Evolution and Mind/Body Dualism

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Which is not a problem at all whatsoever, unless you want to groundlessly assert that "kinds" just pop into existence out of nothing rather than coming from variations on living things that came before them, like evolution claims and the evidence clearly shows.

No, I am actually saying that "kinds" pop in to existence based on the power of the living God, who created all things.

No. An elephant and a snake share a common ancestor, but that ancestor most definitely isn't their "grandparents" or anything even remotely close - and such a childish and obvious over-simplification is evidence only of your unwillingness to actually understand the concepts involved in evolution.

Ok, I will just say NONE OF IT HAPPENED, and that will cover any postulation of parent, grandparent, great grandparent, and however many more "greats" you want to have.

I don't care what you think.

The feeling is mutual.

What matters to me is the evidence and where it leads, and right now every piece of available evidence indicates that all life shares a common ancestor, and absolutely no evidence shows that any "kinds" came into existence out of nothing or appeared fully formed.

Cool. You crack open any biology or evolution book and you are reading books based on your religion. I crack open the bible and read Gen 1, and that is my religion. We both have religions. Goodie.

Wrong. What you do is keep to your prior assumptions, make no attempt to understand anything that conflicts with those prior assumptions, and continue to deny and dismiss anything that doesn't fit with your preconceived worldview. Hence why you STILL do not understand how saying something as inane as "dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats" over and over and over again - despite having the fact that all living things reproduce variations of themselves explained to you countless times - is not going to overturn over a hundred years of scientific research and the work of millions of credible biologists, geologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and geneticists.

If you still do not understand, then the only explanation is that you refuse to understand - not because it "doesn't make sense" when it has been explained at length to you so many times. It makes perfect sense to anyone who knows the facts, and we have shown and explained to you those facts over and over so many times that you no longer have the excuse of not understanding. You're just willfully ignorant.

I have no good reason to accept the theory of evolution. Point blank, period.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

No, I am actually saying that "kinds" pop in to existence based on the power of the living God, who created all things.

In other words, they pop into existence out of nothing - which is something that has never happened to any species ever. What HAS happened and HAS been observed is living things reproducing variations of what they are. So, we are left with a choice of two positions:

1) Species pop into existence out of nothing (via the will of God) = NEVER BEEN OBSERVED EVER.
or
2) Species are a result of a lengthy process of reproduction with variation (through mutation and natural selection) = ALL OBSERVABLE FACTS.

So, we're left with a position which requires us to believe something that has never happened, versus an explanation which only requires us to believe things happen that have been observed to happen.

Which is more reasonable?

Ok, I will just say NONE OF IT HAPPENED, and that will cover any postulation of parent, grandparent, great grandparent, and however many more "greats" you want to have.

"None of it happened" is definitely no less childish and simplistic than your previous "grandparent" comparison. Obviously SOME of it happened, because every piece of available evidence ever uncovered shows clearly that life diversifies over time.

Cool. You crack open any biology or evolution book and you are reading books based on your religion. I crack open the bible and read Gen 1, and that is my religion. We both have religions. Goodie.

You're confusing religion and science. Evolution is a conclusion reached by careful observation of the available facts. Your religion was a pre-determined belief structure that you cling to in spite of any evidence that may contradict your particular doctrinal interpretation.

I have no good reason to accept the theory of evolution. Point blank, period.

Then you obviously have no idea what "evidence" or "reason" are, and since you still fail to understand even basic facts about what evolution actually claims then you are clearly insufficiently knowledgeable on the subject to have reached an informed conclusion. The fact that you don't accept evolution therefore indicates nothing about the theory other than that you know too little about it (willfully or otherwise) to understand, comprehend or accept it.

 

[Bunyip]

I agree with most of this. But I'd dispute your earlier statement that consciousness is a product of mind. It may be a product of BIOS-like processes that the brain executes, but mind is just the database of information stored in memory. As such, it has no limit determined by the information processed.

I don't see how that in any way counters the fact that consciousness is a product of the mind.

 

[cottage]

I am saying that according to the best empirical evidence, we have reasons to believe that the universe began to exist...not just everything within the world, but the world itself. Also, there is a philosophical backing that corroborates this as well.

I have no reason to disagree with that hypothesis!

So my question is simply this; can something come from nothing? Can a horse pop into being uncaused out of nothing in your living room right now?? Yes or no...if the answer is yes, then I will then ask you more questions than you will be able to provide answers for. If the answer is no, then what are you talking about?

