a blur, although the mind can, philosophically, understand how species are unique and can't be combined in any combination whatsoever. The issue of mating I see is difficult for evolutionists
So the sense in which you're talking about evolution has little or nothing to do with 'the theory of evolution' as science pursues it (which is not to say that it's mistaken or fallacious).
Yep.
Quoting Wayfarer
But it is. The OP strings together a series of misunderstandings, producing a view of evolution that has nothing to do with how things actually work. The supposed argument in the OP is from personal incredulity. It's just a bad OP.
And I suspect you agree, as do , and .
That's because evolution is a type of religion for people. Ironically, instead of seeing animals for what they are, people want to be their relatives. As I've discovered, life is about finding union with something spiritual and running after bones will not be a way of salvation as far as I can see. This involves the philosophical questions of continuity and discreteness, much of which is addressed by Aristotle. There is no end to how small evolutionists will the make distinctions and mutations throughout history. They end up in Zeno's paradox. It's the old ancient question of how many parts individuals are made up and how this relates to combinations and species
Not a single argument from you again. For every mutation, there is a first or firsts (several). So everytime a change in the species happens it happens with a handful of members at most, because it's random. So why did they survive every time there was a mutation and there was only a few that this happened too. Millions of small groups of mutants survived without extinction, all before they became a dominant group. Or is this too ineffable you?
You can't erase the probability so that it is no longer improbable by uniting it with other probabilities. That can go on forever and then you have no science
They are pseudo (à la "intelligent design"). :eyes:
Quoting Vera Mont
:up:
Quoting T Clark
:clap:
Quoting Banno
:100:
It's not intelligent design because I'm not saying God did something from above. I'm far closer to Spinoza. Strange how his version of God you don't dislike
Are you this creationist guy on the right? Your knowledge of evolution is as confused as his!
You guys are too blind to even admit I have valid arguments. I suppose I'm done here unless a new *argument* actually surfaces
Yeah, there was. I pointed out this argument from incredulity:
Quoting Gregory
Yep, they did.
Do some detailed reading on how evolution and natural selection actually works.
The problem is that you have not presented a valid argument!
Vera Mont already told you:Quoting Vera Mont
There are many factors involved. Two Neanderthals cant have sex and create the first Homo Sapien. That's not how it works.
Even your god, could not achieve the 'first human.' Where did 'Cain's' wife come from? She wasn't Cain's sister was she? So did god make Cain's wife before, during or after he made Adam from dirt?
Do you know for sure which one was magicked first?
Spinoza's God is simply another name for Nature (i.e. natural laws). As I understand it, 'evolution' quallifies as a natural law even in Spinozist terms (pace Hegel).
Any instance of mutation happens in just one individual organism. If that mutation is not fatal then the organism survives, reproduces, and multiplies that specific mutation within subsequent generations. That new mutation may or may not even confer any advantage. The slow accumulative reordering of the genome through very long periods of time eventually produce significant changes to the organism that become phenotypically obvious. At any point environmental conditions can change such as geological disruptions causing physical separation of two or more groups of the same species (plate tectonics).
At this point the different groups separated into different environments will slowly mutate (as described above). After a long enough time these separated organisms can become very different from each other, and if the mutations are of a certain type and a certain threshold eventually become a new species to the point where they may become sexually incompatible with their ancestor group.
If any of these separated groups that have independent mutations meet again and are still sexually compatible then they may reproduce. These offspring will thus have a unique genome that can further evolve in different ways than the parent groups.
This is just one way i can imagine mutations occurring to cause drastic changes in genetically coded organisms; periodically producing new lines of evolutionary development. There are many other ways.
If you're interested you should check out this video:
And then play this game:
https://thelifeengine.net/
It's a very simple evolution simulator so it doesn't include sexual reproduction, but you can learn a lot from it and get a feel for how evolution works. I played it for a few weeks about a year ago. There are more complex simulators, but i think this is a good start.
Thanks for the resources. And I recommend Aristotle on form and matter, a good start as well. Science and math serve philosophy, not the other way around. Organisms can't be pulled apart by abstractions
Reality is multidimensional and science/math is one dimensional. Philosophy transcends science and math. Science can never capture reality with mathematics. There is no true Truth in science
And I believe in irreducible complexity such as with sexual reproduction.
A lot of the reason for creating an evolutionary narrative appears to be for ideological reasons when whether or not we used to be bipedal fish is irrelevant to our daily lives.
It is less irrelevant to peoples beliefs systems though.
Thank you as well. The evolution of knowledge in the context of the history of mankind started with the development of religion (from animism to monotheism). This was man's first attempt at understanding the world. Most of what was formulated in this stage was based on ignorance (not judging). We had no way of thinking about things other than how we thought about ourselves, thus everything that happened happened because someone did it (anthropomorphism); the birth of gods and angels, place holders for what is not known. The gods held our questions in the form of answers waiting to be questioned by the coming of philosophy.
Out of religion emerged philosophy, a new refined way of thinking and inquiry. The gods began to be questioned, and thus new understanding evolved, proliferating into a multitude of different philosophies as had happened with religion. Environmental selection pruned and nurtured the tree of this growing tree of knowledge.
From philosophy came science (natural philosophy), a fusion of logic, mathematics, and other ideas and methods developed by philosophy. Science is an even further refinement of thinking and is the leaf edge of the tree of our knowledge and understanding. A natural selection among the elements of philosophy. The methods of science for me have precedence over philosophy, and philosophy over religion. If a result is different in the context of science and religion i choose science. If science for some reason can not answer a question then neither can philosophy nor religion. A new more refined thinking must emerge.
It seems obvious to me so that is how i see it. You may disagree.
You should also look into Michael Levin who will probably win the Nobel Prize at some point in my opinion. He is doing some God level science that is extremely interesting. I check up on his work periodically and i follow him on Twitter.
"The self cannot stand in the Presence of God. God said to Moses, 'No one shall see me and live.' Where God is, I am not. Where I am, God is not. Therefore the 'I' cannot experience God, but God is experienced.. God is not an object to be experienced, and there is no experience. The two are one in experiencing. This is nonduality or oneness. Oneness with God is the open space of wakefulness where experience occurs. Even the word 'God' is problematic when talking about this. God is a word that describes a concept in the mind. I am actually speaking about a non-experience by the no-self of that to which the word 'God' points. Do you see how difficult it is to communicate this." Marshall Davis
If I said I believed in goblins and dragons, you'd laugh. But yet you'd accept aliens? What's the difference? Sounds like science wants to take the mystery out of life. I'm committed to mysticism
:roll:
Quoting Banno
:up:
I might laugh but i would first need to qualify what you mean by goblins and dragons. If aliens exist, and had contact with people in the past they had to call it something.. goblin is just as good as any other word. It's also interesting to me that someone may deny the possible existence of aliens but at the same time is absolutely positive that God exists; the ultimate alien superhero. I don't know it just sounds backwards to me since it seems obvious that aliens have a much higher probability of existing than the traditional conception of a God.
It sounds to me that you want to keep the mystery which is really just a nice way of saying ignorance. You want to ignore possible knowledge about the truth of a thing. You don't want to seek knowledge you simply seek a certain feeling. The joy of magic. I enjoy the uncovering of one mystery to reveal another more than just witnessing the magic. There is no shortage of mystery, the supply is ample. There is nothing bad to gain and nothing good to lose in understanding the world as it is and not as we prefer to have it. It is an immaturity in the mind of man to not want to know and that can not get us anywhere good.
Mysticism is not bad either, but the way i use mysticism is to guide me towards knowledge; if not for that then what for. Knowledge can be distinguished from non-knowledge or nonsense by it's application and result. What can the concept of God be applied to and what results does it give? What is the usefulness of that concept? All it can really do is say that "God did it" and done... next.
Look at how sad this is. Cargo cults:
There is a difference between factoids and wisdom however
Sure sounds right. First comes data, then information, knowledge (factoids), and finally wisdom. Each one depends on the prior which means wisdom does not preclude facts or factoids, or information, etc. All are necessary to climb the latter of understanding so to say.
There is no plausible explanation of why things should get more complex over time.
For example you break an egg and it never just rearranges itself to a whole egg again.
One explanation for this is that something like an egg is made up of a huge number of atoms and they are statistically highly unlikely to return to exactly the same arrangement as before because there are so many degrees of freedom for possible states they could be in.
Things don't tend to spontaneously arrange themselves into useful formations.
There must be an explanation for anything that actually happens. Our level of understanding of something does not preclude it from happening. It does happen.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Self-organization
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes but if you leave the egg alone and incubated it organizes itself into a fully functioning organism, or does that not happen because we don't understand exactly how it happens yet. Does the universe depend on our knowledge of it or do we depend on the universe for our knowledge? Are we supposed to be in charge of what happens in the universe?
Unless we are physicists then our understanding of the second law of thermodynamics will come from popular explantions of it.
The academic discussion of thermodynamics is highly complex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics#Various_statements_of_the_law
But it is portrayed to the general public frequently as a tendency to disorder including the eventual heat death of the university.
The degrees of freedom model is fairly easy to understands because know from breaking something like a vase or using a jigsaw puzzle breaking things up is much easier than reassembling them. So what force would make things usefully assemble and combat the destructive forces of nature?
Intelligent human volition is a prime example of the speed at which intelligent volitional activity can make long term meaningful useful change without waiting on chance.
Such as a human picking up a log and placing it in a stream to cross the stream without waiting for the log to randomly fall there and current examples such as the dense reasoning and design that goes into computers to make them so efficient.
