Rationalism is a product of the 18th and 19th century colonial model and has nothing to do with the reality of human thought for most of European let alone world history. It is primarily a model of thought based around justification of capitalism as a means of organizing social activity and thought.
that was preceded by things like the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Salem witch trials, church domination in politics
The alternative to rationality is irrationality
quote:
Marx's Rationalism
As should be apparent by now, Marx, like Adam Smith and Hegel, was a rationalist and one of the last radical champions of universal enlightenment. Of course, he was not a rationalist in the sense of a philosopher deducing an a priori metaphysic or regulative ideals of reason; nor did he have much sympathy for the classical rationalism formulated by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Instead, Marx was an Enlightenment rationalist in the mold of such materialists as Helvétius, Holbach, and Diderot. These thinkers combined a rejection of innate ideas with a generalizing science of man and were concerned both with the systematic study of society and the enunciation of universal principles of right and justice. As the historian Elie Halévy described him, this type of rationalist "believes in the allpowerfulness of science. . . . Just as science guarantees to man the power to transform physical nature at will
a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Basic tenets of evolution by natural selection as defined by Darwin:
* More individuals are produced each generation that can survive.
* Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
* Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
* When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.
Swenet which of these do you disagree with, if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
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posted
Anybody living in America where science is separate from religion and held in high esteem should travel to some other countries where religion is more prominent to get some first hand experience.
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: I say none because science has no place for spooks thinking like human beings or mating with each other to bring about physics. Science doesn't pray. There's no AE gnosis that doesn't involve adoration and worship and morality with reward or punishment after death.
The 'intelligence sentience' requires no priesthood no grovelling suppliants prayers and sacrifices nor codes of right and wrong. It doesn't feel for us or care about us. The gazelle hurts when the lion catches her. Untold generations of Homo suffered unspeakable atrocities. The intelligence satience doesn't give a damn about that because it isn't an imaginary anthropomorphic deity desiring anything from us.
Homo couldn't even speak before certain genes came to be in us sapiens only.
Man created gods including Atum Amun Ogdoad and Ennead not the other way around. So please don't mistake my answer that AEs had more creation mythos and responsible agents (gods) than Ptah.
The waters always existed and hill that appeared with their subsiding is not scientific cosmogony. No. It's only an expression of what every AE farmer saw every year: the high Nile rolls back leaving little hills of silt.
On another note remember a Nubian king who studied atheist Greek wisdom killed the priest who came to kill him liked they killed each ruler after so many years of rule.
Viva la seperation of science from religion!
quote:Originally posted by Swenet:
quote:Originally posted by Tukuler:
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: See for instance the link Tukuler posted. If you accept that and you see a connection between that and the origin of life, you're at odds with Darwinism, but not necessarily with evolution.
Hmm, a link follower, eh?
Glad you see that in my post no human invented Great Being have nothing to do with how the Universe built us up as part of itself.
If I wanted to do that I'd introduce the Ssimssum, how the Eternal contracted to allow an infinitesimal yet ultimate dense result (tzimtzum) unfold into the expanding universe for the last 15 billion years.
See? So I didn't get why something scientifically testable had to be tied to human intelligenced super spook philosophy essentially the anti-thesis to what I brought up, the Universe having an 'intelligence-sentience' of an entirely different order not involving conscious thinking yet is a consciousness of sorts.
OP doesn't see or think that's relevant to the topic.
I know my idea's not the same as yours but in a similar groove.
If in any relation to AE cosmology Nu, Primeval Hill, Ogdoad, and Ennead are more relevant than Ptah Triad or Knum or etc., but Atum and Amun fit along with Nu, Hill and the gangs.
