GENIUS FORUMS

David,

I agree that Dawkins has his faults, particularly in his later works. But I do recommend his earlier works. "The Blind Watchmaker", in particular, is a good book which tackles this very issue of chance in evolution. It sticks mainly to the science and there isn't much religion-bashing. He shows how chance plays a far lesser role in evolution than its critics assume.

Fair enough. I have seen good criticisms of the whole approach, but I'd have to go brush up on it to make a decent post. I have had the thought, though, when people have discussed how low the probability of certain things coming together are, that there would have to be factors that we don't know about that would lead naturally to the right outcome. This is why they are talking about emergent properties, and self-organizational properties.

Actually, what would be fun would be for me to make a book report on The Deep Hot Biosphere. This guy has unique ideas and even tho I don't believe in unguided evolution, his ideas make the chances of the generation of life go way up. But - I won't post too much in the coming days and perhaps next week I can tackle it.

Iolaus wrote:Carl said,

Then, by the same argument QRS philosophy is quackery. Every thing is caused but not Everything. There is no prime cause.

And Z answered,

Carl, QRS's philosophy is philosophy, not science. He can believe what he likes, which doesn't make it verifiable according to scientific method. Its not the job of science to speculate about the existence of god or whatever, but to test hypotheses according to scientific method, and from that (the evidence) draw concl
usions.

Nonetheless it is a gaping hole in their understanding of reality. One finds in David's book about the infinite, that existence itself is causeless and a mystery. Also, their philosophy is not supposed to be about belief, but logic.

There is no hole there and no mystery - at least from my perspective.

It's a matter of ceasing to treat Reality as a dualistic entity. People tend to create imaginary problems for themselves in this area because they falsely imagine Reality to be just another dualistic object.

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Carl G wrote:

zarathustra wrote: To prove intelligent design, scientifically, the question you'd have to answer SCIENTIFICALLY is WHO OR WHAT DESIGNED THE DESIGNER? It can't be done...thus Intelligent design = quackery.

Then, by the same argument QRS philosophy is quackery. Every thing is caused but not Everything. There is no prime cause.

You might want to have another think about this and try again.

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Every thing is caused but not Everything

The thing is that even though Everything, The Totality, is also caused dualistically, it happens outside of time, it cannot not happen instantaneously. Therefore there is no single ultimate perspective in relation to the totality, or things for that matter (a thing cannot be a thing until such time as it has some kind of unity). One can take the either the dualist perspective or the non-dualist perspective and both would be correct.

The funny thing though is that to be ultimately accurate in your conceptions, you always have to have both, which is itsefl another duality/non-duality.

Calling the totality a non-duality just mean you are artificially placing yourself outside the universe and thinking of it as a thing, whereas non-duality is the inside perspective where you think of it as a process.

Jamesh:
What the difference between a thing and a process? Is Exists a verb or a noun?

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Jamesh:
What the difference between a thing and a process? Is Exists a verb or a noun?

They seem to work in concert to me.I must confess I've haven't satisfactorarly come to a conclusion about your question however.

Heiddegger puts it like this:

Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being.

What the difference between a thing and a process? Is Exists a verb or a noun?

Good point/question. In ultimate realites context, action is all there is, so Exists is a verb. Stillto an observer it is a noun.

The QRS call the noun an illusion, but it is not, except where one attaches permanancy and inherency to the thing, as we tend to do. The total affect of reality in a particular area will show differing patterns of causal flow, and this is the noun part - it is "the difference between".

Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being.

Sounds like he'd just read Einstein at that point - Spacetime.

There is no hole there and no mystery - at least from my perspective.

The problem of an uncaused totality doesn't bother your mind?

In rereading my post, it might appear that I said you (QRS) are relying on belief and not logic. But that isn't what I meant. I was responding to where Z said Dan could believe whatever he likes, because it is philosophy and not science.

I did not find any fault in your logic regarding the Totality, but it leaves its nature a mystery.

Iolaus wrote:

There is no hole there and no mystery - at least from my perspective.

The problem of an uncaused totality doesn't bother your mind?