This is not known to be true. There is no evidence of biological organisms currently living on Mars, but there is evidence that organic compounds and water are present and have been present for billions of years. It is still possible that life exists on Mars in an area not open to examination or may once have been present in the past when conditions there were different.
Quoting Hanover
This is the fine tuning argument for either 1) the multiverse or 2) intelligent design/creationism. It is based on a misunderstanding of how probabilities work.
There is no evidence of life on Mars. If you simply mean there is carbon, then OK, but that's not life.
Quoting T Clark
I'm not arguing either. Buti if I've misunderstood probability theory, then correct me.
Evolution, creationism, intelligent design, Big Bang, whatever can't offer an explanation for the first cause. The best you can do is explain how things behave now, but not where they came from.
For evolution to work, you must have billions of years of trial and error. That's not a difficulty, because you do have that time span.
But if you wish to ask the question of where a system that operates as ours does came from, you can't answer that. But, if you wish to apply the same logic, you've got to argue the same trial and error theory.
Thermodynamics is just one variable or constant in the equation. There are also the forces of nature (strong, weak, EM, and gravity). The confluence of all these things interacting together is what's responsible for the formation of areas of order and chaos; simply caused by the entire system of interactions "seeking" it's lowest energy state. Because there are so many degrees of freedom this process is imperfect (that's a good thing).
It may be useful to think of the universe as essentially having two forms of action. One is expansive or dispersive and the other is contractive, and the balance between these two tendencies of the universe determines how much order emerges. Thermodynamics is responsible for the expanding quality of things, and what i call the symmetry laws are responsible for the contracting or gathering quality of the universe. If things were one or the other then no order would emerge, both have to be active in a dynamic balance. If it were all thermodynamics then it would all be a soup of nothing, and if it were all laws and no thermodynamics then it would crystalize into some static singular thing; nothing worthy or useful would happen.
The laws of the universe also tend to sort matter gravitationally and electromagnetically which goes towards inducing different conditions for different types of order and organization. It results in different gradients in space of energy density distributions. The interaction between the gradient boundaries induce active forms that can develop into full homeostatic systems that gather and dissipate heat or energy. It's the stuff of life!
Agreed, but that is not the same as "no organisms developed on Mars."
Quoting Hanover
It doesn't matter how many universes there are, one or 10^100, it doesn't change the probability that life will develop in any one particular universe.
Quoting Hanover
Of the theories you listed, only one, the big bang, is a cosmological theory. It is my understanding that, as you say, we don't know what happened before the big bang or what caused it.
Quoting Hanover
We know that evolution has been working here for about 3.5 billion years.
A snowflake doesn't have a soul, is not alive
Quoting T Clark
This isn't relevant. While it is true that If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1 million, it doesn't matter how many others play, my odds remain fixed, but the more I play, the higher my odds of winning.
If there is a random array X that must exist for life to occur, the more attempts made to create X, the higher the chance of life.
No one particular universe ought have better odds (as you note), but a system with more universes would have better odds for life to exist. That's why I say your comment isn't relevant.
This is why many argue there is probably life outside earth. They reasonably argue that due to the vastness of the universe it is unlikely there is life somewhere else.
"Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene was Skilling's favorite book and served as the foundation of his managerial philosophy.[45][46] Skilling held, by his own interpretation, a Darwinian view of what makes the world work. He believed that money and fear were the only things that motivated people"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling#Philosophy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal
We had Social Darwinism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
I think we should be cautious about theories that have had or may have seriously negative consequences. I don't think science and it theories is just unbiased and not without moral import.
The Nazis produced "Das Erbe"
"The plot was written by Walter Lüddeke.[5] The basic message, that only the strong and healthy are victorious, is demonstrated by fighting stag beetles commented on by a "professor"
Along with "Alles Leben ist Kampf" and "Erbebank" and more to justify involuntary Euthansia and eventually The Holocaust..
What we see in organisms is incredibly useful order and is any of it predictable?
It seems like there is so much going on upon earth from conscious minds to DNA to eco systems and society that no single (reductionist) model would suffice to explain it and may be inexplicable by law based models.
I am a gay a man (an evolutionary genetic dead end I suppose) apparently serving no biological purpose. Evolution has not only to create the two sexes male and female and keep their reproductive biology compatible but also instill a sexual desire between the two sexes which has bypassed me.
There is so much that can go wrong but does it matter are we progressing? Is that a biological idea?
But the odds of any particular universe, e.g. ours, having life would not change. Therefore, this argument can't be used as an explanation for so-called fine tuning. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you are trying to show.
Quoting Hanover
Do you mean "likely" rather than "unlikely?" If so, I agree.
God is merciful! El Rachum!
:fire: :up: Evolution may be blind but we definitely are not (re Gregor Mendel and his peas, dog/horse/sheep/cattle breeders and dogs/horses/sheep/cattle). The next step is both exciting and also worrying - designer babies, ethically very suspect.
---
As for evolution, I'm happy, nay, more than happy to go extinct! Momma nature agrees. It's a kinda suicide, but I don't want to end up in a B grade movie, although I don't actually mind a few sex scenes with a pretty lass.
I would suggest you check out Michael Levin's work in regards to that.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Let's look at the parts or things you mentioned: minds, DNA, ecosystems, society. How do these relate to each other? They have an order of dependence; society depends on minds, minds depend on DNA, and DNA depends on ecosystems. Each is made of the other. Is there a pattern?
The best thing to do as i see it is to use the reductionist and holistic methods together. It is important to take note not just of the parts but how the parts fit together as you discover or extract the parts from the whole. Think about what you would need to do to effectively disassemble a watch and then reassemble the watch. Armed with this understanding of how the parts fit together a holistic picture or pattern can emerge which can be used for predictive purposes. There is a fractal rule that runs through the whole thread of evolution.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Biology is simply one layer of your existence, what about the effects that you can have in the world to further its evolution? Evolution happens everywhere not just in biology. Nature has elevated man above the animals on this planet, above biology. If you were an animal maybe you'd be in trouble, but lucky you that you're part of the human enterprise.
Out of biological organization emerges psychological organization. Man lives in the mind more than any other organism, and thus a complex symbolic society has emerged with culture and technology. The kind of affordances available to humanity is a more fertile ground i think than even in biology or biological reproduction.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
A lot of times part of what goes wrong turns out to be what went right. I wouldn't worry too much, just know you're lucky to be where you are as opposed where you're not. Yes i think we are progressing, and the golden age of biology is coming to an end soon - not to say that it's the end of biology. We are already living a few emergent levels above biology.
Gambler's fallacy. :roll:
Quoting Hanover
See link above.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No. The theory demonstrably works better than any of the alternatives whether or not you believe it's true.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Well, that's because there isn't any "conflict": evolution (i.e. variable descent of self-replicators (i.e. dissipative systems) via natural selection) is emergent along entropy gradients. Consider this summary on complex adaptive systems or, if you prefer to cut to the chase, dive into the deeper end with Why the argument that evolution is in conflict with increasing entropy is certainly False.
My point was that a soul is irreducibly complex. It's amazing how many people here don't believe in philosophy or even care what it is. Moderators included. If you don't believe philosophy has insights that transcend the physical and make it null, you're still at the beginning. You're Cartesian and interpret matter thusly. Matter is not pure extension. A soul transcends those domains because it is greater. Scientists seldom meet what they study and scientific tools cannot analyze what is non physical. I recommend Hegel's Philosophy of Nature over Darwin's book.
Saying minds are based on DNA is the rejection of the entire global philosophical movement throughout history. It's logical positivism which is nothing but decay
The experiences - and therefore the realities - of two different organisms are incommensurable with one another. In the world of a fly, says Uexkull, we find only "fly things"; in the world of a sea urchin we find only "sea urchin things.
? Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture
In a world of God, we see only God things
"Becoming is conscious, being unconscious.
? Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World
Oh was i not supposed to reject that? My apologies, i will renew my subscription as soon as humanly possible. I never gave myself any label but if i had to i guess "logical positivism" sounds better than "illogical negativism", but that's just me. Isn't logical positivism a kind of philosophy anyway? Did it get kicked out of the global philosophy movement club? What would be the right label for the right philosophy in your opinion?
The term 'soul,' only has meaning, if you add 'ar' or 'as', to the front of it.
Different spellings for a very good waste disposal system.
In the human embryo, the anus happens first, we belong to the class 'Deuterostomia.'
From wiki:
Deuterostomia (/?dju?t?r??sto?mi.?/; lit.?'second mouth' in Greek) are animals typically characterized by their anus forming before their mouth during embryonic development. The group's sister clade is Protostomia, animals whose digestive tract development is more varied. Some examples of deuterostomes include vertebrates (and thus humans), sea stars, and crinoids.
10 out of 10 for effort friend! :clap:
Quoting Michael Ruse, Is Evolution a Secular Religion?
Besides, a lot of people have an interest in denying that evolution could have any purpose or goal besides procreation and survival. After all if life is a meaningless accident, then any anxiety about the possibility of not knowing what it is, is alleviated. I'm sure that's a factor too.
The odds that everything had to happen exactly as it did to end up with you sitting there reading this are so astronomically small as to be effectively zero. But you are sitting there reading this. It's only when you nominate what you want to happen in advance that the odds are in any way meaningful. Otherwise (and this is the bit you won't like), you are just an accidental and random result of a disinterested process.
But hey, you are one of the lucky ones who won the galactic lottery. Make us of the few score years you have been allocated and learn about evolution. You can't disparage something you don't understand.
