God's purpose

[Emily's Cat]

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

Evolutionary algorithms are pretty cool things

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Sorry, but I giggled and cola came out my nose. It actually kind of hurt.

Contrary to your statement, we DO self-identify as apes! That's exactly why we've placed ourselves in the family Hominidae!

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

This doesn't make sense. This makes so much not-sense that it isn't even wrong.

 

[Thor 2]

Then that makes all caucasians and asians an abomination.

Yes that is a tricky one.

According to the writings of Paul, (not NT Paul but modern prophet Paul Bethke - see ........ end times thread), God is white so Adam and Eve were.

Jesus? Well he was half Mary, and half the Holy Ghost, so I guess may have had an olive complexion.

There are so many pictures of Jesus as a white guy in Catholic Churches, and elsewhere though, so it's all very confusing. I wonder if one were to go to a church in an Asian country, and they had a picture of Jesus or his old man, what race he would be shown as?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

There's a technical term for this, in statistics parlance, but I can't remember it.

Basically, the probability of an event having occurred, given that it has occurred is always 1.0

You don't look at the probability of a thing that already occurred. You look at the probability of it having occurred prior to it's occurrence - the probability of it occurring among the multitude of other probable outcomes. I know I'm muddling this... but it's the same logical error that says "hey lookit all those physical laws and relationships that so perfectly fit our universe! Our universe couldn't exist without those laws being just perfectly right for our universe!" You're looking at a single event, after the fact, with the given assumption that the event has occurred.

Really wish I could recall the term here, because I know I'm slaughtering this concept something awful.

 

[Magrat]

There's a technical term for this, in statistics parlance, but I can't remember it.

Basically, the probability of an event having occurred, given that it has occurred is always 1.0

You don't look at the probability of a thing that already occurred. You look at the probability of it having occurred prior to it's occurrence - the probability of it occurring among the multitude of other probable outcomes. I know I'm muddling this... but it's the same logical error that says "hey lookit all those physical laws and relationships that so perfectly fit our universe! Our universe couldn't exist without those laws being just perfectly right for our universe!" You're looking at a single event, after the fact, with the given assumption that the event has occurred.

Really wish I could recall the term here, because I know I'm slaughtering this concept something awful.

Rare earth hypothesis?

Eta Dawkins addressed this in...the ancestor's tale, I believe. I know what you're going for, but I can't find it either.

 

[Navigator]

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.

Whoa there! I thought you didn't like hanging in the mean girls area! Now you are using your smarts to behave like them!

I am not arguing that ET had anything to do with human evolution or not. Could have.

Nice though that someone examined the possibility then created a theory to explain how ET was not needed...do you have a link to that?

Not familiar with the era of scientific racism, are you?

Did you not mention the Victorian era in relation to this? But what has that got to do with what I said? Are you attempting to misrepresent what am saying again?

f 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.

Where there is need.

 

[Navigator]

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.

No. It might have been but the focus of the discussion has been on the close and personal relationship to biological life forms on the planet, rather than whether the universe is a simulation created by intelligence.

So I am specifically talking about the relationship between intelligence and evolution of earths life forms.

And why one of those life forms evolved so differently to all the others...

 

[Navigator]

Sorry, but I giggled and cola came out my nose. It actually kind of hurt.

Contrary to your statement, we DO self-identify as apes! That's exactly why we've placed ourselves in the family Hominidae!

What a waste of cola....

We identify as human beings - often this also includes identifying with being of a certain 'race' but generally we never think of ourselves as 'apes'. Not even you do really...even with cola running down your chins...

Exactly why scientists placed human beings in the ape family has to do with other things, rather than that is because we self identify as being apes. You should have understood this anyway. It not as if I have been denying that humans are not categorized as a type of ape.

eta - also, scientist don't specifically think of themselves as apes just because the DNA closely matches and the form is similar. They think of themselves as being a very different and far more capable type of ape called the human being, AND get about the business of proving this to be the case.

 

[Pup]

I know what you mean too, and I can't think of the name either.

Makes me think of a story...

Millions of people, all strangers, are told to each flip a coin secretly from the others. If they get heads ten times in a row, they can live. Otherwise they'll instantly die.

One guy prays real hard, or thinks good thoughts, does his ten fair flips (no cheating) and they're all heads. He's overcome with joy and relief, and when he's ushered out of his privacy booth, discovers a huge room of thousands of people laughing, hugging and rejoicing. He finds that all of them got ten heads--thousands of them. It must be a miracle. God or someone was watching over them and did the almost impossible to control those coin flips to save them.

Of course the ending is obvious. The happy thousands didn't see the millions who died. The thousands who are alive believe they're special, but all the potential environments that couldn't support life don't have life.

 

[turingtest]

There's a technical term for this, in statistics parlance, but I can't remember it.