Yes, I can see it's tempting when some see links with phenomena in physics and the ancient mystery schools and other traditions in Africa and elsewhere. We know a lot of apparent parallels are there, but it's good to have some restraint because like all humans Egyptians and other ancients recorded their knowledge through their own cultural lens. And some Egyptian knowledge was more informed by figments of Egyptian culture than universal truths that transcend culture. It's the latter that science will eventually rediscover, but if you get too far ahead of the evidence you run the risk of mixing the latter with the former. Evidence of the universe being conscious is part of a larger body of evidence that demystifies the "map of reality". We don't know how accurately forgotten ancient human knowledge approximates that map of reality that some factions of science are trying to reconstruct right now.
Yes:
quote: The waters always existed and hill that appeared with their subsiding is not scientific cosmogony. No. It'sonly an expression of what every AE farmer saw every year: the high Nile rolls back leaving little hills of silt.
This is the basis of all modern 'scientific thought'. Observing the real world and asking questions about it. It is a fundamental aspect of human cognitive development. Without the ability to observe phenomena in nature and begin to come up with explanations, whether theological, philosophical, cosmological or otherwise, there is no development of science as we know it. This did not start in Greece or 17th century Europe either. It is that ability for symbolic abstract thought that creates the environment for human cognitive evolution that created math and language in the first place. And hence the concept of "the word" and "toth" (thought), as a symbol of the cognitive principle behind a self organized, self created universe, is a fitting cosmological principle. Thought and speech are symbols of cognition as a supreme example of intelligent design arising in nature and within the universe. And we see that intelligence at work the more we understand the laws and rules at work in nature including ourselves.
We don't need to know who Ptah is or the Ogdoad is or to worship them. However, it is important to understand their proper place in the evolution of human thought concerning the "origin of things" which laid the foundation of what we call science today.
Also, back on topic, Darwin's theories are not against religion per se. Darwin's theories conflict specifically against Christian Creationism. There is a big difference. Christianity holds that the "word" of the bible is the proof of God's existence and must be taken literally. And the ultimate proof of this is Jesus Christ himself as the ultimate manifestaion of "Gods word". Therefore, if the Bible says that the universe was created in 7 days, you have to believe it literally to be a Christian. Obviously there is no scientific evidence for this, so thus the conflict between science and creationism.
Intelligent Design as already mentioned, goes back to the pre-Christian forms of belief which combined theology, cosmology, math and science as one body of study or cognitive evolution. This is probably where much of the confusion stems from.
quote: Creationism continues to have currency among a significant proportion of the American public, even though it has never had any scientific basis. The ferocity of the debate makes it difficult to remember that, at one point not so long ago in geological time, religion and science weren't all that distinct. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, intelligent design — the belief that you could find God's hand by examining creation — was seen as a way to glorify both God and the ordered laws of physics revealed by Newton. More Stories
The most sophisticated form of the intelligent design argument, however, wasn't based on Newtonian physics. It was based in biology. In 1802, a theologian named William Paley published his tome Natural Theology. Hume had shot largish holes in the Newtonian design argument, and Paley as a consequence granted that astronomy was "not the best medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator." But, he argued, it was still possible to see purpose in the universe by looking to animal and human life.
posted
'scientific thought'. is not just observation and speculating. It's taking and recording measurements and conducting experiments and then making conclusions after. It's a tool
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote: Echoes of Alchemy’s Influence in Modern Chemistry
The problem with pinpointing specific details which result from alchemy’s influence on modern chemistry is, of course, that it is impossible to categorically prove these declarations true or false. Until I have the ability to glimpse into an alternate Earth in which alchemy never existed and compare notes, all I can offer is speculation. However, my speculation is grounded in what is a fairly solid argument for alchemy’s importance to, and influence upon, the development of early modern science. Between Boyle’s theory of matter and Newton’s law of gravity, I hope I have demonstrated some clear connections between alchemical study and specific ideas of modern chemistry. Still, perhaps alchemy has had a more abstract influence upon modern science, and chemistry in particular.