Maybe you have a Great Dane. It has puppies. You pick the smallest and breed from that one. Then you pick the smallest from that litter and breed again. Rinse and repeat. You end up with a very small dog indeed which is going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to have sex with a Great Dane. Think chihuahua. So those two species of dog will head off in different evolutionary directions.
They then might end up as different as a penguin and an eagle.
If the mutation was beneficial (they more than likely are not) then the individual will have a slightly better chance at surviving and passing on the beneficial genes. They will then propogate through the group.
You really need to check out some sites that explain all this. It's Evolution 101.
The system involved in evolution is the individual organism (and to some extent it's immediate surroundings) but not the whole of the earth.
Of course if I smash a cup and glue it back together it is not going to effect a calculation of entropy of the whole earth as a system.
He is defining a system in an unrealistic way that bears no relation to the behaviour of an individual complex organism and its tendency to decay and become more disordered in its immediate surroundings.
But the second law explains why when I drop and break a cup it doesn't immediately leap back up and reconfigure itself because that is a statistically implausible array of matter.
Also we are supposed to be starting from a time on earth when no life existed.
How currently existing organisms combat entropy now they exist does not explain how they got started from an allegedly simpler state with a few chemicals in a primordial inanimate soup.
I'm out. :yawn:
That's not the gambler's fallacy.
The gambler's fallacy is to believe that if I've lost the last five hands, I'm due for a win, as if the prior results influence the next one.
What is not the gambler's fallacy is the statistical truth that the more attempts will result in more wins.
That is, if I flip a coin 20 times and randomly guess the outcome, the odds I'll be wrong every time are astronomically low.
As in my lottery example, since there are fixed outcomes of numeric combinations, the more tickets I buy, the higher my chances of winning, actually increasing to 100% if I buy every combination.
So if this is all about philosophy and nothing about scientists, why are you arguing that species cannot be related to one another through mating?
The way this works -- that's what the scientists have laid out. And, if you don't feel like buying a book, there is a free version ;). I just like the Coyne book because it's easier to read.
Yeah.
And this "point" relates to the evolution of cats and dogs - how, exactly? Quoting Gregory
Well, one for sure! Maybe two.
They can't relate to each other through mating because species have souls and they don't change into each other. True philosophy knows this. Evolutionlists are in a cartoon part of their mind and don't see reality as it is. They're thinking "why can't mud turn into stone?". The scales havent fallen from their eyes because they just about change and not the changeless. Mathematics only applies once you have species before you. As Plato said, there is a false world (which is evolution's world) and the real. We live in the real world but they dont know. Anyways I've had enough of this for now. I'd rather talk to people who like philosophy. No offense to anyone personally.
Populations are individuals
I go to the doctor. Science is fine except if it contradicts philosophy. Nothing is fixed in this world except God
What crap.
Presumably true philosophy is that done by true Scotsmen. There seem to have been quite a few of them around recently. These ones could use some scientific literacy.
Quoting Wayfarer
Midgley has the advantage of having understood how evolution functions.
Quoting Banno
...sums up this thread. It is doing a disservice to the forums.
...sums up this thread. It is doing a disservice to the forums.[/quote]
:100:
//ps another of my stock articles on the theme.//
When I were a lad, we had a term: "Pseudo intellectual fuckwit yobbo".
I trust I am demonstrating the level of respect I have for such posts.
Geez, you must have been a prodigy! I wouldn't have been able to say this, much less understand it. :smile:
Well deserved, give the quality of so many of the posts on religious issues; yours being a notable exception.
So at the risk of being on topic, is there a coherent, sound argument that can be made that is sympathetic to the intuition so poorly expressed in the OP? A way to rescue teleology?
i doubt it.
Quoting jgill
It was carved into my favourite fold-out desk in the back row of the Hayden-Allen lecture theatre at the ANU. I must have committed it to memory during a lesson on calculus. It's long been a title I crave.
Might await another OP on the topic. But my sympathy here is not because of the quality of the argument, but the sense of existential dread. It may not be well expressed but I think it is well founded.
There was a study published a few moths ago that grouped papers from one of the general philosophy publishers by the way they referenced each other. It found three, instead of two, associations. In addition to the usual congregation of analytic and continental papers there was a third, which the authors of the study described as having a scientific rather than analytic leaning.
One can see a tendency towards what we might call scientistic thinking in many of the contributors here.
Well, "vaguely religious" comments do tend to be more mystifying than anything else. Yet de-mystification and clarification have priority in philosophy, no? Dialectically giving and taking reasons rather than substituting "faiths" dogmas for dialectics, Wayf, seems to me the manifest purpose of this site. Says a famously "God-intoxicated" thinker:
[quote=Spinoza][i]Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.[/i][/quote]
Critically challenging 'beliefs', while possibly disturbing, isn't "hostility" welcome to the examined life! The alleged "latent hostility to anything ... vaguely religious" is only so in the eye of a true believer. :mask:
People like Dawkins and Dennett did a fair bit to make discussions of this issue toxic and become a religion versus atheism schism and to push for nihilist implications of evolution.
I think it can be argued that believing in concepts like survival of the fittest, natural selection and animal hierarchies etc has been more harmful than not believing them.
This is an elegantly presented video of the influence of racism on Science and thought.
You and I might think that. Others hereabouts express a different view through their comments.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Survival of the fittest and animal hierarchies are perversions of evolution, not tenets.
https://www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/History/Faculty/Weikart/Darwinism-in-Nazi-Racial-Thought.pdf
"Historians disagree about whether Nazis embraced Darwinian evolution.By examining Hitlers ideology, the official biology curriculum, the writings of Nazi anthropologists, and Nazi periodicals, we find that Nazi racial theorists did indeed embrace human and racial evolution. They not only taught that humans had evolved from primates, but they believed the Aryan or Nordic race had evolved to a higher level than other races because of the harsh climatic conditions that influenced natural selection. They also claimed that Darwinism underpinned specific elements of Nazi racial ideology, including racial inequality, the necessity of the racial struggle for existence, and collectivism."
(I myself mentioned their euthanasia propaganda films early like Alles Leben is Kampf (All life is struggle and Das Erbe The Inheritance)
"In his writings and speeches Hitler regularly invoked Darwinian concepts, such as evolution Entwicklung), higher evolution (Höherentwicklung), struggle for existence (Existenzkampf or Daseinskampf ), struggle for life (Lebenskampf ), and selection (Auslese). In a 1937 speech he not only expressed belief in human evolution, but also endorsed Haeckels theory that each organism in its embryological development repeats earlier stages of evolutionary history. "
........
People like Darwin and Dennett (The Universal Acid proponent) have strongly advocated that evolution should change how we view life and ourselves. They apparently are un aware of the is - ought barrier that Hitler et al crossed. If evolution is true should we respond in anyway are we obliged to?
You really are a cutie-pie!
I should point out that survival of the fittest means the survival of those best fitted to their environment. And they will not necessarily be the strongest or fastest. And natural selection simply means that our offspring are not clones. I don't see anything harmful about either of those.
And animal hierarchy? Maybe you mean evolutionary trees. Cladistics perhaps. Which would be harmful to a literal interpretation of Genesis I guess.
As in 'because it's true then we ought to ensure we understand it properly and not reimagine it to serve racist tendencies'?
"Now they swarm in huge colonies, safeinside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.
They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.
And a Dawkins quote on his apparent general philosophy"
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the populationuntil the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
So yes he has a charming prognosis for us that we should be eager to embrace.
Well it has been accused of either being a banal tautology (ie anything that survives is fit) or a dangerous prognosis and value judgement (we should weed out the unfit to improve a species) That powered Social Darwinism.
Darwin Himself said in the descent of man:
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
His Son Leonard:
Of all the problems which will have to be faced in the future, in my opinion, the most difficult will be those concerning the treatment of the inferior races of mankind.
? Leonard Darwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
"The Committee of Union and Progress in the Ottoman Empire adopted Social Darwinist ideology. Belief that there was a life-or-death conflict between Turks and other ethnicities motivated them to carry out genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Armenians. Social Darwinism enabled them to view extermination of entire population groups and the murder of women and children as a necessary and justified course of action"
Understand it in what sense?
As a history of our origins up to this date?
As something that should guide future human development?
There is a limit to the scope of validating (or falsifying) explanations of things that happened before we existed or developed modern technology. It becomes narrative that then quickly becomes and became ideological.
Is The theory make us stop believing in gods? Is it supposed to make us become physicalist/materialist naturalists? Are we supposed to reevaluate the status and value of humans and other animals?
We've had quite a few discussions here about the hierarchical nature of science, e.g physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology. @apokrisis has a lot to say. Higher levels in the hierarchy have to be consistent with lower levels, e.g. biological phenomena have to be consistent with chemical principles. But biological principles are not derivable from chemical principles, e.g. if you know chemistry, you can't derive biology. One point that Apokrisis stresses is that higher levels affect, constrain, lower levels as much as lower levels constrain higher levels.
Quoting punos
Perhaps, but evolution by natural selection, which is what Darwin and Wallace studied, is primarily biological.
@Hanover's right, as much as it hurts me to say that. If I one ticket, my odds of winning are 1 in a million. If I buy two tickets, my odds are 2 in a million. That assumes each ticket has a different number.
Well, you have your choice. You can accept the universe as it is, and our insignificant position within it. Or you can claim that it was all made for us and we are the pinnacle of existence. I can see why you'd prefer option 2. We all want to feel significant and be loved.