Basically, the probability of an event having occurred, given that it has occurred is always 1.0

You don't look at the probability of a thing that already occurred. You look at the probability of it having occurred prior to it's occurrence - the probability of it occurring among the multitude of other probable outcomes. I know I'm muddling this... but it's the same logical error that says "hey lookit all those physical laws and relationships that so perfectly fit our universe! Our universe couldn't exist without those laws being just perfectly right for our universe!" You're looking at a single event, after the fact, with the given assumption that the event has occurred.

Really wish I could recall the term here, because I know I'm slaughtering this concept something awful.

I don't remember the technical term for it either (dammit, Jim, I'm an electrician, not a statistician!), but one illustration for the principle goes roughly like this-

If you take a deck of 52 ordinary playing cards and lay them out one by one until you have a completed lay, the odds against any one predicted outcome is 1 in 8x10⁶⁷- astronomical, to say the least. But...if you lay them out without any particular lay in mind- that is to say, non-normatively, the way evolution works- the odds are you get what you get- as you say, 1 in 1. Odds are irrelevant in a non-predictive context.

The problem with folks who argue the odds against evolution producing something "near perfect" like humans is that that's a value judgment which assumes the conclusion, that humans are a goal of a normative (or "intelligent") process rather than simply an outcome of one that let the cards fall (once) where they would. If you could somehow rewind time and begin the process all over again, then the cards would probably fall very differently; but with a sample size of only one outcome, it's simply not justifiable to argue odds against what's already done. What we see is sufficient to explain what we have and how it got that way; "intelligence" directing the process is an unnecessary add-on, born of an anthropocentric pride.

 

[Pup]

Nice though that someone examined the possibility then created a theory to explain how ET was not needed...do you have a link to that?

I hope you're just joking. If you're serious... It's the theory of evolution. It explains how life could have evolved up to modern humans, and doesn't include a need for ETs or any other outside intelligence. I found a really good basic link which I posted earlier.

I'm being serious. If you're this interested in the natural history of humans, but disagree with modern evolutionary theory, it would strengthen your debating skills to spend some time in the "enemy camp" and learn what they teach, even if you think it's nonsense. I can tell when someone has picked up most of what they know from anti-evolutionists.

If you're making some sort of snide joke that the theory of evolution really does require ETs somehow, it went right over my head.

Did you not mention the Victorian era in relation to this? But what has that got to do with what I said? Are you attempting to misrepresent what am saying again?

Victorian, just pre-Victorian, and somewhat into the early 20th century. I certainly don't think you believe their disgusting ideas. That never ocurred to me so I hope it didn't come across that way. I'll say it for the record now, that I've never thought you were the least bit racist.

I was replying to your words that I quoted: "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."

You've criticized the theory of evolution for classifying humans as evolving by the same mechanism as apes and other animals. For fun, I thought I would go back to before the theory of evolution, to when scientists organized animals in the chain of being with humans on top, and show that even then, not everyone could "see by even cursory examination that humans are so much not like other apes."

They put some humans between humans and apes, halfway, with only white intelligent civilized humans on top. The quote I posted was over 20 years before Darwin published.

I'll reemphasize that I don't think you do it, and assume you would put all homo sapiens regardless of race at the top. But it just shows that even the "chain of being" style of organizing doesn't guarantee that scientists will consider all humans special and more advanced.

 

[ynot]

Navigator's own words disprove and refute his “undecided agnostic” claims . . .

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

<snip>

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

<snip>

The action is definitely linked to something we would normally expect to be intelligent

Nope. Nothing “undecided” there. And that's from only one of his posts.

 

[Pup]

Navigator's own words disprove and refute his “undecided agnostic” claims . . .



Nope. Nothing “undecided” there. And that's from only one of his posts.

Yes, it seems pretty clear he believes in some sort of extraterrestrial or paranormal intelligent being(s), and that his opinion of evolution has been shaped by anti evolution Christians who see it as an atheist plot to deny the existence of God and to deny the specialness of man being made in God's image. That kind of paranoia was right out of the Christian playbook.

I wonder if the indecision or middle ground between atheism and theism is between ETs producing humans (atheist), and God producing humans (theist). Therefore people who promote the theory of evolution, which requires neither intelligent agent, are wrong and must be argued against. Even if they're atheists who might be right about God, they're still wrong about ETs.

Navigator, since you seem to have a firm belief about something, I wish you'd share what it is, so we don't have to guess.

 

[abaddon]

There's a technical term for this, in statistics parlance, but I can't remember it.

Basically, the probability of an event having occurred, given that it has occurred is always 1.0

You don't look at the probability of a thing that already occurred. You look at the probability of it having occurred prior to it's occurrence - the probability of it occurring among the multitude of other probable outcomes. I know I'm muddling this... but it's the same logical error that says "hey lookit all those physical laws and relationships that so perfectly fit our universe! Our universe couldn't exist without those laws being just perfectly right for our universe!" You're looking at a single event, after the fact, with the given assumption that the event has occurred.