Logically, yes, of course it can. The world at least as far as we’ve ever experienced answers to cause and effect but there is no certitude in that respect, hence the philosophical problem of induction. So if I may repeat myself, the argument that a thing which begins to exist must have an external cause is a false premise because the inference can only be made from the experiential world where no things begin to exist but are either new objects synthesised from pre-existent matter or concepts abstracted and compounded from experience. Your argument that the material world began to exist is not disputed but only your assertion that it must have an external cause- or indeed any cause!

Yes there is. If the world is uncaused then nothing actually "began" in the first place. What are you talking about?????????????? You are using "uncaused" and "began" in the same context..erraneously.

Well of course I’m using it in the same context! That’s the argument: that world came to exist where before there was nothing. If a thing comes to exist without a cause then its existence obviously began.

I fail to see how saying "laws are the uniformity of nature as observed" negates the fact that laws have lawgivers. The laws are engineered, perfectly tailored to be fine tuned for human life. That kind of mathematical precision, that kind of specified complexity....yeah...nature did it, right?

And what “fact” is it that you refer to that “laws have law givers”? And if you believe that laws are engineered and fine tuned for human life then your engineer is evidently a poor artificer. Volcanoes, for example, serve no purpose whatsoever other than as a reaction to a series of malfunctions in the earth’s core. And yet volcanic eruption and the movement of tectonic plates sit perfectly with the rudderless progression of evolution, which is almost defined by its fault lines and failures. In nature there are many accidents and catastrophes that occur because we live in a maladjusted world where the elements are in conflict with one another, which is hardly an example of fine tuning or perfect design.

No need in being a tough guy, cot. You don't want those kind of problems either.

And what is that supposed to mean? How do those (peculiar) remarks have anything to do with what I said? Eh?

I am paying attention. As I've said time and time again, you appear to be double talking. You just said that it is not necessary for a universe which begins to exist to have an external cause...now based on the law of excluded middle, the only other option is for it to pop in to being uncaused out of nothing...but then you just said in the above quote that you don't believe that something can come from nothing.

And quite frankly, I don't have the patience to keep trying to figure you out, as this is at least the third or fourth time we've had this same conversation and neither time have I come any close to understanding what you are trying to say.

Yes, no matter how many times I put it to you it would seem you are still unable to follow the argument I’m making. So I’m going to have yet another attempt to spell it out for you as clearly as I can.

A thing being uncaused does not mean, and cannot logically be taken to imply, that something can come from nothing. Self-evidently “nothing” cannot produce anything! Now causation exists in the phenomenal world but like the world as a whole it has no logical necessity; it simply doesn’t have to exist at all. So, when you say the world’s beginning needs an external cause you are making an inference from the experiential world where all things are understood to comply with a law of cause and effect. So when you claim that the world has an external cause you are also committed to claiming (falsely) that causation is necessary and that all possible worlds (to include God) must be as the actual world, and that is of course contradictory for by inferring the existence of a Necessary Being on the same causal terms the deity then becomes dependent upon a contingent fact. But if there is no necessity in causation, which there isn’t, then something can logically come to exist where before there was nothing; and with causation rejected it is certainly not being said that nothingness has produced the something.

5th time....the argument states that the universe began to exist, cot. You keep talking about things "in the material world"...when I am talking about the finitude of the whole she-bang...the entire world...the world itself...the world IN GENERAL.

Yes, and I am too, and I’ve made that abundantly clear.

God did not create the world for himself, he created it for us. So as long as he created it for us, that would negate the idea that "God could not be self-sufficient because if he were, he wouldn't need/want to create anything". If he isn't creating it for himself, then that argument is defeated.

It’s self-contradictory! How could God create the world for our benefit when we didn’t even exist”?

 

[cottage]

1. The universe existed eternally in time.

2. The universe popped in to being uncaused out of nothing

3. The universe has an external cause

#1 and #2 are logically absurd. #3 is more plausible than the other two and I am prepared to make the case if need be. You are saying that God cannot logically create from nothing, yet you find an uncaused world which exists in time logical? Do you not realize the problem you have with infinity?

Neither God nor any other thing can cause something to exist from nothing. But once we reject causation as necessary principle then there is no logical impediment in something appearing uncaused. And with an uncaused cause there is no infinite regress because the very principle of causation and time itself will only come to exist with the existence of the world. This has the clear advantage of being free of contradictions – unlike the God hypothesis.

I need justification on how the conclusion follows from the premises. You’ve provided no justification, just making statements.

Then you are not seeing the argument. Here it is in a more formal style:

1: By definition God’s essence perfect, unchanging, and complete; and being simple has no parts.