Sez you, with no evidence that I can see. Maybe evidence is one of those things one doesn't need once one rejects science. If so, what is the basis of your knowledge. Perhaps I missed it in one of your posts.
Quoting Gregory
Philosophy is a process more than it is a body of thought. Somewhere in some branch of philosophic thought, there are "insights" claiming just about anything. Everything. Buy all of your nones at once and explode into space.
Don't listen to people who would term it a banal tautology. They are exhibiting a lack of knowledge of the process. You'll learn nothing from them. And definitely don't listen to those who think they can use it as a means to further racial superiority. Evil be there...
And make your mind up if you want to continue talk about the theory of evolution or you want to start a separate discussion on social Darwinism. Another thread would be my suggestion.
I'm am overstepping the boundary of my knowledge, but it is my understanding that saying "accidental and random" is an overstatement. Much of what happens is influenced by self-organization. Scientists think that living cells develop out of chemical/catalyst cycles that develop naturally. Don't bother to ask for details, because I'm already on thin ice. I refer you to "Life's Ratchet" by Hoffman.
I agree with the rest of what you've written.
All domestic dogs are considered the same species.
I don't see our position as insignificant.
The universe apparently doesn't know it exists
but we do because of our individual consciousness that allows to imagine concepts such as infinity and allows us to see and experience a huge range of phenomena.
As with Descartes Cogito ergo sum I can only be certain that I exist. Everything else is filtered through individual consciousness.
But you seem to have highlighted the theories need to denigrate the human position. Evolution does not explain consciousness which is the only reason we care or know anything
and it hasn't reduced that to brute mechanism so i see a lot of room for skepticism and value outside of brute reductionism.
When you add energy to a system, you decrease it's entropy. It happens all the time. The sun and the heat inside the planet adds energy to the Earth's surface allowing the continued operation of physical and biological processes.
Understand it as to our origins. It's good to know where we came from. It explains so much. And the galactic amount of evidence for that process means that evolution in one sense is a fact. The explanation of how it works is the theory. And that it being fine tuned and added to constantly.
And why would it have been designed stop you believing in God? It's just a scientific theory. It doesn't say anything about God. I thought you'd be pleased to find out how He did it. Unless you think the whole shebang was zapped into existence during a six day week. In which case it's your interpretation of scripture that's being brought into question. Not the existence of God.
Darwin and Wallace both used the term "survival of the fittest" to describe natural selection.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
This is not a winning argument. There are plenty of examples of the evil performed in the name of religion, ethnicity, nationality, and just about any other organized differences between people.
When you shine sunlight on a broken cup it does not rebuild itself. Plants have mechanisms to utilise the sunlight, the sunlight itself is not reducing the entropy but the preexisting plant mechanisms.
As I have said life/abiogenesis has to start from scratch from non life simplicity.
What I mentioned was the statistical explanation for entropy which would prevent useful structures spontaneously creating and recreating. Order from total disorder.
Other planets have the sun shining on them and no life.
We somehow have an array of very precise parameters that allow life on this planet and unknown properties that allow consciousness. I don't see how consciousness fits into the other picture of nature as a thermodynamic or mechanistic and making us a genetic production line.
Evolution isn't random. But Gregory himself is a chance occurrence. An accident of nature. As we Ll are. Think of everything that had to happen exactly as they did for just our parents to meet. And then go back a thousand generations when all those odds are extrapolated to a virtually infinite number.
We won the galactic lottery. Say a little prayer of thanks every night to your preferred deity.
My effort here
In sum, if Hume is correct that causation is an empirically unknown object of faith, then it is no more unreasonable to found your beliefs on teleology (every event has a purpose) as causation (every event has a cause), which is more elaborated in the link cited.
Extrapolate. That'll get you to where we need to go. Breed, sub species, species, genus etc.
That is not the argument. The argument is concerning the the harm of rejecting evolution versus the harm of accepting evolution and it being interpreted in a destructive way or as an ideology.
A theory that inspires some atrocities should surely be treated with some caution? On the other hand evolution skeptics have been harassed and told they are dangerous, should not work in certain jobs, medicine or are ignorant. Dawkins compared evolution denial to Holocaust denial.
This is like the free will arguments. If we have no free will we can't do anything about it so why bother trying to get us to believe it? If I start to believe I have a fish ancestors how is that supposed to make me act?
There is no reason for me to change any of my behaviour that I can see because of evolution. The motivation that has been manifested is to use the theory to manipulate ideology and societies not just to place the theory unvarnished on the table. To try and undermine religious belief and shore up atheism.
And on that topic even if evolution comprehensively explains life on earth we are just a tiny planet in a vast even infinite universe so we are still faced with profound mysteries.
When you shine light on a plant, it grows and is eaten by a cow. The cow is then milked. Humans drink the milk. The humans then repair the cup.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It may start from scratch, as did everything on Earth. We started out as particles of dust swirling around the proto-solar system. But it didn't develop at random.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
How many planets have we looked at - one closely and a few at a distance of millions of kilometers or millions of light years. How many are there? Hundreds of billions.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
If I had a well-shuffled deck of cards with 10^100 cards in it and I picked one, what are the odds I would pick an ace of spades? 1 in 10^100. What would the odds be if I picked a 5.71395609812 x 10^27? 1 in 10^100.
Agreed.
Is your standard of truth what gives the results you want?
Is that a fact? If I boil a pot of water, is its entropy decreased?
I don't feel that I am. But the universe could care less about me. Do you know there will come a time when someone has the last ever thought about you. It'll be as if you never existed. Make the most of your 3 score and 10.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Well we are parts of the universe that has developed an ability to contemplate our own existence.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
It is an evolved ability. Random access memory. And by the way, you can't imagine infinity. You have a brain that has evolved to calculate the arc of a thrown rock. To contemplate the distance to the next hill. A million years is meaningless. As is a light year. As is the size of just this small galaxy. I think the problem here is that you don't actually appreciate how insignificant we are in terms of time and size.
Everything is classed as evidence for evolution.
Some things are seen as puzzling to evolution such as exclusive homosexuality since it is an evolutionary dead end for genes ( I can say that for certain as an antinatalist gay man) which then leads to theories to explain it. Anything a gay person does has to be interpreted through an evolutionary lens to see which of our behaviours are seen to be advantageous.
Are we the worker bees of the species. Are we the generous uncle or aunty who looks after our nieces and Nephews? Are our Mothers fecund?
I am more skeptical of scientific theories about the past and our past and deciding what ramifications they have.
I thought Calculus involved infinities?
We can imagine infinity because we can always imagine a larger number than the previous large one we created. We can imagine going into space hitting a brick wall and imagining what is behind it (I had this thought at around 7yrs old)
We can imagine dividing things until they get smaller and smaller ad infinitum so we ended up with the theory of atoms (a surprisingly long time ago with Democritus). We can imagine a time before the hypothesised big bang. And so on.
As child in a religious household I also wondered that if God created the earth a few thousands years ago what was happening in the time before then?
And what was he doing in the infinite past before he decided randomly to create us. Why did he decide to create us at a random time.
But According to Dawkins I am just a giant lumbering gene machine and according to a lot of science adjacent theorists I also am a mechanism with no freewill who is not responsible for my own thoughts.
In reality I am just an agnostic skeptic.
If I add heat to the water, it is heated and the water molecule increase in kinetic energy. Since it is confined by air pressure, it's pressure increases (PV=NRT) and it's entropy decreases. When I add enough, the kinetic energy of water molecules overcomes air pressure, it boils, its volume increases, it's temperature goes down, and the entropy increases. Water at room temperature and ambient pressure won't do anything. Except a little evaporation.
Not everything. But the vast majority of universal characteristics that we possess have survived for a very long time indeed. So they are part of the process itself.
'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'. Theodosius Dobzhansky. And here's another:
'(Evolution) general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.' That from a Jesuit priest, Pierre Tailhard de Chardin.
Nothing ever goes backward. Except religionized politics.
Is your standard of truth divorced from morality or ethics?
If something is a fact it is a fact. If something inspires bad behaviour I would want to know what mechanism caused that behaviour. I do believe science has an ethical dimension. We don't randomly shoot babies to see what the results will be or as Frankie Boyle put it see how many pastilles it takes to choke a Kestrel. We have proven we can split the atom but at the cost of the survival of life. It is a question of what the questions we ask, might imply or be how they'd be enacted socially.
All that aside Natural selection and survival of the fittest is more value laden than most scientific theories just like theories about Intelligence quotients, Gender ideology, Sex differences and people Like Dennett and Dawkins have made it become tied heavily to atheism and antitheism like Galton etc tied it to eugenics and social Darwinism and class divides.
But what has it got to do with our future decisions? As I say you can't get an ought from an is.... but you may induce depression in someone by belittling their status and belief values to prove our evolutionary status. I had this experience when I spent years battling anxiety and depression and arguing on atheist forums looking for a more hopeful prognosis on existence.
Indeed. It was used before being misused.
I'm not sure what that means. What would be a specific aspect of biology that is not derivable from chemistry?
Quoting T Clark
I think this is absolutely true. There is bottom-up causation, and there is top-down causation which makes things more complex than just bottom-up, but that doesn't preclude derivability.
Quoting T Clark
No, selection happens at all levels. All that is needed for selection to occur are things that can interact or affect and be affected by other things in an environment or space. The selection process emerges out of complex interactions, and the probability distribution of all the possible interactions determines what gets selected. That is what selection is in general at any level, biological or otherwise.