Really wish I could recall the term here, because I know I'm slaughtering this concept something awful.

That would be Bayes Theorem.

 

[ynot]

I wonder if the indecision or middle ground between atheism and theism is between ETs producing humans (atheist), and God producing humans (theist).

Deciding to believe ET's exist and produced humans isn't a decision to be an atheist. Unless and until people decide and believe god(s) exist and produced humans they are (remain) atheists.

 

[Navigator]

Lizards First.

What would science have to say about the possibility that during the era of the lizards, that an offshoot of a particular family of lizard took on characteristics unusual among their kind - just as the human being has done in relation to the rest of the apes.

And what if, like the human being, they even reached a technological stage equalling or even surpassing our own?

Since we know that it can be done through the Process of Evolution, then we know it is possible but could it have happened and if not why not?

If so then no need for ET. Not saying that ET don't exist or haven't had any contact with this planet. Just saying that the CT regarding 'Malevolent Lizards' referred to as the reptilians - as popular as it is among some circles - might have its roots far closer to home than the Orion System.


In relation to what appears to be a kind of paranoia running along the lines of 'if we see ourselves as a special kind of ape then we risk reverting to Nazism once more' that is a certain kind of balderdash.

If we see the human being as a special kind of ape, we are inviting that being to partake of the higher concept which that understanding offers in potentially supporting goodness.

Being special isn't all about bad evil ya know. If Nazis used the theory of evolution to promote their policies, then the rest of the human ape world took exception to that rule and sacrificed a great deal to stomp on it.

Not saying that 'the rest of the world' was in much better of a position at the time according to their social class structures, but Nazis took that a step further.
Now we know different but by 'we' I mean 'some of us' and there is still a lot of work to be done in the way of educating those human apes who still see separation in the human ape species.

Sure it is recognizable and complained about often enough. There is 'stupid insane majority' (see this thread) and then there is poor hard done by minority intellectuals who were fortunate to have healthy normal brains that could figure everything out in pretty much a blink of an eye.

Except of course, the majority of those intellectuals see 'no purpose in the human being' but a simple 'accident of nature'. I do wonder though if they include themselves in that 'accident' or are they 'special' because they are not 'stupid'?

 

[Pup]

Deciding to believe ET's exist and produced humans isn't a decision to be an atheist. Unless and until people decide and believe god(s) exist and produced humans they are (remain) atheists.

Let me try again. I think we're in agreement but not sure.

What I meant was that one could believe that ETs produced humans and still be an atheist. Navigator might think that if he decides to become an atheist, he'll become that kind, so atheists like me who deny ETs produced humans, are heretics and must be shown the error of their ways.

If he decides to become a theist, well, he can pick any religion.

I think you and I agree that someone who doesn't believe in a god right now, meets the definition of an atheist. But Navigator has denied that point so vigorously I'm not going to go there. I'll grant that he's neutral, even if he doesnt use the standard word for it.

But right now, he's not acting like he's in the neutral middle between theists and atheists. He's arguing against evolution like a fundy Christian, not like someone undecided.

The ET thing explains it. He may be undecided whether God or ETs created mankind, but Darwin and I are wrong either way.

Navigator, I wish you would tell us straight out what you think, so we wouldn't be drawn into these speculations about why your posts say what they do.

 

[Thor 2]

What would science have to say about the possibility that during the era of the lizards, that an offshoot of a particular family of lizard took on characteristics unusual among their kind - just as the human being has done in relation to the rest of the apes.

And what if, like the human being, they even reached a technological stage equalling or even surpassing our own?

Since we know that it can be done through the Process of Evolution, then we know it is possible but could it have happened and if not why not?

Wow! So your saying because the lizards didn't develop technology then this is some sort of proof that we are special? Never thought of that I must say.

Couldn't understand the rest of the post.

 

[Pup]

In relation to what appears to be a kind of paranoia running along the lines of 'if we see ourselves as a special kind of ape then we risk reverting to Nazism once more' that is a certain kind of balderdash.

If we see the human being as a special kind of ape, we are inviting that being to partake of the higher concept which that understanding offers in potentially supporting goodness.

Now you seem convinced that people are afraid to admit that humans are super special. That's just bizarre. I'm not afraid to admit it. I just think it's wrong. It's not scary, it's silly. I have no reason to say something that I believe is wrong.

I wish you would accept that as the honest motive. Dreaming up other peculiar reasons won't change it.

Edited because I forgot to add: I don't think people need to believe they're special to live up to their potential of goodness. The sense of good and bad, right and wrong, is bred right in to all of us. Theists may say that atheists can have no moral sense if they don't believe in god, but that's similar nonsense. Humans don't need to believe certain things to be good. Thousands of years of living in social groups have taught us, on a genetic level, what play nice means.