What we must accept if we accept evolution

I guess that is good question CFROG. But I DO KNOW that if I am thinking of SPECIFIC proposals of random electric potentials in a brain, say the (on-off) analogy of Kaufmann from the late 60s then I can give an equally specific response that sustains IANOS series of grounded or groundable statments.I used to have an innocent answer- GRAVITY WAVES, but as you in particular probably know I have used that response nausiatingly before. But it was something I did think!!see also
EvC Forum: creationists side-stepping
http://EvC Forum: Definition of created kind! -->EvC Forum: Definition of created kind!
http://EvC Forum: Definition of created kind! -->EvC Forum: Definition of created kind!
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even RAZD mentions the thing in general
EvC Forum: Another Test for Intelligent Design ProponentsMy densist to date was
EvC Forum: Message from the future

Do you include energy in incorporeal? Like magnetism, radio waves, light?lfen

quote:

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Surely one could believe in a supernatural world without necessarily believing in an immaterial soul.

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"Supernatural" means incorporeal.

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Fair enough. But couldn't one believe in an incorporeal God, but not in an incorporeal soul?

Wow, what a sick thread.I agree with you rohan.

Interesting question. To be able to answer it fully would require that I know how it is that ME as spirit, is enabled to to have a true unimpeded free will - free of any determination. I don't know how the answer to that. It is a black box. The fact I feel clear external argument (God/Satan say) pulling me this way and that indicates there is ME in the middle. Its about all I have to go onBut if I look at 'ME', the part determined/ part chance model, I know that I don't have any free will. What will be will be. It being determined or chance or a mixture affects that not.The one model offers evidence of freedom the other most definitely not. Interesting question II. In the case of your deterministic/chance model this cannot be the case - because the decision has a chance element to it. If we could go back to that same situation, then chance must have been able to fall another way and lead to another decision - otherwise it wouldn't be chance it would be purely determined.In my model, reason can't tell us what would happen for want of a mechanism of decision-making for us to examine. It is a black box to me. As an aside: what causes statistical variation: is it variance in the laws or variance in that on which they exert influence. Or something else?

Question for prophex and robinrohan:Does acceptance of the germ theory of disease necessarily preclude the belief in the supernatural?

iano But this is acontradiction of your previous post where you say : The brain is physical and if the mind uses this as a tool you fail to expplain how physical matter is manipulated by the mind if it is not itself physical.The mind is an illusion presented by the lack of a nervous system within the brain. Since,unlike the body, there is no sensory information coming to the brain to indicate a physical awareness of itself the mind attributes this to a seperation between it and the brain. Also, if the mind is not physical then physical alterations of the brain, drugs concussions etc.. would not also affect the mind.

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But I realize now that these people were not in science; they didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand technology; they didn’t understand their time.

I've already shown you that this isn't the case. In a non-deterministic universe your choices, by definition, cannot be predetermined because time is not symmetrical or repeatable. Rewind time and let it play again and something different happens. (Probably.) It's the consequence of a quantum universe. So, you'd rather retreat to ignorance than face reality. Well, I can't argue with that. I wish you had warned me before, though, that you weren't going to approach a rational discussion rationally, and that you were going to discount any reasoning that didn't take you exactly where you wanted to go.Would have wasted a lot less of my time. Well, I take that back. It honestly didn't take very long to poke holes in your sophmore philosophy class. There's no difference between the matter in the universe and the laws that govern its behavior. The laws are the universe. The laws are the matter.

Could you explain ?

If I could explain it I could explain God. God is spirit yet he can manipulate the physical. Knowing that something is as it is is quite different from proving it is so. Somewhere at the start of all this I stated that this was my belief/knowledge. Not that I can prove it to be the case. No more than... ...can be proven to be the case. This appears to be a philosophical assumption, not a scientifically demonstrable reality. If the brain is a vehicle, a motorcycle, and the mind the motorcycle rider - as I hold it to be, then we would expect faulty spark plugs and flat tyres to affect the motorcycle directly and the rider indirectly, in so far as his use of the motorcycle as a form of transport is inhibited.I am HAPPY, I am SAD, I am A HUMAN. The brain provides the items in CAPITALS, the mind provides the "I am". There is, so far as I can tell, no way to test whether "I am" is a function of the brain or not. You may incapacitate the motorcycle and the rider cannot go anywhere. But he still is. He cannot be shown to be not.With your permission I think we should hold off at this point. We are nowhere near topic.This message has been edited by iano, 22-Jan-2006 01:09 PM

If chance then I agree. But I fail to see how a mechanism can be said to have choice if all it does is either respond deterministically or by chance or by a mixture of the two. If words mean anything choice means being able to pick one of two options. Neither determinism nor chance involve choice There are all kinds of things which cannot be rationally shown to be the case. That there are objective truths is a convention which is assumed not shown. I look at an apple. It is 'objectively' an apple because convention has decided that if everyones subjective view says its an apple then objectively it is. That is has color, mass and taste are all conventions which are said to be objective. So to, choice. It is a convention, it cannot be proven. Your model fails in that is flies in the face of a convention universally assumed. Mine, even though it might not be understood precisely doesn't.Tell me this Crash. How can a random jumble of matter and energy comforming deterministically or operating by chance (the brain) come to the objective conclusion that it is made up of matter and energy. Does this model not slit its own throat? Crash demonstrating (in spades) that the world is in fact deterministic. "When in trouble - fling mud". It happens every time. Like clockwork This message has been edited by iano, 22-Jan-2006 01:24 PM

No, those phenomena are physical. The only thing we can think of that could possibly be incorporeal is "thought."

Incorporeal? Hmmm..time to ask Mr. Dictionary! OK...One thing that has always intrigued me is the idea that thought (in the sense of imagination) could be faster than light. Icould imagine myself on a distant star and "be there" quicker than light could get there! But then again...

YEC's explain that as justice, not cruelty.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We've already been through this. You know my silly, trivial, and uninteresting view. It has everything to do with it. Evolution tells us that human life came about accidentally. Therefore, our lives are ultimately meaningless. There's no reason why we should be here other than the fact that that's how nature works. We are on the same level as everything else that exists--the dog lying in the ditch, the gnat swarming in the eye, or a speck of dust floating through space.