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Lollie
Social climber
I'm Lolli.
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MikeL, to arrive to that conclusion it would be necessary to assume that every religious person believes in creation and not in evolution. Which isn't the truth.
I do spurn people who believes the world was created 6000 years ago. That's such a stupid belief there's no worlds for it.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^^ seems like your compassion hasn't evolved yet ; )
That's nothing but pure selfchosen ignorance.
Differing opinions are certainly an evolutionary trait. I'd say people that don't believe in intelligent design must believe in the opposite; Ignorant Design
As far as Smart Phones, wouldn't you consider that an intelligent design? Would you consider us humans capable of intelligent design, especially compared to animals who show minimal. I'd say a hummingbirds nest is a bit of intelligent design : )
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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ipse-dixiters
Hah hah hah.
So. People mentioned that humans have been controlling their own evolution. I disagree with this, generally. If anything, man is devolving. We save those who were unfortunate to have genetic diseases. Normally, nature would kill them, but we will do anything to save a loved one. It becomes a problem if they procreate. That bad gene still swims in our population genome. Through embryo manipulation, we could nigh totally eliminate something like Breast Cancer.
Our power to manipulate the genes of many organisms already exists. Right now, Monsanto (I think it was them) genetically modifies corn to make it resistant to the herbicide Roundup. So, you can spray your field with roundup (which kills all plants), and you easily eliminate your weed problem. That resistant gene was spliced into the natural corn DNA. So now you can clear all weeds from your cornfield cheaply and easily by spraying it with Roundup. The downside is that you must buy your seed from Monsanto every year. Recessive hybrids lose that gene after one generation.
The problem with what Monsanto has done, is that constant exposure to a toxin creates genetic pressure in the organism being attacked (in this case, weeds). The only survivors are mutations which are roundup resistant. We see this in antibiotics. They have been overused in cattle, and now we have a bunch of antibiotic resistant superbugs.
Mammals have already been tinkered with quite a bit, but there is an ethical debate regarding humans. There are already various gene therapies for a number of diseases, though. Nobody is against that. A good purpose.
It is only a matter of time. Three generations from now, we might have a super race of humans. Bio-engineering is far faster than natural selection and artificial breeding (such as our creation of varieties of dogs).
When there is opportunity, humans will use it, based on economics, if nothing else.
I have little faith in the so called nobility of man. Our country kills people every day, and our policies have resulted in many civil wars. Worse actors than us are in power in other parts of the world right now. If man is so noble, then why do tribes or nations go to war with their neighbors so often? Is the fundamental nature of humans noble or is it evil? We certainly see both examples every day.
For those of you who have raised children, you know how selfish they are. Empathy must be taught. Even with adults, empathy rarely extends beyond our local group, tribe, or nation. We are a violent tribal species.
Wouldn't it be great if our planet had a single benevolent government? No wars. No need for military spending. Lots of tolerance. Lots of empathy.
There are a few human characteristics that must change if we are to move forward. This violent tribalism is, in my mind, the first thing that has to go. Oddly, that characteristic is probably why humans were able to take over the planet.
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Lollie
Social climber
I'm Lolli.
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Differing opinions are certainly an evolutionary trait. I'd say people that don't believe in intelligent design must believe in the opposite; Ignorant Design
and since you don't believe in evolutionary traits.... it means people are not supposed to have differening opinions. You know, that's usually called tyranny or dictatorship.
Edit: i do also consider comments about the person instead of the issue as the loser's game. The only reason to attack the person instead is because of lack of arguments.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Differing opinions are certainly an evolutionary trait. I'd say people that don't believe in intelligent design must believe in the opposite; Ignorant Design
As far as Smart Phones, wouldn't you consider that an intelligent design? Would you consider us humans capable of intelligent design, especially compared to animals who show minimal. I'd say a hummingbirds nest is a bit of intelligent design : )
First, the word ignorant, and how you use it, is incorrect.
Your example of smartphones being designed by intelligent beings is correct. Humans are intelligent. Did we design the universe? No. We have been around for only a blink of an eye in geologic time.
Now show me an instance of a cell phone older than 50 years.
You also never explained why God sat there for 3 billion years before creating complex life, or why most "created" species are now extinct.
If you step back and look, there is no need for a designer. Period.
Your only remaining island is to come at this from an origin problem. How did DNA based life begin? Nobody knows, and not for lack of looking.
That is your only safe spot, BB.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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DMT: . . . carrying on with your SlipperyMike routine.
Ad hominem. Maybe Christians *are* being persecuted. They seem to be here on ST. UCC in Oregon. The Middle East.
I wrote what appeared to me by reading the words, just as you do. And yes, everything is perfect in its place evolutionarily. Even my stupid or ignorant ideas.
Lollie:
Paul already wrote what I would have written.
Look at all the things that you don’t really know conclusively or even what you would probably say doesn’t exist. Indeed, there are no words for many things . . . like love, Shakespeare, ethics, climbing, Ed, etc.
When anyone chooses one thing over another, it constitutes a bias or prejudice.
To be clear, what I’m trying to say is not to throw anything out. It all provides a perspective. Every view provides a view on what is true. There are scientific (empirical) truths, logical truths, mathematical truths, emotional truths, truths that you get out of your body that you don’t even know about, truths from literature, truths from religion, truths from different cultures, truths from economics, yada yada. Try to see everything at once. In fullness. Simultaneously. Try to see the present as you would have in the past and as you might from the future. Try to see the world from other people’s and other living beings’ viewpoints.
