God's purpose

[IanS]

Theists version of evolution is by “intelligent selection”, not “natural selection”.

I can't speak for theists but from my own perspective, natural is intelligent. There is no need (for an agnostic) to separate the two notions.

Things that occur by natural processes do require or use what we call "intelligence", where the word "intelligence" means some deliberate concious decision making by animals such as humans with an advanced brain capacity.

For example - all sorts of chemical elements exist on Earth without any intelligent human putting them there, and they react with other chemicals (often including water) to form various compounds such as iron oxides, metal nitrates, and halides (e.g. salt) etc. That did not require any "intelligent design" by anyone ... it happens entirely by natural processes in chemistry and physics.

So, contrary to what you just said above ; "natural" is not the same as "intelligent".

 

[Jodie]

Definitely not! Didn't look enough like god so no souls were handed out.

Then that makes all caucasians and asians an abomination.

 

[PartSkeptic]

I'm pretty sure they'd both leave behind signs that would point to a lack of oxygen, which would lead investigators to consider reasonable causes of suffocation.

You should look it up before making an assumption. Especially after I made a statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bag

...A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag or hood, is a device consisting of a large plastic bag with a drawcord used to commit suicide through inert gas asphyxiation. It is usually used in conjunction with an inert gas like helium or nitrogen, which prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling during unconsciousness (the hypercapnic alarm response) usually caused by the deprivation of oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide. This method also makes the direct cause of death difficult to trace if the bag and gas canister are removed before the death is reported.

...Suicides using a suicide bag and an inert gas produce no characteristic post-mortem macroscopic or microscopic findings.

If I am past the point that I wish to live any more, I will have a pure helium cylinder (nitrogen or argon will also do) connected to my CPAP machine. Asleep in 5 breaths. Gone in 5 to 10 minutes.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... End of Story.

That work was a tad quick for abiogenesis. Nice! I also won't tell on you.

 

[Pup]

If I am past the point that I wish to live any more, I will have a pure helium cylinder (nitrogen or argon will also do) connected to my CPAP machine. Asleep in 5 breaths. Gone in 5 to 10 minutes.

The weakness in the metaphor is that someone has to come and take away the gas equipment. God would need to obtain the equipment, perform the death in secrecy, then sneak in, remove and destroy the equipment. He could potentially get caught at any point. I realize that would be trivially easy for God, but it still needs done.

Usually a death assisted by God is described as being undetectable and indistinguishable from a natural death. That's only true for this method if everything is taken care of properly, but literal miracles would be required if a loved one stayed at the bedside, changing the oxygen in the tank to helium then back again imperceptibly, for example.

Hmm... there's been a helium shortage over the last few years. Wonder if anyone's checked whether God is stealing it and stockpiling it for murders?

 

[Magrat]

God is a serial killer! News at 10!

 

[Navigator]

The theory of evolution does not teach that ET aliens guided evolution so humans would be endowed with special properties above all other animals.

No it doesn't.

If that's what you need, you won't find it in standard science. From your previous posts, that's my best guess what you want.

It is amazing how your general run of the mill scientist is all 'Darwin' about this fact. I think there is probably far more 'follow the leader' than you are willing to admit to Pup.

Anyone can see that humans aren't like other apes in some ways (intelligence, etc.) and are similar in others (DNA, etc.), but I have no way of knowing how much "not like other apes" would suit you, although your posts indicate your mind is firmly made up that it needs to be at least a certain very important amount.

Anyone can see by even cursory examination that humans are so much not like other apes as to not even self identify with being an ape. The evidence supports the fact that we are not like any other animal on the planet in what we are able to do with what we have.

 

[Navigator]

Things that occur by natural processes do require or use what we call "intelligence", where the word "intelligence" means some deliberate concious decision making by animals such as humans with an advanced brain capacity.