The idea of a caused Totality would be a lot more disturbing, not to mention illogical.

Iolaus wrote:

DQ: There is no hole there and no mystery - at least from my perspective.

Iolaus: The problem of an uncaused totality doesn't bother your mind?

No, because I see it as an expression of the Totality's timelessness. Time is contained within the Totality and so the whole question of where it came from or what caused it doesn't really mean anything. Indeed, the whole issue, together with all of its attendant "mysteries", utterly disappears.

In order to fully grasp this point, you might need to change the way you view the world. For example, instead of looking at the world and imagining it to be something objective which flows through time, try seeing each moment as though it was the very first moment of creation. Imagine that what you are viewing in each moment is the very nature of Reality itself - static and unchanging, beyond time, no before, no after, every experience akin to being the very first expression of God.

It's a bit to hard to explain, but it becomes obvious once you see it. We are literally staring into the depths of eternity in each moment, and it is an eternity which needs no explaining.

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Well put.

The only thing stopping that for most people is that it takes getting used to. It's really very simple, apart from the words.

David Quinn wrote:We are literally staring into the depths of eternity in each moment, and it is an eternity which needs no explaining.

[E]ternity is not the longest time, rather the shortest; it is complete suspension of time. - Weininger

Indeed, people think of eternity as a very, very long time when it is really no time at all.

That's a very interesting idea. Makes me wonder what the root words are, and if there is a root meaning that eschews time as the definer.

Eternity is not the longest time, rather the shortest; it is complete suspension of time. - Weininger

Indeed, people think of eternity as a very, very long time when it is really no time at all.

Both these statements in pretending to be 100% true, become false.

It is true that time is an effect, thus a caused conception, but if time exists to an observer, to deny it is to deny reality.

Time passes, but it does not pass relevant to some ultimate clock, it passes relevant to what it is related to from any given perspective. From the conceptual view of "the fundamental causal agents" time does not pass, there is no time, but as time exists as a caused event then there cannot NOT be a duality that causes flowing time. Flowing time is a combination of static time and instantaneous time. In a causal sense static time seems illogical but is not, because time to us is merely a measurement of causal action, and causal action is always both instantaneous (as show by gravity) and not instantaneous (as shown by the linear flow of causal actions).

Here's an article I found on the evolution problem: http://www.noetic.org/publications/shif ... ion_lr.pdf

Is the belief in God something only to be accepted on faith? In his new book, Schwartz suggests that some kind of grand organizing principle is revealing itself in physics, statistics, computer science, and even parapsychology.

I don't think I'll bother attempting to read that article if it's the same Gary Schwartz that thinks John Edward really does talk to dead people.

Evolution has been studied in progress on a certain island (I forgot the name) Where there were multiple types of the same species scattered in clusters over the island, Each cluster had numerous differences in comparison to their counterparts located on another part of the island.

Mutation is the key to evolution, If you can't understand why evolution is by far the most likely of explanations.. Then you don't deserve to be speaking on this forum.

CM: What are your reasons for believing evolution to be the most likely explanation of what?

ChaoticMelody wrote:Evolution has been studied in progress on a certain island (I forgot the name)

I presume you're speaking about the Galapagos?

Dan Rowden wrote:

ChaoticMelody wrote:Evolution has been studied in progress on a certain island (I forgot the name)

I presume you're speaking about the Galapagos?

Possibly

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:CM: What are your reasons for believing evolution to be the most likely explanation of what?

The Origin of Man

ChaoticMelody wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:

ChaoticMelody wrote:Evolution has been studied in progress on a certain island (I forgot the name)

I presume you're speaking about the Galapagos?

Possibly

Charles Darwin; Voyage of the Beagle. It's where he did some of his most significant research and arguably where the idea of Natural Selection first crystalised in his brain.

He had a lot of time on his hands...

I'm not sure I get your point. He had a job to do on that voyage and he did it.

When I say he had a lot of free time. I mean the time it must have taken for him to link his findings and create a practical theory that fits the facts.

It sure didn't happen overnight.