Throughout its long history, alchemy has long shared traits with modern science. In the Middle Ages, the universities were run by the Scholastics; for Scholastics, education was an intellectual discussion about arguments that had already been made by important scholars. While alchemy was indeed a part of that scholastic mainstream, it always had much more of an active, indeed experimental, aspect. Alchemists did not just discuss ideas; they performed their procedures with a clear goal in mind, whether that was the production of gold or the creation of the philosopher’s stone. Moran’s characterization of alchemical procedures as “produc[ing] effects and [leading] to the analysis of various parts of the natural world” (2) sounds remarkably similar to a description of the aims of modern scientific inquiry. Alchemists manipulated nature and sought after change and transformation. Thus in retrospect, it might seem obvious that this would be the discipline that would play a key role the Scientific Revolution.
Indeed, perhaps the very concept of chemistry is a legacy of alchemy. For all that alchemy shifted to encompass different areas at different times, one of its central tenets was always chrysopoeia – the transformation of base metals into gold – and indeed the idea of transformation in general. We can see echoes of this idea in modern chemistry; after all, chemistry is centered on the idea of the chemical reaction, and a reaction is, essentially, the transformation of one or more substances into another. Of course, this is not a claim that can be conclusively proven one way or another, but to my mind it seems to follow that alchemy, as the intellectual precursor of chemistry, could easily have been the source of this concept in the new science. After all, fields like physics do not focus nearly so much on the change in the identity of a substance; perhaps this idea of transformation, the legacy of alchemy, is integral to the definition of chemistry as a field. Alchemy, then, deserves more credit as the true ancestor of modern chemistry.
The practice of theoretical arguments about the origins of the universe and the nature of things are old as humans. Chemistry and science comes from that, not 17th century Europe.
Not only that, but modern chemistry is derived largely by the works of various groups under the banner of Islam following more ancient Eastern traditions of thought....
quote: Before addressing the main subject of this article, an important remark needs to be made. It concerns the etymology and the root of the word "alchemy". The use of this word is a representative big corruption of science on the part of scholars, including Muslim-Arabic speaking scholars. The source of the corruption is two fold: linguistic and anti Muslim bias.
As far as the linguistic source goes, alchemy is just a bastard traduction of the Arabic word kimmiyâ (meaning quantity, and from which was derived al-kîmiya used to designate the science of chemistry,) preceded by the article "al" (which means the article "the"), and which the Arabs always use (like the French and others for that matter). Only Barron Carra de Vaux had had the presence of mind to pointing to this, however briefly [1]. The article "al" does not exist with respect to other sciences because as an instance Al-Tib (Arabic for medicine) is not the word we call medicine today, or Al-Riyadhiyat the word we use for mathematics. Somehow al-kîmia should be translated literally as The Chemistry and not Alchemy; in French "la chimie" and not l'alchimie. The fact that only Westerners translated or dealt with the subject, followed by rather shy Muslim scholars, the bastardised word of alchemy has remained, and has become the norm.
Be that as it may, note this still all derives from Egypt:
quote: Zosimos of Panopolis (Greek: Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης; also known by the Latin name Zosimus Alchemista, i.e. "Zosimus the Alchemist") was an Egyptian[2][3][4][5] alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century AD. He was born in Panopolis, present day Akhmim, in the south of Roman Egypt, and flourished ca. 300. He wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, which he called "Cheirokmeta," using the Greek word for "things made by hand." Pieces of this work survive in the original Greek language and in translations into Syriac or Arabic. He is one of about 40 authors represented in a compendium of alchemical writings that was probably put together in Constantinople in the 7th or 8th century AD, copies of which exist in manuscripts in Venice and Paris. Stephen of Alexandria is another.
