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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: What we must accept if we accept evolution Part 2 | |||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Hi, Faith. Sorry I couldn't return to the discussion sooner. At some future point I'd like to continue discussing brain/mind issues, but for now I'd like to go with the flow in this 2nd part thread.
The issue at hand IS that it logically follows from the ToE that either there is no God or God is evil because He created a world full of death and destruction, which you have just affirmed by your example of the fossil record -- which is regarded as major evidence for the ToE after all. Those are not the only two possibilities. Another possibility is a Creator who is not omnipotent--a God who can create the universe but not dictate every detail of its unfolding. An omniscient God might see that the game is worth the candle but be unable to prevent the burns along the way. Is it bad form to link to my own messages? Oh well. Here's what I said to mike the wiz on the subject earlier today. Indeed, many early religions distinguished between the creating god/gods and the "operating" gods.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
OK, I'll accept that. It's just a matter of modifying the OP list again. So what logically follows from the ToE is 1) No God 2) An evil God, or 3) an Impotent God. Or maybe it should be summed up: Either no God or any God but the omniscient omnipotent God of Love of the Bible. Well, part of my point, Faith, was that if we have free will, then the unfolding of the universe is not omnipotently ordered. We can only posit an Evil God (in the context of this logical construct) if that God is omnipotent and thus could have ordered the universe so that pain and suffering were unnecessary. But if we turn that logic on the Biblical God, then we have to ask: is there pain and suffering in the world because the Biblical God is evil? Because the Biblical God is not omnipotent? Because the Biblical God has voluntarily sacrificed/restrained omnipotence for a free Creation? It gets complicated well beyond an either-or.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
The rhyming and scansion on that last couplet are dubious. I believe the term of art is "post-Fall couplet"--half-rhymes and extra feet. *shudders*
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Ah, yes, like the single, deliberately thrown stitch in the otherwise perfect Persian carpet... Works for me.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
What Jazzns said.
iamaelephant, your post was entirely appropriate; I disagree strongly with iano about that (and much else!). Faith can take care of herself just fine. So, yes: Welcome. Lay on, McIamaelephant. Lurk no more.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
iamaelephant writes: Thanks mate, I appreciate the support Of course, the last thing I want to do is make enemies on this forum, so if I'm stepping on anyone's toes I do appreciate it when someone pulls me up on it. You can't make an enemy of iano--he's a Christian! He was just being gallant.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Faith, no offense, but do you...drink?
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
The turkey welcomes the farmer who comes to feed him every day for 364 days. Then, one day in November...
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Beliefs, thoughts, mind, sense of self, all are just part of this automaton that is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical entity that came about by the purely physical processes of evolution. These patterns were selected by physical processes to enhance survival. That makes all the thought processes "automatic" in a sense, or preprogrammed in a sense, rather than intended. Without intention any correspondence they may have with actual fact or truth is purely accidental. I think. How could a process that only accidentally yielded correspondences with truth enhance survival? Survival is enchanced by accuracy, and evolution has produced processes which maximize the probability of accurate thoughts. The brains that produced inaccurate thoughts suffered the consequences and produced fewer to no descendants. Evolution produced the engine of thought, not the thoughts themselves. This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 02-04-2006 08:30 PM "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" -Sir Toby Belch, Twelfth Night Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
but surely evolution selected according to the accuracy of the thoughts -- not the engine, but the thoughts, since it is the thoughts that make the difference. In any case, even if they are accurate, they are still "accidental" in the sense that there is no *I* thinking them, they are merely automatically produced. Sure, evolution would select according to the thoughts, but the quality of thought depends on the quality of the engine: bad engine, bad thoughts; good engine, good thoughts. The thoughts are produced via interaction between the environment, the engine, and the engine's past experiences; the engine must be able to see itself in possible consequent scenarios. These interactions ultimately produce the I, the unique perspective of that engine with that history having that particular interaction. The process is responsive, but I see no reason to describe it as automatic. The ability to imagine multiple possible scenarios, and the ability of the thought engine to be aware of itself and its capabilities/outcomes in those scenarios, would both be an immediate advantage: the ability to see what might happen. Once that evolves, another layer of reflection and accuracy-testing kicks in: how accurately are the scenarios imagined? How accurately are others' responses predicted? To me, the metaphor of critical mass would be useful; consider increasing numbers of neural connections rather than colliding particles. Once a threshold of accurate reflection is crossed, one can not only consider multiple scenarios in which one is a player but also inquire of others about other possible scenarios--not only experience but the experiences of others become grist. Further, one can learn algorithms (like formal tests for validity and soundness) that promote accuracy: I tend to underestimate the duplicity of others, so if I memorize a little saying about that ("Everyone's queer but me and thee/and I'm not sure of thee"), and invoke it despite my tendency to ignore the issue, I'll do better. As a sufficient mass of fissile material erupts into a thermonuclear explosion, a sufficient mass of self-awareness/imagination/self-reflection, memory, etc., creates a consciousness that can study it's own engine and say, "Where did all this come from? Am I real? Am I a ghost in the machine or the illusion of a ghost in the machine?" Once you can ask those questions, if not before, you are more than an automatic responder. Complexity builds on complexity, and at some threshold the difference becomes qualitative, not just quantitative. That's an abstraction of how I envision a more-than-automatic consciousness arising, and I don't intend it as a proof. This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 02-04-2006 09:31 PM
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Just wanted to say good morning, and thanks for the verse, Faith. I enjoyed the poem.
"Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" -Sir Toby Belch, Twelfth Night Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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