Evolution and Mind/Body Dualism

[AndromedaRXJ]

I am asking how would the event of your birth come to past, Andro? That is the question. If I told you that I am counting to infinity, and when I reach infinity, you will get a $100000000000000000000000000000 deposited in your bank account, and I began counting...when will you get the money? Every number that I count will always be a finite number, so I will never reach "infinity" as a destination, so you will never get the money, and that is the problem.

The problem with counting to infinite is it's an event that occupies an infinitely long interval in time.

It's like a rock in infinite space where the rock it self occupies infinite space at least in one direction.

My birth isn't an event that takes up infinite time. It's a moment that begins and ends. A finite event in a possibly infinite time. Counting to infinite is an infinite event in infinite time. So wrong analogy.

If the past is infinite, that mean the events which lead to your birth is also infinite, and for you to be born, infinite had to be traversed...but to say that your birth came to past and it was preceded by an infinite number of events would be saying that you got the money in your account after I counted from 1 to infinity.

It can't happen. So, try again.

In the analogy, I used events in time. Please stick to the events.

The problem is, you're thinking of time it self as moving. That's not the case. Objects move through time(and space), and events occupy positions in time.

All you have to do is move through time to arrive at events. Doesn't matter if it's infinite or not. Would you agree that with infinite time, events are gonna happen regardless?

I don't know...it doesn't look like any dog I ever saw, or any cat that I ever saw. I don't know.

You sure you've never seen them? This is the same animal.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Demonstrate how your birth can come to past if an infinite number of births preceded it and I will answer any question you may have.

Why don't you just admit when you can't answer a question instead of proposing a further question? It does't make you look intellectually superior - it makes you look like you're blatantly avoiding the question. What makes this question of yours all the more absurd is that you can easily answer it yourself by answering mine.

I'll give you one more chance to answer it. If you dodge the question once more it will expose the fact that you cannot answer it, because providing the answer actually exposes the serious flaw in your logic and the way you view time and infinities. Here it is, one last time:

How many sequential events can occur within a second?

 

[cottage]

I only shout certain words to place emphasis. Have a backbone, will ya?

‘…and sneering remarks’.

I distinctively remember you saying that #2 was not possible, and now you are saying that you gave me a "properly logical argument" for #2...again, it sounds like you are double talking yet again and as I said before, I don't have the patience needed to try and figure you out. If you are officially saying that it is possible for the universe to POP IN TO BEING (emphasis) uncaused....out of NOTHING...then simply say it.

What I’ve said consistently and continually is that a thing cannot come from nothing, but something can, as Hume showed, exist where before there was nothing. If you prefer the slightly fatuous ‘popped into being’ that is fine by me, as long as you understand that it is not being argued that the nothingness was in some way the producing agent. If this point isn’t grasped we’re going to go round in circles for ever more.

I disagree with "But in that case the reason or explanation for the world must by the same argument have a reason or explanation to explain itself in terms of explaining the world".

Then tell me why you disagree and I’ll give you my response.

Again, the argument is "everything that begins to exist has a cause". The cause of the world never began to exist, therefore, it doesn't have a cause...and in light of the infinity argument, it only flows logically with the fact that whatever gave the universe its beginning could not itself be within the universe, or OF the universe.

The proposition ‘everything that begins to exist has a cause’ is false as I’ve already shown. Nothing in the world is observed to begin to exist but only changes form, and therefore it cannot be inferred from the world as a whole beginning to exist that there must be an external cause. And any argument to an infinite regress can only hold water on the basis that causality is necessary, and it demonstrably is not.

Again, you can't just admit the universe began with the Big Bang, and just leave it at that...there had to be a cause of the universe, cot. And if you take God out of the equation, and you admit that there was nothing before the universe began, then you are saying that the universe popped in to being uncaused out of nothing...and I must say, I refuse to believe that you would take such an irrational position such as this. Please, don't prove me wrong.

I am saying for the umpteenth time that the universe is uncaused. Why, because it is the only hypothesis that is not self-contradictory. And since it is the only hypothesis that doesn’t run to a contradiction then it certainly cannot be deemed irrational.

I don't even need a reason, because negating a first-cause would mean either infinite regress or things popping in to being uncaused out of nothing...which the latter two are demonstrably absurd and false.

