The naturalist problem of suffering.

[leroy]

Are you suggesting humans have had greater reproductive success than trees?

no, where did you get that idea? Why would I make such a claim ?

There are 3.04 trillion trees and only 8.1 billion people, which means even if your strawman definition of natural selection were true NS has clearly favoured trees over humans anyway.

That if anything, confirms my point

 

[leroy]

I would not agree with that. Do you know what a spandrel is?

Humans are the only animal to have a chin. Even our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos don't. Now, why do you think the chin evolved in humans?

My view is that it isn't actually "for" any purpose at all -- it's just a leftover, a spandrel, an evolutionary byproduct left from another feature changing. In the chin’s case, it could be the result of the human face shrinking over time as our posture changed and our faces shortened, or a remnant from a period of longer jaws.

Yes but chins are not complex , sinole stuff can evolve even if they are not selectively positive.

But useles complex stuff is not expected to evolve

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I think everything is useless in natural point of view. But, for N selection, suffering can be explained for example to be, because knowing suffering makes one to avoid things that cause suffering, which in turn helps one to survive.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Assuming that that first sentence means that if there is no god, everything is meaningless, you then go on to explain the survival value of dysphorias.

And if I have understood you correctly, that first comment says that life has no meaning to you if there is no god. What a terrible thing to teach people. You seem to see life as a staging venue for something valuable to follow but of no inherent value of it own. And if this god and an afterlife don't exist? I live as if it doesn't, and I find great value in this life.

My claim is that animals (and trees and bacteria) dont get an additional evolutionary advantage by developing the ability of suffering in a concious way.

Already refuted.

Well the argument has been presented in op , feel free to refute it. I'll rather go back one step and sinply ask you to quote any point made by me that you disagree with (and explain why)

Here we go again. Virtually everything I've written to you is quoting your words and rebutting them as I'm doing again now, and apparently you don't know what was written about the role of suffering and dysphoria in complex animal life. Now you ask me to repeat it all.

Leroy, you need a better method for reading the posts written to you, one that allows you to glean and retain the meaning of the words. You and I never make any progress in any discussion. Never. Why? Because you aren't paying attention. I have nothing to add to what I've written to you on this topic. If you don't know what that is, your choices are to review those posts again this time paying careful attention to what somebody is trying to tell you or just do without those answers.

 

[leroy]

You seem to be contradicting yourself. Assuming that that first sentence means that if there is no god, everything is meaningless, you then go on to explain the survival value of dysphorias.

And if I have understood you correctly, that first comment says that life has no meaning to you if there is no god. What a terrible thing to teach people. You seem to see life as a staging venue for something valuable to follow but of no inherent value of it own. And if this god and an afterlife don't exist? I live as if it doesn't, and I find great value in this life.

Already refuted.

Here we go again. Virtually everything I've written to you is quoting your words and rebutting them as I'm doing again now, and apparently you don't know what was written about the role of suffering and dysphoria in complex animal life. Now you ask me to repeat it all.

Leroy, you need a better method for reading the posts written to you, one that allows you to glean and retain the meaning of the words. You and I never make any progress in any discussion. Never. Why? Because you aren't paying attention. I have nothing to add to what I've written to you on this topic. If you don't know what that is, your choices are to review those posts again this time paying careful attention to what somebody is trying to tell you or just do without those answers.

Ohhh not again ,

Do you really whant to repeat the pattern of

1 I made an argument

2 you invent a lie, and claim that you already refuted the argument

3 I ask you to quote the alleged refutation

4 you invent pathetic excuses for not quoting that alleged refutation .


...


We are at point 2, do we really need to go to points 3 and 4?

 

[leroy]

I see, you are trying to compare your idea to natural selection. Now we know where you got that false idea from.

No, the reason that natural selection is "trivially true" is because it is so extremely easy to confirm with example after example. Yet you cannot do that at all with your claim in the OP. You probably cannot even think of a proper way to test your disputed claim in the OPl.

I can now see why you resisted so strongly to define "trivially true". When you are pushed to support your claims you have a history of refuting yourself.

