Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
But the cycle could stretch back infinitely. If "God" can be eternal and without beginning then why not existence?.
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Is Evolution Conscious (Some amazing points about evolution)
- Thread starter Robert.Evans
- Start date
But the cycle could stretch back infinitely. If "God" can be eternal and without beginning then why not existence?.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Your questions demonstrate that you still don't understand the basic principles of evolution. It's almost as if you don't want to.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
By definition existence must come before God, otherwise God can't exist.
McBell
Unbound
almost?
Occam's razor leads us to conclude that if we have the two alternatives 'there is time' and 'there is time AND something which drives time' we must accept that 'there is time' only. An external agent if no necessary for time to occur. Unless, of course, you conclude FIRST that there must be an external agent, as you seem to have done, and then must, of course, fit everything else around that. Which is fine, I'm not disparaging that.
I'll be honest, I think this is overstretching the analogy :L
Doesn't need to, as I see it, and so why would it?
Not luck, but chance. Not winning, but the prolonged existence of more stable chemical forms over those which are less stable. This isn't a conscious competition.
This is anthropomorphising the whole process, putting labels like 'better' and 'worse'. Things which are more stable are more likely to continue existing.
By definition existence must come before God, otherwise God can't exist.
Unless, of course, God is existence.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
Well let me give you my take on it. According to Wiki, some say it is to do with emotions and some say it is to do with sweat running in your eyes, or rather the prevention of.
Now, If it is emotions as they say because the eyebrows highlight the eyes, then what of black people? Black hair, black skin! How does it help? Considering we would have been black also at first (darkness before light Gen1) then this seems somewhat strained to me.
If we say it is sweat going in the eyes, I have to say that that sounds a little strained also. Why couldn't we just wipe our forehead?
The answer I have seen given is something that Indians apparently do at times to stop animals attacking them when they are asleep, and that is, they put masks on the back of their head so they see a face with eyes open.
This idea of eyebrows then makes more sense as it highlights the eyes. It would seem to make sense then that those who did not have eyebrows were killed by animals. It would certainly thin them out pretty quickly.
It seems to fit with my understanding in Theology as well, that those who do not have eyes to see, die, and those that do, live.
But my problem--as will always be if someone posits evolution without being conscious in some form or another--is that why would we begin to lose hair in the first place? And why would some not lose it over the eyes? Natural selection can only act on what has changed; so why change? Why does hair fall out, and why did it not fall out completely off the forehead?
As already asked, why remain on the head, and why does hair on the head keep growing and others stop at a certain length? Where is the advantage that hair under the armpits remained at a certain length (haha).
I find it hard to imagine that hair loss happened the same on all people, so it seems that some must have lost hair in certain places, such as off the head on some, and some off their faces or the loss of their eyebrows-- and some in turn did not. Now they have to mate together to gain the advantageous traits. But even that is a little strained considering that the eyebrows now do in fact help with conveying emotions and do keep sweat out. It seems hard to imagine, to me, that this game of chance and luck happens to bring something about which appears to be so complete as a human being. Can you think of anything else that can do that?
The time aspect is always used as an advantage. But even then, one there has to be time, two there has to be many changes, (most of which are useless), and three some of those changes must be beneficial.
It appears that the faith in God is far smaller than the faith in evolution coming about through chance mutations guided by--what we call--a natural environment.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
God is Existence
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
I understand it, but i am trying to look at a little deeper which you don't seem to want to.
I genuinely think that the explanations we've provided previously explain the evolution of eyebrows in a satisfactory manner.
I am literally writing up a lecture on mutation right now - mutation just happens at random, and then selection acts upon the changes thus generated.
I'm not trying to make an attack here, but I think if you say that a 'car needs a driver', you actually don't fully understand the ToE.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
But if you take Occam's razor to its fullest extent, then God did it
You could say the same of the term ''natural selection''. How does ''natural'' select anything? Sound almost like is being used in some magical way.
To take it to a conscious level you would have to take it down to its smallest level.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
I don't disagree with that. What I think you accept so easy is that it can bring about such complicated results in the first place by sheer random mutations.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
Understand it? or accept it? You put evolution on a pedistal where it cannot be reached I think. you are happy that it works, and look no farther. I am happy it works, but don't see how it can bring about such complexity through sheer luck and chance.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
I think also you might not really be engaging with my point of view. Perhaps you are too enamoured by evolution that you can't question it at all.
But if you take Occam's razor to its fullest extent, then God did it
Positing that God created the universe means there must exist the Universe and God, rather than just the Universe, making it more complex.