There is no demonstrable absurdity! Please read Hume’s comments again; it isn’t a difficult passage:

“’Tis sufficient only to observe that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that conclusion.”

But you already admitted that the universe began to exist, cot. Either the universe' existence was a contingent possibility, or a necessary possibility...if it happened, either either happened necessarily or contingently...so how could there have been no contingent laws? Makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. In nothingness there is no causation and no laws of thought, therefore necessity and contingency has no meaning or application other than in the world.

So, the universe popped in to being uncaused out of nothing...gotcha. The lengths some people will go through to deny the Creator.

The accusation, to ‘deny the creator’ is not philosophy but the finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance, since you are evidently beginning with the answer; whereas to deny a creator is where a conclusion is derived from valid premises in a given argument, which is what I’ve done!

God's change from timeless to temporal was a contingent change and I fail to see any contradiction here, especially if going from atemporal to temporal doesn't effect his power or will. Unless you can demonstrate how an atemporal God is any "less" of a God than a temporal one, or vice versa, then this objection, in my opinion, is VERY miniscule.

In reply to the highlighted part, my answer is that I already have done so! And the objection is composed of two parts. First there is a contradiction in one of the definitional essences of God: that he is unchanging and unchangeable; and secondly that he has had to implement that hugely significant and contradictory change in order to bring into being an inferior, contingent and finite existence. I’ll leave you to ponder those absurdities, for that is what they are within the proper meaning of the term.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The problem with counting to infinite is it's an event that occupies an infinitely long interval in time.

Dude, and the problem with postuating a past-eternal universe is that it would "occupy an infinitely long interval in time". What the heck are you talking about, as if what you say doesn't apply to the universe as a whole???

And not only that, but you say it as if the "problem" applies to me lol. My goodness, people.

It's like a rock in infinite space where the rock it self occupies infinite space at least in one direction.

Irrelevant.

My birth isn't an event that takes up infinite time.

No one said or implied that your birth is an "event that takes up infinite time". No one implied this, so either you lack comprension skills or you are just simply attacking straw man.

Your birth doesn't take an infinite amount of time, but if there were an infinite number of events which preceded it, then it would take an infinite amount of time to reach your birth, and you would never be born.

It's a moment that begins and ends. A finite event in a possibly infinite time. Counting to infinite is an infinite event in infinite time. So wrong analogy.

If you seriously think that this miniscule objection that you are offering serves as a defeater of the argument against infinity, then you are sadly mistaken. I am not even sure you under the argument nor the analogy, must less offer an objection to it.

The problem is, you're thinking of time it self as moving. That's not the case. Objects move through time(and space), and events occupy positions in time

No I am not thinking of time itself as moving!!! In the analogy I said the EVENT OF YOUR BIRTH. I am talking about events in time, not time itself. So again, either your reading comprehension skills are lacking or you are just simply setting up straw man.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Why don't you just admit when you can't answer a question instead of proposing a further question?

Um, proposing a further question? We are having two different discussions here, in case you haven't noticed...and this "further" question that you are referring too has nothing to do with the subject of evolution, which is the second discussion we are having.

It does't make you look intellectually superior - it makes you look like you're blatantly avoiding the question. What makes this question of yours all the more absurd is that you can easily answer it yourself by answering mine.

I don't even know what you are talking about. The only time me and you converse is when the subject of evolution is mentioned. Talk about anything besides evolution, and ImmortalFlame is nowhere to be found.

I'll give you one more chance to answer it. If you dodge the question once more it will expose the fact that you cannot answer it, because providing the answer actually exposes the serious flaw in your logic and the way you view time and infinities. Here it is, one last time:

How many sequential events can occur within a second?

I repeat; Respond to my analogy, and I will answer the question. If that isn't good enough for you, then too bad.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

No, because there is a model wherein a traversal with no start or end is possible: a closed shape.

Furthermore, time is not a constant; it fluctuates based on several factors, including gravity. Heck, let me blow your mind: if you went exactly the speed of light, time for you would stop altogether; if you went faster than the speed of light, you'd go back in time.

Irrelevant to the analogy.

Finally, the Tree of Life does not extend infinitely to the past.

Never said it did

I fail to see how it's impossible, since I fail to see where you get this idea that anything has to be "traversed", in the first place.

*Sigh*. In order for your birth to come to past, an infinite number of events had to come to past, so if the past is eternal, then the fact that your birth has come to past would imply a traversal of infinity, which is absurd. Now, what part of that don't you understand.