2: If anything comes from God’s essence it cannot be inferior (premise 1)

3: The world is composed of parts, subject to change, and inferior to God

C: Therefore the world cannot have come from God himself.

Logically coherent and more plausible based on our current knowledge.

Excuse me! Our current knowledge does not extend to God, deities or mysticism!

And that is the problem right there. A world that is eternal is uncaused…you are making a distinction between the two when they are not the same…so again, what are you talking about?

Yes, I am making a distinction between the two and they are not necessarily the same. I’m talking about: a world that began to exist uncaused, not an uncaused eternal world.

Oh really?

Yes, really! If you disagree that an uncaused world has no contradictions, unlike the other hypothesises, then let’s hear them.

Ok, so when I am happy, is the neurons happy? What exactly is happy? If the neurons themselves are not happy, then what about me is “happy”…and if the neurons are happy, then I must be the neurons, because whichever state the neurons are in has to be identical with the state that “I” and in.

No, the neurones aren’t “happy” and nor are they sad. They are a chemical state that makes the person happy or sad, and the person bodily reacts according to those chemical imbalances. A person who, for example, is depressed may feel lethargic and not take part in the more usual activities. Conversely a person that is happy may have more energy and enthusiasm and be energetic. The body reflects the way the brain functions, and sense contents influences the brain. And remember that the chemicals that cause happiness or sadness are themselves corporeal.

I don’t see how that follows. It seems like faith to me. I agree, there are definitely changes over time, but there are limitations to the changes and those limitations are limited to specific “kinds”. That is all we see and there is just no reason to believe otherwise unless you have an agenda to push.

I’m not sure about the term “kinds”. But we see, just as an example, forms of the genus Crataegus that have no common observable features with the parent plant and yet we know that they were both propagated from the common Hawthorn. So I don’t think it is difficult at all to view the idea of new species appearing over billions of years as being not just plausible but likely, rather than problematic or impossible. But I’m perplexed as to why you are so hostile to the concept of Evolution when in no way does it cancel out God or deities?

 

[Willamena]

I don't see how that in any way counters the fact that consciousness is a product of the mind.

Because mind is a product of consciousness. We need the faculty of awareness to build the database of "things" in memory.

 

[Bunyip]

Because mind is a product of consciousness. We need the faculty of awareness to build the database of "things" in memory.

Sorry, but I do not see how that is supposed to make sense.

Awareness is a product of a physical brain, just as consciousness is. Consciousness, mind, awareness are products of a physical brain.

 

[Riverwolf]

Can I at least get 50%?

That's up to you.

And create a brain from pre-existing tissue, and the brain won't suddenly or gradually become conscious.

Because it's not a living tissue. It's just matter.

Before it can think, it has to be alive.

There isn't one naturalistic theory that you can appeal to that would rid you of the absurdity of infinite regress. None.

If you think there is..then by all means, enlighten me.

Who said anything about infinite regress?

I am convinced that God exists based on the arguments that I've been presented..which does not at all reflect what you are trying to demonstrate above.

I'm not talking about your belief in God. I'm talking about your 100% conviction, with no possibility of being incorrect, that natural evolution is impossible and no evidence exists.

Too much light is just as blinding as not enough.

You won't get the fine tuning that is required for human life from a chaotic and random big bang event. The low entropy had to be an initial condition for life to exist in the first place.

We don't know if it was chaotic and random. Just that it happened.

So I believe in an external creator based on inference...I am inferring it based on what I already know. If you have a deck of cards and you throw the entire deck in the air and watch the cards land, you wouldn't expect the cards to land "Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10".

So how can you expect the constants and values which are associated with the cosmos to be so precise, so specied, if everything began from a chaotic and random expansion some 13.7 billion years ago?

Who says they're precise? Seems pretty inhospitable to me. Earth is always dodging bullets.

Umm, ok.

Point?

If there was "objective morality" then we'd expect to see other animals following them, with the exact rules that are supposed to apply to us.

We don't.

I didn't know that a "word for God" was necessary. All that is required is that "God" is in the dictionary and it has a definition.

Hardly. Methinks you need to study up on the intricacies of language. A word's dictionary definition is not necessarily going to be the actual concept that the word is supposed to convey, or its full depth of meaning. Even within the same language, it's also likely to change from dialect to dialect.

In Latin the word used is Deus. But Deus doesn't mean "God", strictly speaking. The Anglic equivalent to the Latin Deus is Tiw, from which "Tuesday" comes from. (Also related to the Irish Dia and Greek Zeus).