Arabic translations of texts by Zosimos were discovered in 1995 in a copy of the book Keys of Mercy and Secrets of Wisdom by Ibn Al-Hassan Ibn Ali Al-Tughra'i', a Persian alchemist. Unfortunately, the translations were incomplete and seemingly non-verbatim.[6] The famous index of Arabic books, Kitab al-Fihrist by Ibn Al-Nadim, mentions earlier translations of four books by Zosimos, however due to inconsistency in transliteration, these texts were attributed to names "Thosimos", "Dosimos" and "Rimos"; also it is possible that two of them are translations of the same book. Fuat Sezgin, scholar of the Islamic Sciences, found 15 manuscripts of Zozimos in six libraries, at Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul, Gotha, Dublin and Rampur. Michèle Mertens analyzed what is known about those manuscripts in her translation of Zozimos, concluding that the Arabic tradition seems extremely rich and promising, and regretting the difficulty of access to these materials, until translated editions are available.
And the idea of alchemy meaning physically "transmutation of lead to gold" is simply a misdirection. Gold simply means pure and in ancient Egypt the golden coffin was a symbol of the purified reborn eternal soul or spirit. This isn't about turning lead into gold in a literal sense. It symbolizes turning something unpure or mixed into something more pure, free from contamination, ie. the soul through the process of change or transformation.
Of course they also did have metallurgy in ancient times and that process of learning how to work various metals is part of the development of true chemistry. And as such many of these recipes in alchemy are probably related to metallurgy in some form.
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: [QB] ^People don't want to have the same energy. First he's getting ready to delete so-called "super pseudo science", now he's "with Doug". Just another example of shameless transformer Optimus Prime flip flops, which we're supposed to believe don't contradict threats made just yesterday. Not saying Doug's positions here are "super pseudo science"; I'm saying 'Maestro' is using empty rhetoric of oppressive elements in mainstream science one day, and then dabbles with ideas that would be considered even more pseudo science than what he threatened to delete, yesterday.
Hey bitch... I posted my warning because Xyyman was posting narmernorth/Mikeisms...
Like I said... I didn't read through your shit, under the assumption that you follow guidlines. I should have though considering how underneath all the sparkles the heart of your arguments in general are delete worthy.
...now fuck off.
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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posted
And in today's episode of The Transformers...
Now my posts are delete worthy. Alright Optimus Prime. Let us know when you flip flop back and come back to planet earth.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: I say none because science has no place for spooks thinking like human beings or mating with each other to bring about physics. Science doesn't pray. There's no AE gnosis that doesn't involve adoration and worship and morality with reward or punishment after death.
The 'intelligence sentience' requires no priesthood no grovelling suppliants prayers and sacrifices nor codes of right and wrong. It doesn't feel for us or care about us. The gazelle hurts when the lion catches her. Untold generations of Homo suffered unspeakable atrocities. The 'intelligence satience' doesn't give a damn about that because it isn't an imaginary emotional loving anthropomorphic deity desiring anything from us because it's not a thinking feeling being but something that permeates the entirety of all.
Homo couldn't even speak before certain genes came to be in us sapiens only.
Homo sapiens created gods, including Atum, Amun, the Ogdoad, and the Ennead, not the other way around. So please don't mistake my answer that AEs had more creation mythos and responsible agents (gods) than just Ptah as acceptance that any AE, priest or not, was on to anything like a universal intelligence satience -- that isn't a spook.
The Waters always existed and the Hill that appeared upon their subsiding is not scientific cosmogony. No. It's only an expression of what every AE farmer observed every year: the high Nile rolls back leaving little hills of silt.
On another note remember a Nubian king who studied atheist Greek wisdom killed the priests who came to kill him like they killed each ruler after so many years of rule. rationalism 250 BCE. Viva la seperation of science from religion!
quote:Originally posted by Swenet:
quote:Originally posted by Tukuler:
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: See for instance the link Tukuler posted. If you accept that and you see a connection between that and the origin of life, you're at odds with Darwinism, but not necessarily with evolution.
Hmm, a link follower, eh?
Glad you see that in my post no human invented Great Being have nothing to do with how the Universe built us up as part of itself.