Thanks for your podt, it was very interesting but irrelevant

You havent refuted any of my 2 premises

1 things that are complex and useless are not expected to evolve by random mutations and natural selection

2 the ability of experiencing concious suffering is useless and complex

 

[leroy]

I think everything is useless in natural point of view. But, for N selection, suffering can be explained for example to be, because knowing suffering makes one to avoid things that cause suffering, which in turn helps one to survive.

Animals plants bacteria etc. Already avoided dangerous things before developing the ability of suffering.

For example lower life forms like clams would run away if a predator tríes to eat them , but they dont dont really suffer in a concious way, clams sinply react to avoid danger.

The ability to suffer would not add any additional selective advantage, clams will still run away from their predators.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

2 you invent a lie, and claim that you already refuted the argument

We're done.

Why would I want to deal with this again? You have reading comprehension issues and blame others with scurrilous and defamatory accusations to explain your own shortcomings.

Because of that, you're not somebody that I can discuss issues with. I'll still respond to some of your posts when it suits me, but I'm not expecting you to benefit from them or to even know or remember what they said, nor for a discussion between us to ensue except one like this one, where you continually don't see and understand sentences.

There's nothing in such a discussion for me after I've given my response to your words. You might want to think about that when posting. What's in this for the other guy? What does he expect or require to engage in discussion with you, and am I giving him that? You give me nothing, Leroy. Nothing. At a minimum, I expect you to take the necessary time and effort to understand and retain what I write to you and answer responsively. That doesn't happen. Instead, I get this. No thanks.

And why would you want to have a discussion with somebody that you think lies and evades?

 

[leroy]

We're done.

Why would I want to deal with this again? You have reading comprehension issues and blame others with scurrilous and defamatory accusations to explain your own shortcomings.

Because of that, you're not somebody that I can discuss issues with. I'll still respond to some of your posts when it suits me, but I'm not expecting you to benefit from them or to even know or remember what they said, nor for a discussion between us to ensue except one like this one, where you continually don't see and understand sentences.

There's nothing in such a discussion for me after I've given my response to your words. You might want to think about that when posting. What's in this for the other guy? What does he expect or require to engage in discussion with you, and am I giving him that? You give me nothing, Leroy. Nothing. At a minimum, I expect you to take the necessary time and effort to understand and retain what I write to you and answer responsively. That doesn't happen. Instead, I get this. No thanks.

And why would you want to have a discussion with somebody that you think lies and evades?

Your alleged refutation was based on a strawman and I explained you why you missuderstood ..... what else do you expect from me?


Why didn't you answered with a simple and honest

"Yes leroy you are correct, I dont know why/how the ability of conscious suffering evolved" ... that is a good question , lets see if someone finds an answer in the future.

 

[Revoltingest]

Why is this problem for naturalism?

It's not a problem.
Suffering, eg, pain, is something to avoid.
It motivates avoiding injury & woe.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why didn't you answered with a simple and honest "Yes leroy you are correct, I dont know why/how the ability of conscious suffering evolved" ... that is a good question , lets see if someone finds an answer in the future.

I gave you the opposite answer. I explained to you how and why suffering evolved as have a few others, but you didn't see it, did you? You're in a bubble. I can't help you. I can't reach you. I'd need your cooperation to do that, and you won't or can't. Look at how much of the previous post went unacknowledged by you. Did you look at it? Did you read it? If so, did you understand it? There's no evidence you did any of those things. In fact, the evidence suggests that you it all sailed past you, especially the discussion about what's in it for the other guy.

Perhaps you'll have better luck with others. I see that you've just gotten another rebuttal, and I'm sure that you won't see, understand, or remember it. You will be posting that nobody has refuted your premises despite it having been done repeatedly.

So once again, there's nothing here for me Leroy, so adios.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks for your podt, it was very interesting but irrelevant

You havent refuted any of my 2 premises

1 things that are complex and useless are not expected to evolve by random mutations and natural selection

2 the ability of experiencing concious suffering is useless and complex

Sorry, but yet is was. You claimed that something was "trivially true" that was not.. You called it that in an attempt to dodge the burden of proof.