Please explain why they are not consistent biographies of the life, death, Resurrection, and post-mortem appearences of Jesus Christ?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Different genealogies given, different order of events, etc.

It's been a while since I've read the Gospels, but I'm sure you could read them back to back. The Devil, they say, is in the details.

Thing is, even if it were 100% consistent, there's no reason to take them as history.

What do you mean "even if it were true"...if it WERE true, then Jesus is the Son of the Living God and your entire salvation is based upon him and him alone.

Why is what's described beyond the ability of a Trickster God playing a massive prank?

And im explaining the religious concensus.

No, you're sharing the consensus reached among certain groups of Christians, not all Christianity as a whole, and CERTAINLY not religion as a whole.

I am strong in my faith too...I just think that with the question of ORIGINS, science should keep its mouth shut. I don't believe in natural explanations for the origins of the universe, life, or consciousness. Science needs to realize that there are some things that its methodology won't ever be able to explain...plain and simple.

You don't know that.

Besides, the sciences don't tackle the topic of origins in most cases. Frankly, I think your understanding of science has been influenced by the Straw Man's lies.

There is indication of it based on the argument against infinite regression, which the kalam details...therefore, a timeless/necessary cause is essential...and the Christian God matches this criteria.

Hardly essential.

Well explore it, Magellan

Well, in my brief exploration, I found something you might find interesting. From wikipedia:

Thomas Aquinas, while proposing five proofs of God's existence in his Summa Theologica, objected to Anselm's argument. He suggested that people cannot know the nature of God and, therefore, cannot conceive of God in the way Anselm proposed.[42] The ontological argument would be meaningful only to someone who understands the essence of God completely. Aquinas reasoned that, as only God can completely know His essence, only He could use the argument.[43] His rejection of the ontological argument caused other Catholic theologians to also reject the argument.[44]

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument#Criticisms_and_objections

Yup...with 20/20 vision.

Show me where you looked.

Exactly!!!! All of those animals, they are all part of the "dog" kind. Every single one of them. Different varieties of the same kind, no doubt.

They are called "family", the family Canine, to be precise. "Kind" is so generic and broad that it's completely useless. Believe it or not, tanooki (raccoon dog) are also part of this family.

Family is two degrees away from "species".

The "family" that humans belong to is "hominidae", that is "Great Apes", which includes only three other genera (singular genus): Chimpanzee, Orangutan, and Gorilla. We are as different from each other as domestic dogs are from other canines.

And if you bring the ability to reproduce into it, remember that domestic dogs cannot interbreed with foxes.

IOW, apparently if we go by your "kind" classification, including both domestic dogs and foxes in the same one, then at some point, members of this same "kind" lost the ability to interbreed.

BTW, wolves are not dogs; IOW, wolves ARE non-dogs.

I dont know what kind of insect that is...and I haven't looked into the hedgehog and porcupine...but at first glance I will have to say no.

Very good. They're not even remotely related, despite the fact that they meet your criteria of child-recognition of surface-similarities. Therefore, "any child can see it" is completely worthless as a judgment of two species' relatedness.

BTW, it's an ant-lion.

 

[Riverwolf]

Anything beyond that is voodoo.

No, Voodoo is a combination of Haitian folk religion with Catholicism.

 

[Riverwolf]

Cool. You crack open any biology or evolution book and you are reading books based on your religion. I crack open the bible and read Gen 1, and that is my religion. We both have religions. Goodie.

I've never read an evolution or biology book. I don't have to.

 

[Sapiens]

Wolves are dogs...they may have been the first dogs...they may have been one of the original dog kinds...I don't know. But they are clearly the same kind of animal as what we call "dogs"...which is why I keep resorting to the 3 year old...give a three year old a piece of paper with a picture of a wolf, coyote, husky, jackal, dingo, and lion...and ask the kid which animal is different, unless the kid inherited a "Darwinism" trait or something, the kid will point too the lion, recognizing the lion as the different "kind" of animal. We (animals included) tend to look like the ancestors that we came from, which is why the siberian husky and wolf look a lot alike...so there is absolutely no reason for the siberian husky to be a "kind of dog", but the wolf to not be a "kind of dog".

So, you are saying that the wolf, dingo, domestic dog, coyote, golden jackal, red fox, fennec fox and African wold dog are all one "kind?"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canid_hybrid#cite_note-Canids-9

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

So, you are saying that the wolf, dingo, domestic dog, coyote, golden jackal, red fox, fennec fox and African wold dog are all one "kind?"

Yes...they are all different varieties of the same kind of animal..."dog"...I dont care what word you use to describe them..you don't have to use the word "dog"...no matter what you call them, they are clearly the same "kind" of animal.