In particle physics the laws and constants of the universe constitute the selecting environment for fundamental particles and atoms. In chemistry the way molecules form (organic or not) is due to a selection process in an environment of interacting atoms. In cyberspace software evolves through programmer design and user selection like products in a market space. Each space or environment develops it's own emergent selection criteria which is more complex than the one it emerged from.
Ahem. Survival of the fittest was introduced by Herbert Spencer in an essay on the principle of natural selection - Darwin later approved and adopted it (I think it was even in later editions of his book).
Interestingly, Wallace broke from Darwin over the publication of the Descent of Man. While agreeing with Darwin's account of the common ancestry of h. sapiens with respect to the anatomical features, he fundamentally disagrees with the idea that the biological account determines the abilities of human kind, concluding his chapter in a very similar vein to the OP (refer to the attached for what he adduces as evidence):
[quote=Darwinism Applied to Man, Alfred Russel Wallace]Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now adduced - strictly scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which are clearly what ought not to be on the materialistic theory - will be able to accept the spiritual nature of man, as not in any way inconsistent with the theory of evolution, but as dependent on those fundamental laws and causes which furnish the very materials for evolution to work with. They will also be relieved from the crushing mental burden imposed upon those who--maintaining that we, in common with the rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily cease--have to contemplate a not very distant future in which all this glorious earth--which for untold millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate at last in man--shall be as if it had never existed....
As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'être of the world--with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man--was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. [/quote]
Quoting T Clark
I googled it, what I find is the opposite:
----------------
Quoting Bradskii
Dobzhansky (an Orthodox Christian) wrote a book endorsing Du Chardin's ideas, called The Biology of Ultimate Concern, which addresses 'ethical, ideological and philosophical implications of evolution.' The introduction can be found here.
[quote=Theodosius Dobzhansky]Some writers restrict the word "evolution" to biological evolution only. This seems to me gratuitous. The universe has had a historical development; so had life, and so had mankind. This historical development did advance to life from absence of life, and did ascend to man from non-human ancestors. [/quote]
Teilhard de Chardin had religious/mystical notions, like the ultimate "Omega Point" toward which all things progress. How's that for an evolutionary principle?
Now that is abject nonsense. Value is a human construct. Do you think nature values an organism over another? You make your own value in life. Family, friends, a worthwhile job, children, a loving wife, interests in life...they are all valuable.
I just had my son call over to pick up his daughter. They are, as Dawkins said, making an obvious point, in some ways just a collection of genetic information. Which, in both my case and my son's have served their purpose. They have been passed on. We are no longer required by nature to serve any evolutionary purpose. Gee, so I don't love my sone or my grandaughter anymore? Now they have no value?
Gimme a break.
Perhaps that should be 'fundamental religious belief.' In which case I would agree.
I'm tackling this title. But I've already encountered many Spinozist aphorisms that seem decidely more religious than anything that you present e.g.
[quote=Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg, November (1675)]I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh: but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come to a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches, what is true or false, good or evil. [/quote]
I think there's a kind of lineage from earlier Jewish mysticism to Spinoza, but I'm still investigating.
I might, also, except that it too easily comes across as a kind of secular fundamentalism. Most of the so-called new atheists - they're no longer new - fall into that trap.
Fundamentalism strikes me as springing from absolute certainty. I'll use the term 'certainly' in common parlance but push me and I'll back away from it pretty quickly. As Voltaire said 'Doubt is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is absurd.'
I reckon the usual atheist suspects would all concur.
I don't see what the relevance of the "selection" process is for explaining an organisms traits.
For example there are two rabbits being chased by a fox.
The faster one survives and goes on to have lots of offspring.
That story does not explain why the surviving rabbit was able to run faster. It explains why it survived which is a trivial observation.
But is seems what needs to happen is for the long legs to evolve somehow by genetic mutation alone , already exist and then be selected which means the key process is the beneficial mutation and why that happened.
The capacity for legs to evolve would require preexisting emergent properties available in biochemistry which would not be explained by evolution it self.
For example how would a polar bear survive in the North pole if it did not already have lots of body fat and White fur etc. It is not going to be competing against green and red and thin bears.
I do sometimes ponder why evolution didn't simply come to an end with blue-green algae. Heaven knows they proven their ability to survive for near a billion years.
I was a good runner back in the day. My son is better. My daughter not as good. If foxes were chasing the three of us, my daughter and her slightly slower genes would be removed from the gene pool. My son's wouldn't. So his children would have a tendency to be faster than my daughter's would have been.
Rinse and repeat.
'A variation in the gene MCT1 is associated with difficulties in moving lactate throughout the body and an earlier onset of muscular fatigue (2).
Risk of tendon and ligament injury, a major concern for runners, is also under genetic influence. A pair of genes that help make collagen proteins, COL1A1 and COL5A, play an instrumental role in strengthening tendons and ligaments. Variations in these genes are associated with risk of tendon and ligament injuries, such as ACL injuries, Achilles tendon injuries, shoulder dislocations and tennis elbow'.
https://www.toolboxgenomics.com/blog/born-to-run-how-your-genetics-can-impact-running-performance/
That's dangerously close to the old 'why are there still monkeys?' question.
Did you forget my quote from Darwin himself earlier and if not how does it not invoke value and how do terms like "advantageous" and "fittest" not invoke value judgments?
"Withsavages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; (...) Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed."
On this picture Darwin was assuming that intervening to help the weak was damaging to evolutionary processes. And that you could judge which traits could be deemed advantageous. But there are several other quotes from prominents in the field along this vein including eugenics sentiment.
So how does someone make an accurate assessment of fitness? Either it simply the ability to survive by whatever means including assistance to the poor and sick or a value judgement on why something continues to exist. We could all "aid" natural selection by randomly killing each other and seeing who gets selected by deciding which interventions we deem most valuable to the theory at hand.
We have the notion of Spandrels where we have to decide whether a trait is there because it is beneficial or just coming along for the ride. Including things like I mentioned trying to give homosexuality an evolutionary explanation in terms of fitness and selecting a gay persons supposedly evolutionarily useful traits by making value judgements. Sickle cell trait is now described as advantageous because it protects against malaria whilst also it reduces life span and potential causing all sorts of horrible health problems.
In comparison claiming the heart pumps blood around the body does not appear to claim any value judgments just observations.
But the question is how did you come to have the trait of being a good runner? How can something be selected for if it does into already exist.
Rubbish computers won't survive Better computers but that basic facts that beneficial things survival doesn't explain their origins
which seems to solely rely on emergent properties (like proteins) and then random genetic mutations creating further impressive properties to be favoured .
To labor the point if I developed the ability to breathe under water and survived a massive flood that would explain why I survived not how I got the trait and on top of that as a homosexual I then have to find a nice young lady to impregnate with by great trait.
And I asked you if you wanted to start another thread on social Darwinism. Especially as it relates to eugenics. Or do you want to discuss his thread which is about the evolutionary process?
And the terms you just used are meaningless as regards value in an evolutionary sense. It's simply a function of the language we use. Nature doesn't care if you live or die. Surviving and becoming extinct are simply the two outcomes. There is no preference. There are no winners and losers. There are just those that are still in the game and those that are not. If all life became extinct because of the process and nature had some shoulders she'd shrug them. Saying that evolution implies value is like saying that gravity implies it. Hey, falling down is good!
Now you might have a preference. You might think that you have value. But that has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. To repeat, the process doesn't care what happens to you. So there cannot be any value in the process. Only what you determine.
Fair point. I guess the question Im angling towards is that of whether evolution is directional in nature - whether it tends towards (for instance) creatures with higher degrees of intelligence. I understand that the mainstream view is definitely not. But then you can ask whether it is a question that is in scope for biology or science at all. What evidence could there be for either the affirmative or negative? It would seem to me to be more a matter of the starting assumptions.
This is evolution 101. This is basic biology.
We are not clones. So my kids are not going to be exactly the same as me. They will be subtlety different. And my son might have a mutation in his genetic makeup that makes his VO2 max different to mine. Like he has a slightly different genome that makes him a slightly different height. All this is pretty obvious.
Now his VO2 max might be better than mine, so all other things being equal, he'll be a better runner. And his sister might have the same as me. So if we are running from a predator, all other things being equal, my son has a better chance of survival and passing on his VO2 max genes.
Have you checked out the best long distant runners on the planet? Almost all Ethiopians. All a result of genetics. Want a son in with a chance of winning the Boston Marathon? Marry an Ethiopian woman.
No direction. Unless you want to claim a divine purpose. Nature doesn't think 'Hmm, if this mammal was slightly smarter, then it would have a better chance of survival.' It doesn't think 'Hmm, if it was faster...'
It's a genetic roll of the dice. If you happen to be faster and that's an evolutionary advantage, then you'll survive longer and pass on your 'fast' genes. That's why gazelles are fast runners. All the slow gazelles were eaten. And I think it's a given that some sort of intelligence, or even basic awareness of some sort, is an evolutionary advantage. So those with that genetic difference will survive to pass on that difference.
And in some senses it becomes an arms race. Gazelles get faster, so the lions who aren't as fast starve. But the ones who are themselves faster yet again survive. So the gazelles need to up the speed again to survive.