Nope. What I am saying is that the process is intelligent. I can't say that some aspect of the critters consciousness isn't in the driving seat in relation to this. I am not suggesting that the animal is conscious of the intelligent decisions being made - as we know (and as I have mentioned) we don't even consciously make decisions - they are already made before we are consciously aware of the sensation of thinking we make them.

From the observers seat, the reaction might look all accidental but that is not necessarily the case. The action is definitely linked to something we would normally expect to be intelligent...but of course, we don't know enough about the whole subject to make the exceptionally naive observational assumption that evolution is NOT an act of intelligence.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

... Anyone can see by even cursory examination that humans are so much not like other apes as to not even self identify with being an ape. The evidence supports the fact that we are not like any other animal on the planet in what we are able to do with what we have.

"Anyone" surely isn't everyone, as many are disagreeing with your take. Still, this time let me be a bit more circumspect and at least recognize what I think it is you see:

'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!' - S., Hamlet
​

But we do what we do with what we have, and what we have is from our very nature. If every act is divinely inspired, then there is no way to see or tell such a thing, and the statement doesn't help us. So I have an experiment for you. This works best if you really do it, because it is easy to imagine, and in imagining, think you feel it. You don't. Drive or be driven out into the countryside, and go off on your own just far enough to be off the path, out of sight of any man-made items, and on your own.

Now, mentally, kill off all of civilization, and wipe the Earth of all its artifacts. Somehow, there are other humans, who, unlike you, know nothing of what was before. Tragically, you remember your past life, but not how to make anything. You speak a language having only names for what now exists.

Now imagine rebuilding. Everything. And a mobile phone.

As you contemplate the utter madness of trying to make, say, an iPhone, you realize the incredible series of step-wise small things that mankind did to arrive where we are. It took, and will now take you, millennia.

Millennia just to get to the 18th century, when it then only takes three centuries more to get the iPhone. Notice the swift ramping up of incredible know-how, a knowledge explosion. Some people count two knowledge explosions in history, others three or more, but they all come from the right circumstances coming into play. And even before the times referred to in your thought experiment, there was an even earlier explosion in knowledge generating and transmission capabilities, language. So we have Man, naturally gifted with an abstract symbolic system that has enough power of expression to be used to manipulate the environment collaboratively. She then gets writing. Writing gets a printing press. The internet.

People today are living at the very tippy tip and tail end of an amazing story. That's what's cool. The cosmos now has evolved beings that look back on an even more astounding and far longer journey.

 

[IanS]

Nope. What I am saying is that the process is intelligent. I can't say that some aspect of the critters consciousness isn't in the driving seat in relation to this. I am not suggesting that the animal is conscious of the intelligent decisions being made - as we know (and as I have mentioned) we don't even consciously make decisions - they are already made before we are consciously aware of the sensation of thinking we make them.

From the observers seat, the reaction might look all accidental but that is not necessarily the case. The action is definitely linked to something we would normally expect to be intelligent...but of course, we don't know enough about the whole subject to make the exceptionally naive observational assumption that evolution is NOT an act of intelligence.

You are claiming that the the formation of minerals, compounds and salts etc. on earth, or the formation of elements in stars requires "intelligence"? Is that what you are claiming? Because that is what I just put to you.

 

[PartSkeptic]

And every hole in the road is exactly the right shape for the puddle that sits in it, and the sun rises at exactly the right time for people to get up and go to work. What are the odds, eh? Life is just full of amazing coincidences.

I say that we have a near perfect design for our hands for the variety of tasks required to advance humans.

And the reply is that hole in the road is just the right shape for the puddle.

I do not get it. Please explain this one?

ETA: I googled this concept and found that Douglas Adams imagined this. I still don't get it. Must be my lack of imagination.

 

[PartSkeptic]

The weakness in the metaphor is that someone has to come and take away the gas equipment. God would need to obtain the equipment, perform the death in secrecy, then sneak in, remove and destroy the equipment. He could potentially get caught at any point. I realize that would be trivially easy for God, but it still needs done.