What you should be doing is asking questions. But you never want to learn, you want to believe, no matter how wrong that you are.

 

[danieldemol]

no, where did you get that idea? Why would I make such a claim ?

You said, "why/HOW did evolution (mutation + natural selection) selected something s complex and useless like our ability to suffer"

Selection implies choosing from available options, it doesn't change because you add "natural" in front of it.

So if trees are being vastly more successful at reproduction because natural selection is weeding out more humans than trees then it is not selecting humans over trees.

That if anything, confirms my point

I suspect you dont understand the word choice used to make your own point if you think it was confirmed.

 

[Unfettered]

Nope ill say that the questions why and how something evolved are valid questions that are expected to be answered by the evolutionist

I agree that why and how something evolved are valid questions. Answering sensibly seems to be an impossible task for the evolutionist (for the reasons I offered earlier). What sensible or rational responses to the questions have you received from evolutionsts?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Answering sensibly seems to be an impossible task for the evolutionist (for the reasons I offered earlier).

Answering Leroy is impossible, since he doesn't pay attention to what is written to him. The answer to his question about the selective advantage of experiencing dysphorias is all over this thread, which is less than four pages long now, and comes from multiple posters. He's seen none of them. He still wants to know why nobody will try to refute his claim about suffering being useless to animals that can suffer. You try answering him and see what happens. Explain to him if you know why an aversion to noxious stimuli and other unpleasant feelings saves lives and facilitates fecundity in those who can experience fear, nausea, the pain of fire, etc.. You might as well write it in Chinese.

What sensible or rational responses to the questions have you received from evolutionsts?

And apparently, you haven't either. Why is this so prevalent among the faithful? Have you read any of this thread? It's pretty short. If so, why can't you answer that yourself?

The psychology of faith and its effect on minds is a topic of interest to me, but I confess that I really don't understand how or why Christian dogma has such an untoward effect on processing information for so many.

 

[leroy]

It's not a problem.
Suffering, eg, pain, is something to avoid.
It motivates avoiding injury & woe.

Keep reading the post that you quoted

 

[leroy]

I gave you the opposite answer. I explained to you how and why suffering evolved as have a few others, but you didn't see it, did you? You're in a bubble. I can't help you. I can't reach you. I'd need your cooperation to do that, and you won't or can't. Look at how much of the previous post went unacknowledged by you. Did you look at it? Did you read it? If so, did you understand it? There's no evidence you did any of those things. In fact, the evidence suggests that you it all sailed past you, especially the discussion about what's in it for the other guy.

Perhaps you'll have better luck with others. I see that you've just gotten another rebuttal, and I'm sure that you won't see, understand, or remember it. You will be posting that nobody has refuted your premises despite it having been done repeatedly.

So once again, there's nothing here for me Leroy, so adios.

Again you refuted a strawman

 

[leroy]

Sorry, but yet is was. You claimed that something was "trivially true" that was not.. You called it that in an attempt to dodge the burden of proof.

What you should be doing is asking questions. But you never want to learn, you want to believe, no matter how wrong that you are.

That Natural Selection selects stuff with selective advantage *IS* trivially true . Its a tautology , it is true by definition.

 

[leroy]

You said, "why/HOW did evolution (mutation + natural selection) selected something s complex and useless like our ability to suffer"

Selection implies choosing from available options, it doesn't change because you add "natural" in front of it.

So if trees are being vastly more successful at reproduction because natural selection is weeding out more humans than trees then it is not selecting humans over trees.

I suspect you dont understand the word choice used to make your own point if you think it was confirmed.

I never said that NS selects humans over trees

 

[leroy]

I agree that why and how something evolved are valid questions. Answering sensibly seems to be an impossible task for the evolutionist (for the reasons I offered earlier). What sensible or rational responses to the questions have you received from evolutionsts?

What sensible or rational responses to the questions have you received from evolutionsts

Just a few strawman replies that I corrected.

 

[leroy]

Explain to him if you know why an aversion to noxious stimuli and other unpleasant feelings saves lives.

I havent denied the truth of that statement.

I corrected you and explained why is that a strawman