There is no chain. It's a tree, not a chain.

The analogy is hypothetical, Riverwolf.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

‘…and sneering remarks’.




What I’ve said consistently and continually is that a thing cannot come from nothing, but something can, as Hume showed, exist where before there was nothing. If you prefer the slightly fatuous ‘popped into being’ that is fine by me, as long as you understand that it is not being argued that the nothingness was in some way the producing agent. If this point isn’t grasped we’re going to go round in circles for ever more.




Then tell me why you disagree and I’ll give you my response.




The proposition ‘everything that begins to exist has a cause’ is false as I’ve already shown. Nothing in the world is observed to begin to exist but only changes form, and therefore it cannot be inferred from the world as a whole beginning to exist that there must be an external cause. And any argument to an infinite regress can only hold water on the basis that causality is necessary, and it demonstrably is not.




I am saying for the umpteenth time that the universe is uncaused. Why, because it is the only hypothesis that is not self-contradictory. And since it is the only hypothesis that doesn’t run to a contradiction then it certainly cannot be deemed irrational.



There is no demonstrable absurdity! Please read Hume’s comments again; it isn’t a difficult passage:

“’Tis sufficient only to observe that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that conclusion.”




It makes perfect sense. In nothingness there is no causation and no laws of thought, therefore necessity and contingency has no meaning or application other than in the world.



The accusation, to ‘deny the creator’ is not philosophy but the finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance, since you are evidently beginning with the answer; whereas to deny a creator is where a conclusion is derived from valid premises in a given argument, which is what I’ve done!




In reply to the highlighted part, my answer is that I already have done so! And the objection is composed of two parts. First there is a contradiction in one of the definitional essences of God: that he is unchanging and unchangeable; and secondly that he has had to implement that hugely significant and contradictory change in order to bring into being an inferior, contingent and finite existence. I’ll leave you to ponder those absurdities, for that is what they are within the proper meaning of the term.

Makes no sense, as usual. I've sent you a private message, if you don't want to do go that route, then it is pointless for us to discuss this further. I can't continue to discuss things with someone if I don't have a clue as to what they are saying.

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

Dude, and the problem with postuating a past-eternal universe is that it would "occupy an infinitely long interval in time". What the heck are you talking about, as if what you say doesn't apply to the universe as a whole???

The Universe isn't really an "event".

And not only that, but you say it as if the "problem" applies to me lol. My goodness, people.

I'm just saying, it's not a true analogy, because the event you gave is infinite where as my birth is not.

Irrelevant.

It's an analogy specifically with space. Space and time are connected, so it's completely relevant, but you seem to only be caught up with time.

No one said or implied that your birth is an "event that takes up infinite time". No one implied this, so either you lack comprension skills or you are just simply attacking straw man.

You tried to use an infinite event as an analogy to compare to a finite event.

Your birth doesn't take an infinite amount of time, but if there were an infinite number of events which preceded it, then it would take an infinite amount of time to reach your birth, and you would never be born.

Only for something traveling through time, but you're not referring to any particular thing travelling through time to reach the event of my birth.

Time it self is not moving, so it doesn't have to "reach" my birth. My birth simply occupies a position in time.

If you seriously think that this miniscule objection that you are offering serves as a defeater of the argument against infinity, then you are sadly mistaken. I am not even sure you under the argument nor the analogy, must less offer an objection to it.

Then offer a counter argument to it. Don't just sit there and call it minuscule and straw man.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The Universe isn't really an "event".

Ok, so your birth wasn't really an "event"...which is foolish considering both you and the universe began to exist.

I'm just saying, it's not a true analogy, because the event you gave is infinite where as my birth is not.

Your birth would be part of an infinite chain of regressions, Andro. Infinity cannot be reached even if you counted for an infinite amount of time, you would never reach infinity...and if there were an infinite number of births preceding yours, your birth would never come to past.

It is the same thing.

It's an analogy specifically with space. Space and time are connected, so it's completely relevant, but you seem to only be caught up with time.

Regardless of how many spins you want to put on it, my analogy has not be refuted and it still stands.

You tried to use an infinite event as an analogy to compare to a finite event.