 

[Sapiens]

Yes...they are all different varieties of the same kind of animal..."dog"...I dont care what word you use to describe them..you don't have to use the word "dog"...no matter what you call them, they are clearly the same "kind" of animal.

Clearly? Based on what criteria? Also, are lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, bobcats, and house cats all one kind? If not ... where do you place the divisions into separate "kinds?"

 

[idav]

Yes...they are all different varieties of the same kind of animal..."dog"...I dont care what word you use to describe them..you don't have to use the word "dog"...no matter what you call them, they are clearly the same "kind" of animal.

How are we not an "ape" kind? Just like those other species fit in some taxonomy group so do we, with apes.

 

[Sapiens]

And what about cattle, e.g., beef, buffalo, water buffalo, gnus, yak, bison, zebu and gaur? What is the same "kind?" What is different?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

In other words, they pop into existence out of nothing - which is something that has never happened to any species ever. What HAS happened and HAS been observed is living things reproducing variations of what they are. So, we are left with a choice of two positions:

1) Species pop into existence out of nothing (via the will of God) = NEVER BEEN OBSERVED EVER.

I agree, even on Christian theism, no one was present when God began the creation process..this is something we use logical reasoning to conclude, and sprinkle a little bit of faith in the mix there you have it.

But the difference between our view and that of yours is the fact that we are not calling our view science. Neither views are scientific, and I am sorry to burst your little bubble in that regard.
or

2) Species are a result of a lengthy process of reproduction with variation (through mutation and natural selection) = ALL OBSERVABLE FACTS.

So when asked "How come we can't observe these voodoo changes", the answer is, "because it takes so long"..

And now you are on here claiming that this "lengthy process of reproduction with variation" are observable facts? No it isn't. You've never observed macroevolution, which makes the above claim quite disingenuous.

So, we're left with a position which requires us to believe something that has never happened, versus an explanation which only requires us to believe things happen that have been observed to happen.

Which is more reasonable?

Which is more reasonable? The reasonable view is to not call things which havent been observed or experimented on SCIENCE. That is what is reasonable. It is also not reasonable to conclude that the snakes that are slithering around in our world today came from a non-snake of the past...that is also unreasonable.

"None of it happened"

Well, it hasnt happened, thus the claim; "None of it happened".

is definitely no less childish and simplistic than your previous "grandparent" comparison. Obviously SOME of it happened, because every piece of available evidence ever uncovered shows clearly that life diversifies over time.

Variations within the kind is the only diversified concepts we've ever witnesses.

You're confusing religion and science. Evolution is a conclusion reached by careful observation of the available facts.

Right, we've observed microevolution...changes within the kind. No problems there.

Your religion was a pre-determined belief structure that you cling to in spite of any evidence that may contradict your particular doctrinal interpretation.

I go where the evidence and common sense takes me.

Then you obviously have no idea what "evidence" or "reason" are, and since you still fail to understand even basic facts about what evolution actually claims then you are clearly insufficiently knowledgeable on the subject to have reached an informed conclusion. The fact that you don't accept evolution therefore indicates nothing about the theory other than that you know too little about it (willfully or otherwise) to understand, comprehend or accept it.

Yeah yeah yeah, spare me.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Clearly? Based on what criteria? Also, are lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, bobcats, and house cats all one kind? If not ... where do you place the divisions into separate "kinds?"

They are the "cat" kind. And what criteria are you using to base your theory? I am saying every animal within the "kind" tend to look like the rest within its kind, and lions, tigers, cougars, bobcats, they all look alike. If you were to "group" all of the animals in the world based on looks, you would be hard pressed not to group all of the lions, tigers, ect, in the same group, and coincidentally, they are all cats!!!

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

And what about cattle, e.g., beef, buffalo, water buffalo, gnus, yak, bison, zebu and gaur? What is the same "kind?" What is different?

For the most part, yeah.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

How are we not an "ape" kind? Just like those other species fit in some taxonomy group so do we, with apes.

God created man and he created apes...apes closely resemble humans...big deal.

 

[idav]

God created man and he created apes...apes closely resemble humans...big deal.

You lack consistency cause that is how your determining kinds for all other species with the exception of humans. I expect as much.

DNA shows where our parents come from, that's how biology works. DNA sequencing matches that of fossil records and the timeline. That is more than a coincidence, it is overwhelming evidence.

What this means is for creation to be true, god would have to make all the evidence appear as if it took millions of years but really did it in 6 days. I can buy that more than denying the evidence right in front of us.