Thanks Winston. My grandmother used to go on picnics with the man himself in Scotland, he sounds like quite the character.
Sickle-cell anaemia, as previously mentioned, is a great example.
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Is Evolution Conscious (Some amazing points about evolution)
- Thread starter Robert.Evans
- Start date
Thanks Winston. My grandmother used to go on picnics with the man himself in Scotland, he sounds like quite the character.
Sickle-cell anaemia, as previously mentioned, is a great example.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
What?! She new WC? Need stories.
Well, I'm not going to go too tangential. But her father was Prime Minister a few times, so the family knew Winston when she was a child.
EDIT: Why am I calling him Winston?
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
What we see is consciousness expressed. We see it in a physical plane. When you go down to the smallest level, there are scientists who say that everything is consciousness, (Hagelin, Goswami )
As the mind can have within in bad thoughts as well as good, it is not beyond the pale to see things that seem, to us, as cruel or wasteful .
The explanation that genes mutating completely at random, most of which are not beneficial, yet some are, must surely be seen as suspect.
For all that evolution has going for it -and I don't doubt the theory in its physical plane- to say, out of all the random mutations that some could be of some use in order to form something as complex as us, is mind blowing, and has to held by faith I think.
The basic tenant of faith must be held in order to accept it, even if that is largely due to the lack of evidence in the physical plane of any conscious factor involved.
Well, the existence of separate planes isn't the case for everybody. So different explanations are needed to explain what is observed by different people, due to different ideas about how reality works. Nobody here, as far as I know, has knowledge of the absolute truth more than any other.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
What if the reality we see here and the person we see here, makes other realities; the multiverse and many world theory where all possibilities exist.
So then there are many realities. It makes us wrong somewhere and right somewhere. It would be like reading a book and finding the others of 'you' are also reading other books at the same time.
From a point of view of evolution, it would be the fittest of them that would survive, the others would be reused within more realities.
Don't ask me why I typed that
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
@Kirran
As far as I noticed, you didn't comment on the evolution of the ear. The evolution of the ear is quite incredible I think! Things like that, added up with everything else, makes me think that something else must be going on besides what we see.
Explaining chemical actions and genes and DNA is only the physical side,..... which sure, it explains, but to hold luck as the 'supervisor' of it all, seems hard.
Even natural selection, for example, has to be explained. You see, there has to be some sort of intelligence involved to make it all work, otherwise it will not. There has to be order you see. So we call these things processes and mechanisms. They are, one might say, an artificial intelligence.
It is like saying that a ball roles down a hill wherever it chooses. (if I can put it that way). But if we add some artificial intelligence into it by adding siding of wood, we can make a channel, and with that we can steer the ball wherever we want it.
But now we have to ask how the siding came about, considering they also are supposed to be luck. The bottom line is, something has to change, (which is luck in itself), and that has to make the right processes in order to shape everything else which is random (the ball rolling down the hill), until it is channelled into the right spot (becomes a species).
Hard to imagine it can all come about without something. The only way round this is to say there are many universes all of which do many different things; that way we can say, at some point, our universe will come up. But then we have to ask why it is that there are many universes and why they are all different. That is still something held by faith.
As far as I noticed, you didn't comment on the evolution of the ear. The evolution of the ear is quite incredible I think! Things like that, added up with everything else, makes me think that something else must be going on besides what we see.
Explaining chemical actions and genes and DNA is only the physical side,..... which sure, it explains, but to hold luck as the 'supervisor' of it all, seems hard.
Even natural selection, for example, has to be explained. You see, there has to be some sort of intelligence involved to make it all work, otherwise it will not. There has to be order you see. So we call these things processes and mechanisms. They are, one might say, an artificial intelligence.
It is like saying that a ball roles down a hill wherever it chooses. (if I can put it that way). But if we add some artificial intelligence into it by adding siding of wood, we can make a channel, and with that we can steer the ball wherever we want it.
But now we have to ask how the siding came about, considering they also are supposed to be luck. The bottom line is, something has to change, (which is luck in itself), and that has to make the right processes in order to shape everything else which is random (the ball rolling down the hill), until it is channelled into the right spot (becomes a species).
Hard to imagine it can all come about without something. The only way round this is to say there are many universes all of which do many different things; that way we can say, at some point, our universe will come up. But then we have to ask why it is that there are many universes and why they are all different. That is still something held by faith.
Well yeah, for you it's hard to imagine. But that's because the way you perceive and interpret the world has different underpinnings to mine, meaning that while I can accept that an ear has evolved through incremental improvements on a much simpler original ear, you cannot, because it conflicts with how you see the world.
So I can say that no intelligence is needed in this process, which I accept, and you can say that I am wrong and there has to be some intelligence pushing it along, but neither of us is about to persuade the other because we're arguing based on different sets of assumptions.
You say it's hard to imagine that 'it can all come about without something'. For you, I'm sure it is. For me, it is not. Because we see the world differently.
I don't believe or disbelieve in the multiverse thing, for me it isn't necessary for evolution to have taken place, and I don't feel like I hold evolution on faith, because evolution is, within the way I perceive the world, a perfectly valid and self-consistent explanation for the differences between me and the Mexican Hat Plants on my windowsill, or the commensal bacteria in my gut.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I completely agree, it is mind-blowing. Our brains are not advanced enough to comprehend vast amounts of time necessary for something like this to occur. Just like every other creature on this planet, we are limited in understanding by the limits of our physical/human brain. For this reason, the mere fact that it is hard for us to imagine or it seems impossible/unlikely to us does not really provide any substantial evidence for it not being accurate.
Man, that was very well-put, I thought.
Just because we can't imagine something, doesn't mean it can't work.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
Oh i'm not saying it's not accurate in how we see it. I am saying that there is more to it than meets the eye, and I have seen others, far more intelligent than me, say the same thing. Perhaps one day when everyone is not so hung up with 'God did it' they might start to look into these things. it takes time to change minds.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
That is my issue with the God of the gaps argument. It assumes as its foundation that Science will never discover anything that we currenty think can't exist ... but that kind of stuff happens all the time in the scientific community.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
I'm not talking about a god of the gaps.... it is a stupid argument. God is everything. you just can't see it anymore than we can see cells or atoms with a naked eye.
Does it? Where? I have never heard anyone say that.
I am well aware of that. It is the same with Theology; and sceince, history, people etc, all contribute to the understand of it. It is malleable and evolving. You might have an old fashioned idea there.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Not a valid comparison unless you have invented a machine which can detect "God". Again you are making baseless assertions based on your personal belief.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
If a lack of an alternate explanation somehow is thought to provide support for an explanation of the natural world based on the supernatural, it is a flawed argument. That is what I meant by the God of the gaps argument assuming that we will not discover anything new about the natural world. Unless we make this assumption, we will not jump to a supernatural explanation. How is this an outdated view?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Wait, so you agree that the God of the gaps argument utilizes flawed logic? Sorry, I was a bit confused by your comment.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Well, thank you Kirran.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Fair enough. Just hope I can live up to it.