As long as the event was part of an infinite chain, then it is relevant. How about paying attention? In the analogy, your event was part of an infinite chain of preceding events. Do you got that? Your birth would never come to past if there were an infinite number of births which preceded it, and there is nothing that you can say that can change this.

Only for something traveling through time, but you're not referring to any particular thing travelling through time to reach the event of my birth.

What?

Time it self is not moving, so it doesn't have to "reach" my birth. My birth simply occupies a position in time.

That is why I am constantly saying "the event of your birth would never COME TO PAST". Get it? "COME TO PAST". You can take "reach" out of the equation and focus on the fact that your birth would never "come to past".

Then offer a counter argument to it. Don't just sit there and call it minuscule and straw man.

LOL

 

[Sapiens]

Call_of_the_wild, you have yet to deal with my questions about your opinions on "kinds."

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

Ok, so your birth wasn't really an "event"...which is foolish considering both you and the universe began to exist.

The birth of the Universe is an event. The universe it self is not. I'm not really an event either. I'm a living object(living is subjective here).

My birth is an event that already happened. I'm not still being born.

Your birth would be part of an infinite chain of regressions, Andro. Infinity cannot be reached even if you counted for an infinite amount of time, you would never reach infinity...and if there were an infinite number of births preceding yours, your birth would never come to past.

Nothing is travelling through time to reach my birth though. That is the point.

Regardless of how many spins you want to put on it, my analogy has not be refuted and it still stands.

Simply asserting that your analogy hasn't been refuted doesn't make it so. You can't prove your point with assertions.

As long as the event was part of an infinite chain, then it is relevant. How about paying attention? In the analogy, your event was part of an infinite chain of preceding events. Do you got that? Your birth would never come to past if there were an infinite number of births which preceded it, and there is nothing that you can say that can change this.

You're saying it as if something has to travel through time to reach it. That isn't the case.

It doesn't make sense to talk about things coming to pass or not without referring to something travelling through time. You say nothing can traverse infinite. What has to traverse time to reach my birth? In a finite universe, what traversed 13.7 billion years to reach my birth?

That is why I am constantly saying "the event of your birth would never COME TO PAST". Get it? "COME TO PAST". You can take "reach" out of the equation and focus on the fact that your birth would never "come to past".

It's the opposite. Infinite time makes any probable event guaranteed to happen.

LOL

Okay I admit, you make an interesting point here. The obvious validity of "LOL" never occurred to me before.

But what about LMAO? I mean you have to consider the consequences that come out of that. Also there's ROFL. If you think about it, that sort of shakes up LOL's foundation.

Also, what about this? : hamster : I mean look at it! It's a dancing hamster! Kinda disproves your point, don't you think?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The birth of the Universe is an event. The universe it self is not. I'm not really an event either. I'm a living object(living is subjective here).

My birth is an event that already happened. I'm not still being born.

Minsicule...straw man..


Miniscule: Light objection that does absolutely no damage to the argument whatsoever

Straw man: I didn't say the universe was an event, I said that the BEGINNING of the universe was an event.

Nothing is travelling through time to reach my birth though. That is the point.

Straw man.

Simply asserting that your analogy hasn't been refuted doesn't make it so. You can't prove your point with assertions.

And you can't refute my argument with objections that make me think you don't understand the argument to begin with.

You're saying it as if something has to travel through time to reach it. That isn't the case.

I am saying that no event can come to pass if an infinite number of events preceded it. Plain and simple.

It doesn't make sense to talk about things coming to pass or not without referring to something travelling through time.

Whether it makes sense or not..I am saying no single event in time can come to pass if an infinite number of events preceded.....however you want to put it; objects traveling through time...whatever...it makes no difference what view of time you have. If something happens, it happens in time...I am not about to get in a technical discussion about time....I am simple saying that for every single event, pick any event that you like...for every single event, if time never had a beginning, then the chain of events leading to any single event is infinite...and if this is the case, for any single event to come to pass, an infinite number of events which lead to that single event is infinite...which is as absurd as a person counting to infinity, and successfully "arriving" at infinity...it can't happen.

You say nothing can traverse infinite. What has to traverse time to reach my birth? In a finite universe, what traversed 13.7 billion years to reach my birth?

What? Makes no sense. In a finite universe, the events which lead to your birth is finite...there are two points, 1. the beginning of the universe....2. your birth

The points in between 1 and 2 are finite. If there was no beginning, then neither one of those two points would come to pass, because for every point in the past that "comes to pass", there would be an infinite number more to go.