To follow the Tao is easy: just quit choosing.
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Lollie
Social climber
I'm Lolli.
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I'm not a Taoist, nor do I wish to be. Sorry.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I claim we do this because time has to do with possible combinations, or configurations, of the system. I claim time must run backward (hence the negative sign) because the combinations of things in the past were fewer.
presuming you can define the system and calculate the number of possible states....
and it's not that special an idea
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0702115
see also the source of Largo's Nobel prizewinner's quote: The End of Certainty
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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so far, you haven't earned my respect in that regard....
maybe if you acted a bit more maturely and not be so caught up in yourself, you could accelerate the process of intelligent discussion...
the way you convey yourself, it takes me a lot of effort to try to understand what you are getting at...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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so nice to view humans as exceptional and unique and so alone in the universe...
This quip surely comes from not acknowledging the qualitative difference in reality, which is the way we actually live. Most all of our conscious choices in life have to do with quality. And we all know that from dentists to food, all things are NOT equal.
But to a materialist, all things have to be merely mechanical output from physical antecedents. But even a cursory look at reality shows us that sentience, though existing on a sliding scale, is unique. Try and contrast subjectivity itself (NOT the mechanisms we believe "cause" it) with any other person, place, thing or phenomenon in the universe and you'll understand the old saw, "I got your uniqueness right here..."
And while the physical aspects of evolution are unavoidable, the mechanical impositions of our conditioning can be engaged in non-mechanical ways that takes us out of staunch impulse-response mode.
Trying to dumb down all of reality to merely physical interactions gives hope to the false promise that all can be known, but the whole business is submarined by the fact that subjectivity is not reductive to objective functioning.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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you have some idea of uniqueness? no two snowflakes are unique, so they say...
does it matter?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I would very much like to know what Ed Hartouni thinks of the idea ...
why would you want to know what I thought?
and then knowing it, why are you whining so much about it?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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no, we have not escaped evolution... nor can we. We might dream of it, but someday there will be no one around to know that we once dreamed... no matter what we now hold as noble.
It’s not a matter of escaping evolution, it’s a matter of achieving a level of consciousness and knowledge that allows both an understanding of what evolution is and the opportunity to disengage. Humanity has for centuries chosen to do the later in the form of self sacrifice for the sake of virtue and now with a contemporary level of understanding regarding evolution those sacrifices take on even a greater nobility.
The idea that ultimately the sun dies and humanity dies doesn’t lessen the nobility of our actions now, on the contrary, it only makes us more noble as in the face of mortality and the destruction of our race we are steadfast in our celebration of virtue. Real virtue doesn’t care if anybody knows.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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you have some idea of uniqueness? no two snowflakes are unique, so they say...
Unique in it's common usage means singular. Is consciousness not singular? What thing or object would you compare it to?
It makes all the difference in the world. Take consciousness out of the equation and see how much gets written about snow flakes or anything else. And since subjectivity not reductive to objective functioning, you have a unique non-thing.
And yes, Dingus, every "thing" is physical. But can we say that all reality is comprised of things/objects? Let's look a little closer.
In this life, you can never escape your own unique subjective bubble or sphere. That bubble is unique because no one else can experience it directly and it experientially exists only to you, the host. All that you know derives from your experience within that subjectivity. You cannot go to some objective place and behold your subjectivity "out there."
The question is: from within your subjectivity, do you observe any phenomenon that is not, itself, an object. Note, for instance, that an "object" of my attention does not make, for example, my sense of smell an object in the traditional sense, as something existing above and beyond mind, separate from any feelings or thoughts we have on it.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I feel as though it is worth pointing out that academia, at least at The University of Wyoming, is entirely full of people who act just like Ed.
you can get together with Dingus McGee for an Ed Hartouni slander fest...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jammer has some unusual ideas about set theory as well, but I'm not conversant enough with the subject to be of any assistance. I've enjoyed reading the ongoing conversation about physics, a far cry from my year of the subject in 1954-55 at Ga Tech.
. . . to my more controversial assertion that the same mechanism that creates space-time also creates mathematics . . . (Ed)
I suspect the argument here runs fairly deep, but any commentary would be welcome. (relationships between Hilbert spaces and lattices?)
Interesting developments on this thread in recent days . . . There's only so much that can be said about Subjective vs Objective and a respite from that philosophical wrangling is appreciated.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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And you simply have no way to prove that no two experiences are alike. That contention is simply not supportable.
Sure it is. The provable part is that no two humans are totally alike. Everyone has different physical and emotional and sensate traits and propensities. What's more, these change all the time. Yes, we have similar aspects to our experiences, but even how we consider these will vary greatly person to person. In fact arguing for a universality of experience is fatuous unless we are talking about the widest generalities like being hungry and tired and mad and so forth. But experience is both a product of our hardware AND software so variety and difference are guaranteed.
So no cigar on that one, Dingus. Experience is not an objective thing we all experience in kind. Not even close.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Yes ^^^
That's called simultaneously oneness and difference.
Just as there are no two snowflake patterns ever alike, there are no two living entities exactly alike.
As I've always said these "so called gross materialists" and the so called materialistic scientists (especially the HFCS types, etc.) have no real clue.
They're total academic brainwashed guessers with terrible logic when and where it really matters .....
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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^^^^^ Yay! Good news drops out of the cornflakes box.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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So no cigar on that one, Dingus.
This, though? I've been watching a long time and not seen anyone get the cigar. JL's "experience is not a thing" is a rigged game.
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