Survival is not a trivial observation, it is key to selection. It is what selection means in this context.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Growing longer legs is not the only kind of mutation that can allow a rabbit to outrun a fox. A rabbit can acquire a mutation that makes its heart or muscles stronger or faster, or a mutation that makes it slightly smarter or behave differently, better senses, and whatever else i can't think of right now. The process of evolution is composed of two parts: variation and selection (natural or otherwise). The reason a mutation happens could be from a variety of different things: radiation, transcription errors, mutagenic compounds, etc., and can be either detrimental or advantageous. If the mutation confers advantage and is not fatal then the mutation spreads through the population.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
If not evolution then what?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
All that is needed is a species with already existing small amounts of fat and hair. If this species is driven into colder environments or if the present environment begins to get colder over time the evolutionary or environmental pressure forces a selection process. As it gets colder some of the animals die because they either have too little fat, or fur, or both. Some survive because they have a little more fat or fur to keep them just a little warmer.
Out of the set of survivors who already have a little more fat or fur reproduce and increase the expression of those genes or traits. One animal with more fat but less fur reproduces with another that has normal fat but more fur and have offspring with both more fat and more fur; increasing their advantage even more. This process can go on until they are perfectly adapted to the new environment. There will be no thin bears in that new colder environment because the environment would have selected them out of local circulation.
They seem to be the two horns of a dilemma, don't they? I'm familiar with the dogma, but I still say it's a reasonable question, from the perspective of speculative philosophy.
I'm an atheist, so there's no dilemma for me.
The way i see it is that evolution does have a direction in the same way entropy and time have a direction. It's an inevitable unfolding of a process that always ends up producing more complex forms along the way. Evolution at the core is blind, but the forms that it creates are ever increasing in complexity and intelligence. The more complex or intelligent these forms become the more they can be selective and guide their own evolution.. by intelligent design.
Consider now how human intelligence is beginning to manipulate genetic information. This ability affords us the possibility to move into a new kind of evolution that is more efficient, and purposeful, and also signifies to me the coming of age of our species. Any species that takes control of its own evolution becomes in my view an "adult" or mature species in the universe. One can call it a god at that point if one were so inclined, an entity in charge of its destiny one can say.
It's a choice.
Evolution through natural selection is our heritage, not our moral compass.
Human intellect, intent, purpose and rationale, has the ability to legislate against any law/rule of the jungle. Richard Dawkins has time and time again, stated during interviews/lectures/debates etc that any emulation of Darwinian rules within human society, is vile.
Dawkins on human morality (7mins):
Dawkins comparing secular morality with religious based morality (4 mins):
We don't need god posits or scripture to drive our morality. In fact most scripture is morally reprehensible. Humanism, democratic socialism and secular morality seem to be much better ways to develop a benevolent human society than using any role models from evolution or theism.
There, you've answered your own question.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Maybe we don't, but Dr. Mengele and other scientists did. Science should have an ethical dimension, but it doesn't come with one right out of the box. It's what's known as an after-market add-on.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Are you saying that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is wrong because it makes us feel bad? That doesn't work for me.
If you used all of your knowledge of chemistry, you could not predict the basic scientific principles of biology, e.g. the structure and behavior of a single-celled organism. This is true even though every process that takes place in the cell would proceed consistent with the principles of chemistry.
Quoting punos
If you're saying that biological processes are predictable from chemical processes, I think the consensus is that you're wrong.
Quoting punos
Perhaps. I'll think about it.
Don't you "ahem" me.
Quoting Wayfarer
Ahem... I didn't say Darwin or Wallace came up with the term, only that they used it.
Quoting Wayfarer
You're right. It's been 35 years since I took thermodynamics. I shouldn't be giving lectures. I'm setting about reedumacating myself.
That's almost what happened. The first single-celled organism is thought to have developed about 3.5 billion years ago fairly soon (500 million years) after the Earth cooled enough to support organic compounds. The first multi-cellular life is thought to date from about 600 million years ago.
Darwin was explicit and all other evolutionary biologists understand that Darwin's theory doesn't explain the origins of life.
This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. On the specific issue you mention about the structure and behavior of cells; Michael Levin is at the cutting edge of that research, and we will soon know how that all happens.
Quoting T Clark
Consensus is not the criteria in science, that's called democracy and it's a whole different thing. Consensus is fickle and changes with the times as ignorance and knowledge ebbs and flows.
Quoting Bradskii
There certainly is one directional aspect of evolution - it progresses towards complexity and diversity. There's no magic to it. The earliest life was as simple as it could possibly be. There was nowhere to go but up.
I'm skeptical, but I don't have the background to make the argument. I'll watch the video.
:up:
I watched the video. It was interesting and really impressive. I don't see what it has to do with the subject we were discussing - how to predict biological phenomena from chemical principles.
Quoting punos
Say what you want about truth, scientific consensus is the only criteria we have to determine the best way to use scientific knowledge to decide how to act. E.g. the fact that there is a consensus about the existence and significance of climate change gives us good reasons to change our behavior.
I'm dubious about the so-called supremacy of the second law of thermodynamics. As an overall trend in Western thought, 'natural laws' of this kind have been assigned the role previously accorded to 'divine law' or (as Alfred North Whitehead says) 'the inexorable decrees of fate'. But now I note in many of the popular science media in my newsfeed, the whole concept of 'scientific law' is itself being called into question.
As we're into video show-and-tell, here's a presentation by Robert Lanza on 'biocentrism'. I'm not sure how he is regarded in the mainstream - I suspect not highly - but I find his attitude philosophically superior to your common or garden varieties of materialism.
I started to watch, but stopped about 4 minutes in when he started hinting at a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. That is a red light, perhaps you would say a prejudice, of mine.
The main idea is that it's not just chemistry but there is another aspect apart from pure genetics and chemistry that is responsible for morphology. Genetics just produces the parts and the bio-electric activity determines how the parts organize themselves. At any level there are two aspects: stuff (atoms, cells, people), and then the forces that organizes the stuff (fundamental forces, bio-electricity, and culture respectively). If that doesn't make sense to you then just disregard it (no big deal), but i find that it gives me insight.
Can't disagree with any of that. Especially when you say that we control our own evolutionary path now. There's an argument that there is no limit from here on in. A lot of what was sci fi when I was a kid is sci fact these days. The older I get the more frustrated I feel that I won't be around to see where we go.
The physics/chemistry/biology... hierarchy I described is an oversimplification. The important principle is that phenomena at one level of organization and complexity are influenced by phenomena at both lower and higher levels and are not derivable from the principles of lower levels. I don't see how the information presented in the video is relevant to that.
I feel you, i'm not afraid of death but the only reason a really want to live forever is to see it all happen before my eyes, to be a part of it through the whole ride.
I would. :-)
[Quote="Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation;https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38427/38427-h/38427-h.html#:~:text=Of%20all%20systems%20of%20philosophy"]Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibilitythat is knowledgewhich would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final resultknowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it. [/quote]
I remember asking a question a few years ago prompted by such a comment: Would you prefer to go backwards and follow your lineage right back to the very begining, or go foward to see where it goes.
Still can't make my mind up...
As a metaphysical position, I have no problem with this. It's one I am familiar with and sympathetic towards. Lao Tzu wrote that the multiplicity of the world is brought into existence by naming. As metaphysics it is fine and useful, but as a tool to help decide how to build a bridge or when to plant my crops, it is a romantic story.
Yes i totally agree, but like i said i don't see how it precludes derivability. It simply renders it more complex and that is all. The fact that something influences another thing whether from below or from above or from within the same layer means that in principle it is derivable. What else could it possibly mean. The higher up the hierarchy the more complex the interactions because of the confluence of different forces acting from above and below and within. This causes a dynamic feedback loop among the different components in the system that is not simple to parse, but not impossible.
How many things in history have been said to be impossible (by consensus) only to be proven later not only possible but obvious.. so many things and we are still making the same type of assumptions today. If something were possible but believed to be impossible then why would anyone try? We would have never gotten to the point at which we are right now. I just don't think it's a good attitude to have, because it is self-limiting.
For me the answer is forward. The past can more easily be reconstructed than predicting the future. I want to go where we haven't been before, know what we've never known before. History is a memory but the future is an adventure.
Quite the opposite, since it is difficult to see how we could explain explanation without a vicious recursion.
So again, PI §201 comes in to play such that we fall back on what we do, not what we say.
Nevertheless as this is a philosophy forum it is appropriate from time to time to at least consider philosophy.
I got to about 11 mins in and he's riffing on a variation of the '747 in a junkyard' proposal with his million monkeys typing Hamlet. And what are the odds! It could never happen! But maybe he should think about the chances that the universe randomly produced a galaxy which created a solar system with a planet a fixed distance from the sun and this planet randomly produced life and that life evolved to create humans. And what were the chances of some specific guy being born in 17th century England and writing out a play called Hamlet?
My guess is that the odds were infinitely more than the monkeys doing it. Yet that did happen. Why is he not astounded by that?
And time only exists because we exist? Bullshit. If a rock rolls down a hill then that's a change. Which is all time is. A measurement of change. It'll roll down the hill exactly the same way if the universe is completely lifeless or whether it is teeming with life. Now how we measure that change depends on us. Our perception of time depends on us. What we use to measure that change depends on us. But the existence of change - which is what time is, does not.
Boldly of course.
This is from a well-known and influential paper by P.W. Anderson - "More is Different," written in the 1970s. The link takes you to an essay written about the paper more recently. The paper itself is appended to the back of the essay.
[quote="P.W Anderson - "More is Different.";http://file:///C:/Users/tpclark25/Intellectual/Science/More%20is%20Different%20with%20essay.pdf"] the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist" one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.
The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y [/quote]
Yes, we should consider all aspects of philosophy, including it's misuse.
I have come across that paper before, i actually downloaded the PDF some time ago but i haven't had the time to read the whole thing yet. I'm a little busy right now but i will try to read it as soon as i can and give you a reply. Thank you for reminding me to read that paper, i probably would have forgotten.