Usually a death assisted by God is described as being undetectable and indistinguishable from a natural death. That's only true for this method if everything is taken care of properly, but literal miracles would be required if a loved one stayed at the bedside, changing the oxygen in the tank to helium then back again imperceptibly, for example.

Hmm... there's been a helium shortage over the last few years. Wonder if anyone's checked whether God is stealing it and stockpiling it for murders?

I did not say that God had to do the application and hiding of equipment. Just that here was an event where science and medicine could not detect the cause of death if the cylinder and hoses had been removed.

Science is not that all-powerful was the point.

BTW: Suicide by this means has troubled people so much that they now add 20% air to helium cylinders. The pure stuff is hard to get.

One wonders how many murders are done this way now. It used to be the arsenic and cyanide one could buy from the local chemist/pharmacy.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Emily's Cat, riffing on your post #1685, people have used evolutionary algorithms to develop electronic circuits.

Got a link?

BTW: I am an electrical/electronic engineer who also did a lot of design/research/trouble shooting. And have an interest in physics.

 

[Magrat]

I say that we have a near perfect design for our hands for the variety of tasks required to advance humans.

And the reply is that hole in the road is just the right shape for the puddle.

I do not get it. Please explain this one?

ETA: I googled this concept and found that Douglas Adams imagined this. I still don't get it. Must be my lack of imagination.

You're joking. Near perfect design?!

Okay first of all,there's the fact we require so much water. Second, we can barely regulate our own temperatures and we require clothing to survive ("dying of exposure", as in exposure to nature). Third, our skin is weak and can be so damaged just by the SUN (the source of all energy on this planet) that we have to hide from it or die!

Fourth, many of our joints are so badly suited to their intended purposes that they frequently need replaced after 50-some odd years of use. Fifth, not to mention the discs between our vertebrae, which wear out as a matter of course and often impinge on the spinal cord, causing paralysis.

Sixth, we are so darn squishy any number of things other critters survive easily kill us (ie a cat can fall seven floors, we break our legs at one).

Seventh we use our nutritional intake so inefficiently that other beings survive easily off our wastes. Same with water. We excrete as much as we use.

Eighth autoimmune disorders. Meaning the immune system kills the body itself.

Ninth, our complex brains are ripe for dysfunction, which we call mental illness.

Tenth, we are jerks. We call it "human nature" when we do something *******-ish, especially in large groups. And it is. It is our nature,the way we are wired, that makes us riot and loot and go to war. Not exactly a great "design".

Eleventh, babies are helpless until they are at least 7, and require adult assistance until they are in their teens. What a waste of energy! Wouldn't a better "design" mature more rapidly?

Twelfth, we have an innate tendency to believe in nonsense like supernatural dieties.

I could go on. Books have been written about how badly "designed" humans are.

Eta I realize he specifically said "hands" but I wanted to address the entire idea.

Thirteenth: carpel tunnel syndrome. Using our hands repeatedly for their intended purpose makes it so you can't use your hands any more. Also arthritis. Also the fact that everything we designed, we designed for our hands...its like saying feet must be perfectly designed because shoes fit them.

 

[Pup]

It is amazing how your general run of the mill scientist is all 'Darwin' about this fact. I think there is probably far more 'follow the leader' than you are willing to admit to Pup.

Before criticizing the theory of evolution and the scientists who teach it, I'd suggest studying how it says humans could have evolved without ETs directing them. Then you can make an informed rebuttal without worrying about the Dunning Kruger effect.

Anyone can see by even cursory examination that humans are so much not like other apes as to not even self identify with being an ape. The evidence supports the fact that we are not like any other animal on the planet in what we are able to do with what we have.

Not familiar with the era of scientific racism, are you? The observation that humans aren't like other apes, was not always self evident to scientists who actually studied the field. Just as one of many hundreds or thousands of examples, the following is from Mental Susceptibility; the Influence of Education on the Varieties of the Human Race, London, 1837:

"Having already remarked that the Negro constituted the descending link in the chain of nature which united human beings to the brute creation, I will point out the class of brutes which most nearly approximates the lowest variety of the genus Homo. No person can look at the ape species of the monkey tribe, without being surprised at its approach to the human figure, and particularly at its resemblance to the Negro."