If I wanted to do that I'd introduce the Ssimssum, how the Eternal contracted to allow an infinitesimal yet ultimate dense result (tzimtzum) unfold into the expanding universe for the last 15 billion years.
See? So I didn't get why something scientifically testable had to be tied to human intelligenced super spook philosophy essentially the anti-thesis to what I brought up, the Universe having an 'intelligence-sentience' of an entirely different order not involving conscious thinking yet is a consciousness of sorts.
OP doesn't see or think that's relevant to the topic.
I know my idea's not the same as yours but in a similar groove.
If in any relation to AE cosmology Nu, Primeval Hill, Ogdoad, and Ennead are more relevant than Ptah Triad or Knum or etc., but Atum and Amun fit along with Nu, Hill and the gangs.
Yes, I can see it's tempting when some see links with phenomena in physics and the ancient mystery schools and other traditions in Africa and elsewhere. We know a lot of apparent parallels are there, but it's good to have some restraint because like all humans Egyptians and other ancients recorded their knowledge through their own cultural lens. And some Egyptian knowledge was more informed by figments of Egyptian culture than universal truths that transcend culture. It's the latter that science will eventually rediscover, but if you get too far ahead of the evidence you run the risk of mixing the latter with the former. Evidence of the universe being conscious is part of a larger body of evidence that demystifies the "map of reality". We don't know how accurately forgotten ancient human knowledge approximates that map of reality that some factions of science are trying to reconstruct right now.
Interesting POV. Looks like you are much more on the mainstream science end of the spectrum, while I and Doug are more towards the other end, whatever that other end is. But to me, that other end (or better yet, the middle of that spectrum) is still science--just not mainstream science.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: And in today's episode of The Transformers...
Now my posts are delete worthy. Alright Optimus Prime. Let us know when you flip flop back and come back to planet earth.
Nigga what? Lol
I’m entirely lost here. I think you beleive you’re more important than you are or clearly you must have a crush on me or something.
Is tL paraphrasing btw or is this quote: “Darwinians don’t accept direction in evolution” ...A statement taken out of context. If I was your mans I would tell you to delete that shit if it really was meant the way it reads.
Cuz the shits dumb no matter which way you try to flip it. Or flop it.
But don’t care to explain anything for me. I don’t give a shit.
Posts: 1781 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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posted
More important than I am? Not at all. I was just amused a poster of your caliber is talking about delete-worthy posts. There you go again with your flip flops. Right after denying that warning was for me you're essentially saying the same thing. But I get it, it was just a coincidence right? That's why I'm calling you a transformer from now on. I wish the forum was there to see you buckle when a racist asked you if AE were black. That's when I knew you're a transformer. So how can I be mad when someone of your character/integrity thinks my posts are delete worthy? Anyway, moving on. Much more satisfying laughing at your flip flops from a distance.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Darwinism
a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Basic tenets of evolution by natural selection as defined by Darwin:
* More individuals are produced each generation that can survive.
* Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
* Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
* When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.
Swenet which of these do you disagree with, if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
I don't disagree with any of that. I've already explained my positions. Evolution pre-dates Darwin. You can agree with evolution without accepting the notion that Darwinism is a complete explanation.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong and sometimes based on fraud and intellectual dishonesty:
Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
@ Swenet Glad you see more clearly now where I'm coming from.
Somehow after cognizing natural disasters including the greatest one of all, galactic cannabalism, and the total absence of anything like karma/justice, I am free from Spookism of any cloth but respect those who need a spook/spooks in their world view. Since AE cosmogony has ran through this thread it may benefit non-discussents if somebody opens one delving into the 4 seperate AE cosmologies and how each is tied to it's particular 'urban' locale's priesthood.
And I edited my post. See the most recent version with the youtube link. That video has plenty of claims made by Darwinist I disagree with.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: @ Swenet Glad you see more clearly now where I'm coming from.