It doesn't consciously select, that's a misconception. But if one chicken is healthier, and can rear five chicks, and another doesn't have as efficient a digestive system, and so can only rear three chicks, the genes which make that chicken's digestive system more efficient are going to become ever-more common. Hardly a real 'selection' by anybody, just about likelihoods.
As I say, I've studied this in great depth, and it works for me.
I don't think I am.
I've looked into the ToE a lot, and I haven't found it to ever be lacking in explaining the diversity of life. This is gonna come across a bit rude, and I don't mean it to, so be forewarned - I know more about this than you do. This is only because I've studied it for many years, and have taken lecture modules on it, and sat exams on it.
If a theory is put forward, and evidence continuously comes up that fits in with it, from all sorts of fields, over decades and decades of study, it eventually makes sense to accept it.
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I get what you're saying. You think that the diversity of lifeforms, which seem to be so exquisite in form, can't have emerged merely through a random chemical process, and therefore that some form of will must have been pushing it forward.
While I don't say this is not true, I do say that I don't believe it to be necessary.
Simple: it is not sheer luck and chance. If you can call luck the fate of +90% of all species that have lived on the planet.
Ciao
- viole
Yeah, straight up. Calling it luck ignores all the problems, all the extinctions, all the suboptimal designs, even when you are assigning subjective values.
Robert.Evans
You will be assimilated; it is His Will.
The idea of random mutations bringing about everything we see has to be questioned I think. If we were to roll a die with a million sides and we needed a six, the chances of a six coming up are one in a million. If there were only one roll of the die, then we could be certain that there would be no reason us waiting for the answer, as the chances of it landing on another number are too great. But we also now that the law of probabilities says that the rolls of the die that are played, the greater the chance of a six coming up.
Now firstly, there is no actualy ''law of probablities''. Yet it appears to work.
Even if the die had been rolled for a million times, six might not come up; it might take ten million rolls of the die before it did. But this is based on something crucial, and that is, every roll of the die has to be rolled in a slightly different way, so that friction and the basic dynamics of the movement of the die will bring about a different number. So we see that there has to be parameters around the 'game' of rolling the die.
But even then we still only have a one in a million chance on the short odds. It is only on the long odds, (continually rolling the die), that we can assume a six will come up. So there has to be certain parameters. If we said that the die had no idea what it was supposed to be doing, and that someone had put parameters in to make the six come up at some point, it would make sense. There appears to be a random side which brings up whatever it wills, and then parameters to make sure that it brings up the correct number.
What if the random side does not want to bring up the six, and it is the parameters that eventually force it to do just that.
The reason I ask if because of the simple point that, each roll of the die is still one in a million. To me that is mind blowing that it would EVER at any point in time, EVER come up on a six! Why would it? Every roll means there are near 1 million chances of some other number coming up.
Something has to make it come up. Something has to force the odds.
When we use the law of probability, we are saying that odds seem to have a memory. But who really thinks that they do? No one I would guess.
So I find this idea of random mutations somehow bringing about something better, and that NS acts upon it, somewhat strained.
But if the odds have a memory, then it is conscious.
Now firstly, there is no actualy ''law of probablities''. Yet it appears to work.
Even if the die had been rolled for a million times, six might not come up; it might take ten million rolls of the die before it did. But this is based on something crucial, and that is, every roll of the die has to be rolled in a slightly different way, so that friction and the basic dynamics of the movement of the die will bring about a different number. So we see that there has to be parameters around the 'game' of rolling the die.
But even then we still only have a one in a million chance on the short odds. It is only on the long odds, (continually rolling the die), that we can assume a six will come up. So there has to be certain parameters. If we said that the die had no idea what it was supposed to be doing, and that someone had put parameters in to make the six come up at some point, it would make sense. There appears to be a random side which brings up whatever it wills, and then parameters to make sure that it brings up the correct number.
What if the random side does not want to bring up the six, and it is the parameters that eventually force it to do just that.
The reason I ask if because of the simple point that, each roll of the die is still one in a million. To me that is mind blowing that it would EVER at any point in time, EVER come up on a six! Why would it? Every roll means there are near 1 million chances of some other number coming up.
Something has to make it come up. Something has to force the odds.
When we use the law of probability, we are saying that odds seem to have a memory. But who really thinks that they do? No one I would guess.
So I find this idea of random mutations somehow bringing about something better, and that NS acts upon it, somewhat strained.
But if the odds have a memory, then it is conscious.