In that era, there was an attempt to rank humans, putting white people at the very top, darker skinned races next below, blending down into the highest forms of apes. When racism was acceptable and education generally wasn't available to dark-skinned people to show they could be as refined and intelligent as whites, it was easy and satisfying for whites to categorize some humans (not whites of course) as halfway between humans and apes.

The answer wasn't correct--blacks are now categorized as humans same as whites--but it shows that even in the days when people loved to rank humans and animals from higher to lower, they could consider some humans barely above apes in rank.

 

[ynot]

Nope. What I am saying is that the process is intelligent.

Therefore you're saying there's intelligence behind the process. An intelligence that designed and controls the process (as theists say).

I can't say that some aspect of the critters consciousness isn't in the driving seat in relation to this.

Therefore you're saying there's a non-critter consciousness in the driver's seat (as theists say).

I am not suggesting that the animal is conscious of the intelligent decisions being made

Therefore you're saying there's a non-animal intelligence that is not only conscious of the intelligent decisions being made, but is also making those intelligent decisions (as theists say).

- as we know I believe (and as I have mentioned) we don't even consciously make decisions

FTFY. Wonder why we even bother being conscious then?

- they are already made before we are consciously aware of the sensation of thinking we make them.

Therefore you're saying everything is predetermined and controlled by some non-critter/animal intelligence (as theists say).

From the observers seat, the reaction might look all accidental but that is not necessarily the case. The action is definitely linked to something we would normally expect to be intelligent...

Hmmm . . . Wonder what we could call that intelligent “something”? "Dog" perhaps? No that's doesn't sound quite right.

but of course, we don't know enough about the whole subject to make the exceptionally naive observational assumption that evolution is NOT an act of intelligence.

We don't know therefore god, or Gaia, or GOD, or FSM. A god by any other name would be as magical.

Your thinly disguised and blatantly denied theistic beliefs are palpably obvious, time to be honest and come out of the closet perhaps?

 

[Pup]

I say that we have a near perfect design for our hands for the variety of tasks required to advance humans.

And the reply is that hole in the road is just the right shape for the puddle.

I do not get it. Please explain this one?

ETA: I googled this concept and found that Douglas Adams imagined this. I still don't get it. Must be my lack of imagination.

It's one of those jokes I never get tired of.

A silly person looks at a puddle and is amazed that the water is just the right size and shape to fit the hole. What they fail to realize of course is that the water flowed into the hole. There wasn't a preformed glob of water waiting to find the right hole to fit it.

There could be a hundred puddles, and it would be no surprise or coincidence to find all their water fit exactly, because the water always adapts to fit whatever shape the hole is.

It applies to hands, because we make tools and choose tasks to fit our hands. It's not like there were scissors lying around for centuries and our hands were amazingly made to fit them. We made scissors and everything else to fit our hands. We know we need a drill to make a hole in wood so we don't even try to do it with our bare hands, so we don't feel the frustration of it being impossible.

If something would be too awkward for our hands, like maybe the job or the tool needed two thumbs, then the tool never would have been made or the job not attempted, and that's why our hands fit every tool that's made and every job we try to do.

 

[jimbob]

Got a link?

BTW: I am an electrical/electronic engineer who also did a lot of design/research/trouble shooting. And have an interest in physics.

Here's one that I have previously found...

https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

 

[ynot]

but of course, we don't know enough about the whole subject to make the exceptionally naive observational assumption that evolution is NOT an act of intelligence.

Or make the equally exceptionally naive observational assumption that evolution IS an act of intelligence. Yet that's exactly what you do (as theists do).

 

[Emily's Cat]

I can't speak for theists but from my own perspective, natural is intelligent. There is no need (for an agnostic) to separate the two notions.

Are you ascribing intelligence to nature? Are you claiming that somehow "nature" is capable of making decisions?