The problem with your view is how much it ascribes to chance. Ultimately, you say, stuff just happens, but that is actually not an argument or an explanation.
Quoting Bradskii
The existence of time requires the establishment of duration between points in time. That is what is supplied by the mind. You're neglecting or overlooking the way in which your mind is actually involved in constructing what you call 'the objective universe', by imagining it as if you can see it from no point of view whatever.
I'm not using it as an explanation. And I'm not making an argument. It was Lanza making the argument that things with an infinitely small chance of happening won't happen. I was simply pointing out that they happen all the time. It's just that if you declare in advance how you want a random system to turn out then the chances are infinitely small that you'll be correct.
The chances of those monkeys typing 'usbn3$*: dki8$ dh' are exactly the same as typing 'My name is Ishmail'. If you wanted that first sequence of characters, then it would be as infinitely impossible as the second.
And things are not entirely random. There are physical laws that dictate the number of ways a system can evolve. Now we can argue about why those laws are there. But we shouldn't be surprised that that process of evolution (and not just from a biological viewpoint) results in changes in complexity. And guys that write Hamlet and Moby Dick.
I have to read it again. It's been awhile.
There's an objective universe. It exists and operates whether we are here or not. Rocks will still roll down hills at a constant rate. Galaxies and stars and planets will form. And then there's our perception of it all. Which is obviously relative. Our perception of time is an individual thing. But a clock will always tick at the same rate if we're in the same room. Take that clock to the distant moon where the rock is rolling down the hill and the time it takes will be the same whoever uses that clock to measure it. That never changes.
That's only because you've stipulated the first set of characters, so it's no longer random. Besides, what Robert Lanza said is that these experiments have actually been tried. With actual monkeys, you get no text strings at all, you get broken keyboards with monkey feces on them. If you program a random character generator to output random characters, you can calculate the odds of producing the first three words of Moby Dick by random combinations, and its astronomically remote, involving trillions of years.
There's a similar principle in biology concerning the protein hyperspace. That refers to the possible ways that amino acids can be combined, only a very small number of which will actually produce a protein. The numbers there also are astronomically minute. Likewise the so-called 'fine constants' of the Universe. So when you drill down, all of the apparently random events that give rise to living beings, have precedents that seem somehow deeply embedded in the nature of the Cosmos.
Quoting Bradskii
But the entire philosophical question is about whether everything is determined by physical laws, or is not. That is the question at issue, so your response begs the question - it assumes the point at issue.
Quoting Bradskii
I know this may be difficult to accept, but that is also the point at issue. You're speaking from a position of naive realism (no pejorative intended, it's a textbook description) which assumes the reality of the objective world (or the sensory domain, call it what you will). But precisely that has been called into question in the history of philosophy, and certainly also by more recent cognitive science and the philosophy of physics. It doesn't mean that reality is all in your or in my mind, but that the mind - yours, mine, everyone's - provides a foundational element of what we designate as real, but which we're not aware of, because it is largely unconscious, it mainly comprises automatic (or autonomic) processes. One version of this argument is The Evolutionary Argument against Reality, by Donald Hoffman - particularly apt because it is (purportedly) based on evolutionary theory. It actually ties in with some of what Robert Lanza says (although they're very different theorists.)
They're both randon. Monkeys are typing them. The chances of getting both sequences are identical. It's just that someone wanted those in advance. It's like people that say the universe is fine tuned for us. Well, it would be if we were the purpose of the universe.
For what it's worth, we know of one person who wrote a play called "Hamlet," but he was born in the 16th century.
I was thinking of Dave Shakespeare. He wrote 'Hamlet II - The Quest For Vengence'.
In which he says:
'Snakes and trains, like the particles of physics, have no objective, observer-independent features. The snake I see is a description created by my sensory system to inform me of the fitness consequences of my actions. Evolution shapes acceptable solutions, not optimal ones. A snake is an acceptable solution to the problem of telling me how to act in a situation. My snakes and trains are my mental representations; your snakes and trains are your mental representations.'
There's a wooden Buddhah on my desk. Your mental representation of it will be exactly the same as as mine. And it has no impact on any action I am going to to make, so my senses aren't interested in adjusting my perception of it to offer a solution to the fitness consequences of it.
That certainly can happen when I see a stick in the grass and my senses shout 'snake!' I will actually believe that it's a snake. That's an evolutionary fail safe. But to extrapolate that to suggest that nothing is as we see it is truly bizarre.
I'm not assuming that physical laws exist. They do. And everything is determined by them. Why those laws exist as they do is an interesting question.
On the contrary, it might have huge impact. If youre Buddhist, then it affects your conduct and your view of life, and if youre not, then you might suffer for want of those same principles.
It has nothing to do with my evolutionary prospects. Just as the ceramic frog and the drinks coaster also on the desk have nothing to do with them either. Not everything is evolutionary consequential. My senses aren't adjusting my perception of a wooden coaster to increase my chances of passing on my genetic information. Let's get real here.
The argument is that a ceramic frog (or a train in the interview quoted) is objectively different to you as it would be to me because our senses interpret it in way that determines our individual evolutionary prospects.
I'd like to see some sort of support for that so I'd have something to to refute.
No - the argument is about objectivity, not about particular objective differences. You and I, being members of the same culture, period of history, and evolutionary process will share a consensus on what is objectively true. But that is not the point at issue. Hoffman's argument is that as our sensory apparatus have been shaped by evolution, then what we perceive is not objective in the sense of 'existing completely separately from our senses'. It is not independently real in the way we generally assume. The way we perceive is a function of evolutionary adaptation, not the perceptions of how things truly are apart from that or outside of that.
What is being called into question is the notion of the 'observer-independence' of the objective domain.
Which is what I reject. I completely accept that what we see is not necessarily an accurate representation of objective reality. But that's internal to us. Maybe I see the necker cube turned towards me. Maybe you see it facing away. Maybe you see the snake and I see the stick. But if it IS a stick then it's a stick whatever you or I think about it. It's a stick if there's no-one to observe it.
The moon existed billions of years before anything like multicellular life existed. Let alone intelligent life. So for a few billion years there was an observer-independent objective reality a few thousand kays away. Size, mass, composition etc all objectively real.
So what happens to that objective reality when Man gradually emerged? What changes could there have been to that objective reality that we could propose?
Again, what you see and what I see may not be exactly the same. It may be important to one of us. It may be just a rock or maybe one of us thinks it has some control over animal behaviour. But what we personally observe has zero impact on the objective reality of whatever it is that we observe.
But you can't step outside that. There's not 'the world how it is' and 'how it appears to us' because what we know is a function of how it appears to us.
Quoting Bradskii
The objective reality you propose is a creation of the mind. Of course the moon and the universe existed in some way before your existence, but the way in which it existed is entirely unintelligible, completely meaningless.
Quoting Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order
I totally get how outlandish these ideas sound when you first encounter them. The reason it provokes such a strong reaction is because it challenges your innate sense of what is real. But that is what philosophy calls into question (or should, although that is rarely found in what is taught as philosophy in today's academy.)
Notice the similarity between these two Q&A's. The first is from Donald Hoffman, whom we've been discussing, the second comes from Chris Fuchs, who is a quantum theorist and an advocate for a philosophy of physics called Quantum Baynesianism (QBism).
Compare that to
Note the convergence of the bolded passages: there is not a single, objective reality which different observers see, there is only reality-as-experienced by those observers. (Notice both these articles are from scientists and are published in a popular science magazine, Quanta, rather than a philosophy journal.)
This is categorically wrong. In thinking that red, for example, only exists if there is someone around who decides it's red. But we don't do that. What we decide is that objects that emit a wavelength around 700nm we shall describe to each other with a particular sound we can make with our vocal chords. And scratch a few runes on a suitable material to represent that sound. But whether anyone observes the colour of the object, it still emits wavelengths at that frequency.
The same applies if an object is spherical or has a given mass or size or has a specific temperature. Those facts are objective and aren't dependent on how we decide to describe them.
It's as nonsensical as saying that there aren't objectively 5 objects unless there is someone who can actually count them.
I don't think it's particularly bizarre. It's useless philosophy flopping around like a fish in the bottom of the boat. That's not even all that unusual.
I was interested in this so I looked on the web. The explanation I found indicated that the proteins necessary for life can be very flexible. Many amino acids are interchangeable with others in proteins while still maintaining their function in living organisms. That reduces the unlikelihood of proteins needed for life "evolving" by orders and orders of magnitude and allows life to get started. After that the more limited range of proteins we find now could evolve.
This is a reasonable and useful metaphysical explanation of the nature of reality. But it's not the only one. I've made the case many times that objective reality and materialism are metaphysics, not physics. They also are very useful. They provide the foundation for science. I know both you and I recognize the limitations of a scientific worldview, but the reality you offer is not somehow more real.
I read about it in Simon Conway-Morris' book, Life's Solution.
Quoting T Clark
Scientific materialism arises precisely in the attempt to apply scientific method to the problems of philosophy. Science is predominantly a method of acquiring knowledge but is not a worldview per se. In fact part of the implication of scientific scepticism is that it should not be taken as a worldview.
Saying physical laws exist somehow out in the universe somewhere without people is just old fashioned idealism. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's metaphysics, not science. Physical laws were created by humans to document and explain observed regularities in the behavior of the universe. Calling them "laws" is metaphorical, as if these laws somehow cause things to happen rather than describing how they happen.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. The idea of laws of physics has been a useful and productive one.