It's the opposite. Infinite time makes any probable event guaranteed to happen.

The only problem is, infinite time itself isn't probable or possible.

Okay I admit, you make an interesting point here. The obvious validity of "LOL" never occurred to me before.

But what about LMAO? I mean you have to consider the consequences that come out of that. Also there's ROFL. If you think about it, that sort of shakes up LOL's foundation.

Also, what about this? : hamster : I mean look at it! It's a dancing hamster! Kinda disproves your point, don't you think?

When simple analogies, break-downs, analyzations, explaining, in-depth comprehensive studies and conversations fail...

All you can do is LOL.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Call_of_the_wild, you have yet to deal with my questions about your opinions on "kinds."

Dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats. I don't know, nor do I have anything else to say after merely stating what you, I, and any other human being has ever saw...we only see animals produce what they are, not what they aren't.

 

[Bunyip]

Dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats. I don't know, nor do I have anything else to say after merely stating what you, I, and any other human being has ever saw...we only see animals produce what they are, not what they aren't.

Why do you keep repeating the same fallacy over and over?

Sure, cats produce cats - if a cat gave birth to something other than a cat, that would be evidence AGAINST the ToE, not for it.

 

[Sapiens]

Dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats. I don't know, nor do I have anything else to say after merely stating what you, I, and any other human being has ever saw...we only see animals produce what they are, not what they aren't.

That is completely unresponsive to the very specific questions I asked.

 

[fantome profane]

That is completely unresponsive to the very specific questions I asked.

Just hang on, pretty soon he will start talking about pet stores.

 

[Riverwolf]

*Sigh*. In order for your birth to come to past, an infinite number of events had to come to past, so if the past is eternal, then the fact that your birth has come to past would imply a traversal of infinity, which is absurd. Now, what part of that don't you understand.

What I don't understand is where you're getting any sort of implied traversal. Exactly what is doing the traversing?

And it's "come to pass" not "come to past", for the record.

The analogy is hypothetical, Riverwolf.

Hypotheticals do not necessarily reflect reality, and so should never be used as a basis to describe reality in any definite terms.

 

[Riverwolf]

Dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats. I don't know, nor do I have anything else to say after merely stating what you, I, and any other human being has ever saw...we only see animals produce what they are, not what they aren't.

Actually, seeing animals (including humans) giving birth to things that they are not is exactly what they see. The process of reproduction is not the process of cloning. I am not my parents.

In any case, when we broke down your view of how "kind" works, it turns out to be completely inadequate and inaccurate, and therefore unsuitable for accurate measurement of life's diversity.

I already demonstrated through analogies which you so love that there is no definitive line between a thing and another thing; rather, there's a large transitional gap. You did not respond to that. Your logic would dictate that that means I'm on the right track, but I know better than to engage in such fallacious thinking.

 

[cottage]

Makes no sense, as usual. I've sent you a private message, if you don't want to do go that route, then it is pointless for us to discuss this further. I can't continue to discuss things with someone if I don't have a clue as to what they are saying.

Call_of_the_Wild

What doesn’t make sense is saying you can’t continue because you don’t understand what I’m saying, yet presumably you are saying you will be able to understand if we continue the discussion in private!

I think you understand perfectly what has been said but don’t like the implications that undermine your arguments. You’ve said in the PM that would like to argue the controversy on a ‘point-by-point basis, and that is something I would be very pleased to do here. You and I are working in different time zones and the consequential delay in our responses means that for all practical purposes there will be no difference in the way the discussion is conducted. So I don’t see why there should be a problem having the debate here as the particular argument I’ve given you, and your responses to it, have been solely between the two of us anyway.

Therefore I fail to see why you so often want to continue in private, other than perhaps because you know I’m not interested in discussions off-forum. The reason I take part in discussions only in the forum is because there are protocols to be observed (which are enforced by the moderators), and others too can follow the debate and keep us on our toes even if they choose not to interact.

Play on?

Cottage

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Sure, cats produce cats - if a cat gave birth to something other than a cat, that would be evidence AGAINST the ToE, not for it.

Yeah, but you believe that all the cats of today came from a non-cat of the past, which does not coincide with the fact that above, you just said "sure, cats produce cats". Makes no sense.