:100:
Quoting Wayfarer
:100:
@Agent Smith @Gnomon
This is just a bad translation of the Tao Te Ching without the poetry or soul. It shares with the Tao Te Ching the fact that it is metaphysics. If you insist that this is the only way to see things, you are just repeating the error you are arguing against.
I know you disagree with me on this, but, for me, conflating the [s]uncertainty[/s] formlessness described by Taoism with that described by quantum mechanics is mistaking a metaphor for reality. Up here at human scale, we don't live in a quantum world. We can know pretty exactly where baseballs are and how fast they are going at the same time. To say that the world we live in everyday is somehow less real than that found at the scale of subatomic particles makes the whole idea of reality meaningless, ridiculous.
These don't seem like similar statements to me at all. I wonder if they would to Chris Fuchs.
I'll say it again - the existence of objective reality is only one way of looking at the world. It's metaphysics. If you can't see that, or at least understand what @Wayfarer is trying to say, and it's clear that you don't, there is no way you he can come to any common understanding. You will bash each other for hours and days and never get anywhere.
I put it on my reading list.
Quoting Wayfarer
Materialism is a metaphysical worldview. Science is a method or series of methods to gather knowledge. Materialism or something similar are, or at least have been, the absolute presuppositions, basic assumptions, which are the foundation for the scientific methods.
But he wrote a book could the Selfish Gene and in it he specifically tried to put the worst interpretation on altruism because he was determined to make altruism ultimately self serving and for the good of the Gene and found self sacrifice problematic and puzzling.
He clearly has wanted people to accept his model of evolution and the negative ideas found in his books regardless of what else he has said. People do make contradictory claims. He is like the Bible. But his theoretical ideas are different then his ventures into pop psychology and pop philosophy.
The problem is that a theory that has a notion of survival of the fittest, selection, fitness, competition, hierarchies, selfishness etc built in to explain biological success has innate negative connotations.
It means they are saying that anything going against these trends is undermining biological viability or success and health which is exactly what Darwin himself said in a quote I cited.
He now regrets the title 'selfish gene,' and has stated many times that it was an unwise choice.
Altruism, as demonstrated in many species, does indeed 'handshake,' with the natural imperative that a species has for it's own survival. Humans have also used such phenomena as altruism to build moral imperatives, no god required.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
His model of evolution is correct!
Descriptions and observations such as the cruelty of animal interactions are only negative idea's if we accept them within our current or developing human society. Dawkins has NEVER recommended jungle rules for human society. He has also NEVER tried to suggest that humans who currently live as if they still lived under jungle rules (like some of the current rich or some political leaders or military groups or even some celebrities) are justified, in acting that way or even in thinking that way. We can't blame fictitious gods for our bad behaviour. We must 'sort it out,' amongst ourselves, no matter how many generations it takes.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No, the bible is fable based. Dawkins books are fact based.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No, that's your(and others) interpretation. I see little connection between evolutionary fact and what humans decide to implement/legislate under the label of 'human morality.' The detailed workings and consequences of evolution through natural selection need not dictate any human morality AT ALL.
What source are you referring to that states human morality must follow the dictates of evolution via natural selection? Only BS such as Nazi propaganda or the divine right of Kings to rule, comes to mind.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No it does not suggest any such thing, unless you and others decide to interpret it in such ways.
I suggest to you that humans are quite capable of, and many many millions of us have (since we came out of the wilds) very strong intent towards, creating moral systems, that are benevolent to all humans and all objects in the universe which come into contact with humans, and we don't, nor ever have, needed a god to do so. Don't allow your primal fears to cause you to think irrationally about any notion, that we are forever compelled to act like we did, when we lived as hunter gatherers in the wilds under jungle rules.
We are under no such dictates!
How is that idealism? You meant realism, yes?
Dawkins is a fairly nice bloke. I dont think he is as negative as you paint him. I still like Unweaving the Rainbow which is worth a read to see a different side than what you may be familiar with.
I'd concur. For example, a body will remain at rest or continue in motion at a constant speed until it is acted upon by some force. There had to be someone to actually point it out so Newton's First Law didn't exist as such until Newton existed. But all bodies remained at rest until acted on by some force whether he or anyone else existed to formulate that law.
I really dont know what youre concurring with. Believing laws (or objects) exist without people is not idealism. Its the opposite of idealism. Its realism.
So how about this view?
"...we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscience intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies."
Dawkins himself, explaining in no uncertain terms, that your comment above is wrong. My guess is that you haven't read the book.
I agree.
Thanks for clarifying.
I call it idealism because it claims that there is some sort of abstract entity in the universe independent of actual phenomena. Something that we can't see or sense that somehow causes things to happen. Do these abstract entities control the behavior of matter and energy? I thought phenomena were caused by interactions between matter and energy.
Quoting Bradskii
Why do I need some explanation for why something doesn't change it's motion? Even if I look at Newton's second law, it says that bodies will change their velocity if acted on by a force. The force causes the change, not some law. All the so-called law does is describe how it happens.
Abstract entity? That's an odd way to describe physical laws. As in Newton's First for example. And yes, it's just a description. Of something that happens whether there is somebody there to see it or not. Whi h was the bone of contention.
Is that a quote from The Selfish gene? Because I can quote from the Selfish Gene to prove my points.
This is how he starts the book:
[i]"Intelligent life on a planet comes of age when it first works out the reason for its own existence. If
superior creatures from space ever visit earth, the first question they will ask, in order to assess the
level of our civilization, is: 'Have they discovered evolution yet?'"[/i]
Based on this comment he appears to be asserting that evolution is the only way for life to come into existence. That doesn't follow even if evolution is taken to be true. Because hypothetically we can now possibly make life from scratch quickly using the latest bio technique but he is clearly arguing for the predominance of the evolutionary/natural selection explanation as the sole and dominant explanation and not for a flexible less dogmatic position.
He then goes own:
[i]"We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems: Is there
a meaning to life.' What are we for? What is man? After posing the last of these questions, the eminent
zoologist G. G. Simpson put it thus: 'The point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that
question before 1859 are worthless and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely.'"[/i]
Once again he is arguing for the preeminence and complete explanatory power of the evolutionary perspective.
I'm guessing that Dawkins' answer will be along similar lines to Steve Pinker's - 'enlightenment values' and 'scientific rationalism'. And indeed they have a lot going for them, but behind them, what image of man are they built around? I'm also not going to propose an answer to that, but I don't see much hint of it in Dawkin's anti-religion polemics.
And much of that is implicit, rather than stated upfront.
He's simply saying that we know how we got here. If you know of any other means other than the evolutionarty process, then let's hear it. But let's face it, it's the only game in town. Apart from a six day week's worth of creating.
Secular humanism. You've not heard of it as an alternative to religiously based morality?
How we got here has no impact whatsoever on determining a sense of morality from a secular viewpoint. And 'prejudices'? A position not based on reason? I think not.
And in any case, the very fact that the term is secular humanism should make it clear that we are discounting any divine imprimatur on moral positions. And if we are not here by divine fiat, then how else did we get here other than a consequence of disinterested physical laws?
You've two options for morality. Religiously based - hence we were created for a purpose. Or secular. In which case we weren't.
My case stands.
'Cept the prejudice bit. Otherwise we agree. Yay for blind physical laws!
Doesn't seem like you and I disagree much. Things don't have to follow a scientific law, it just so happens they do.
When people talk about "the jungle" and how horrible animals are to one another, they usually cite predators and prey - an then compare that behaviour to humans treating other humans as prey.
In fact, social animals never treat their own species the way humans do. They may fight over mates and territory; they may kill the offspring of a rival male, but they could never have invented the rack or the electric chair. Human law, religious or secular, has never, until the last couple of centuries, shown much regard for other species - not to the harvesting of food animals, the living conditions of draft animals or fairness in the pursuit of game animals (concepts entirely foreign to a hyena, though hyenas are not paragons of predator virtue).
I don't see how human law can be compared favourably with natural law.
Although I don't think you can demonstrate either a universal natural law of animal behavior nor that the laws in your country are the same as in mine, I agree with the gist of your point about people being morally worse than many other social animals when it comes to the treatment of their own kind. One major factor making for the difference is the shift from a fight for survival in animals to competition for higher social standing for people. We are competing for power, money, or prestige in the eyes of other people.
So, if you count up the ways a lion can be cruel - to other lions in its own pride, to other lions of competing prides, to other species of predator, to the species on which it preys and to other species that have no significance to him - then you should compare that to the ways in which a human can be cruel to members of his clan, members of his nation, humans in other nations, predators of other species, other species it uses for food, work and entertainment, and other species that have no direct significance to him.
Quoting magritte
You think it's easy becoming top meerkat in a mob or alpha wolf in a pack?
Yes, according to my personal decree of morality, subject to revision but absolute for each judgment of course. Like the baseball umpire's call of balls and strikes. Pigeons that roost on the head of the Teddy Roosevelt statue, and gulls and starlings that aim for pedestrians in a mall have low morals, but male sparrows that throw chicks out of the nest of a competing sparrow are despicable.
Quoting Vera Mont
I suppose not. Can it be more hopeless than the millions of bank and insurance company clerks working years for a promotion to assistant supervisory manager?
Oh, no. It's far more hopeful and fruitful. Every member of the mob knows exactly how well she's doing in comparison to her sisters and which one is most likely to take over when the matriarch dies. The alpha male will then be her choice among the dominant males. No lies, no illusions; no fake carrots.