Somehow after cognizing natural disasters including the greatest one of all, galactic cannabalism, and the total absence of anything like karma/justice, I am free from Spookism of any cloth but respect those who need a spook/spooks in their world view.
Since AE cosmogony has ran through this thread it may benefit non-discussents if somebody opens one delving into the 5 seperate AE cosmologies and how each is tied to it's particular 'urban' locale's priesthood.
In my view, I think the problem with some of the things you mention (e.g. "spookism", justice, karma) is not that there is nothing for science to verify or falsify. It's that there is never a smoking gun to conclusively take away all doubt. There is always more than one interpretation, if you just look hard enough. Here is an example from a book I've been reading on and off.
Look at how those Pirahãs are all reacting to what they perceive as something on that beach. They're all reacting to the same thing and they are dead serious about what they are seeing. They're even hearing what they perceive to be the same communication. Everett, the (the anthropologist/author) sees and hears nothing. This is almost always the problem with what you call "spookism". There is no smoking gun because there is no controlled laboratory setting. This keeps me from fully accepting 'that thing on the beach' as real, but on the other hand, I can't discount it either.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
Blast from the past.
I remember that when researching peoples w/o a god concept.
Yet, sleep deprived as a people, they mass hallucinate a spook any damn way and what would happen if one of them dared say: "I don't see shit!" For such a minimum population sized people, social misfit behaviour is unthinkable with no where for a denier to go, the ultimate in peer pressure.
And Igagai isnt your run of the mill spook. The Pirahã's Igagai is a demiurge superspook. See https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Povo:Pirah%C3%A3 for coverage unbiased by an anthropologist in love not emotionally dettached to his subject matter people and himself undergoing a 'conversion' from Christianity to Atheism.
Have you attended any Vodoun related religion's service? How can an old woman smoke cigars and drink a bottle of rum and be sober an hour later when her Rider dismounts? Nevermind alcohol poisoning. Or what about Horses chewing busted bottle glass, no lacerations, no blood? And everybody there, not just the believers and practitioners are witness to the sights and sounds?
Spooks are real. Do they actually exist w/o believers? No superspook/god can travel from place to place w/o its worshippers taking it there.
I guess I do hold onto a little spookism myself. My father (s"a) inhabited my youngest son and nobody can rationally explain how a 3 yr old wakes up, turns around, exclaims her first and last name during a TV bio of the famous jazz singer he dated off and on in the 40's. When the segment ended he laid back down rolled over and continued napping.
And I wasn't even there. His mother my 3rd wife told me about it laughing at how odd the occurence was. Her whole look and vibe changed when I told her my dad was the singer's stage door Johnny whenever she played his city.
Now imagine if science was not dismissive of this type of thing. Then we would have to take seriously the idea that there was a being who lived in the clouds who would kill us if we went into the jungle. - though as guests we might not go there out of respect for our hosts
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: More important than I am? Not at all. I was just amused a poster of your caliber is talking about delete-worthy posts. There you go again with your flip flops. Right after denying that warning was for me you're essentially saying the same thing. But I get it, it was just a coincidence right? That's why I'm calling you a transformer from now on. I wish the forum was there to see you buckle when a racist asked you if AE were black. That's when I knew you're a transformer. So how can I be mad when someone of your character/integrity thinks my posts are delete worthy? Anyway, moving on. Much more satisfying laughing at your flip flops from a distance.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Darwinism
a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Basic tenets of evolution by natural selection as defined by Darwin:
* More individuals are produced each generation that can survive.
* Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable.
* Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
* When reproductive isolation occurs new species will form.
Swenet which of these do you disagree with, if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
I don't disagree with any of that. I've already explained my positions. Evolution pre-dates Darwin. You can agree with evolution without accepting the notion that Darwinism is a complete explanation.
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong and sometimes based on fraud and intellectual dishonesty:
Very nice video. However, just for those who may be following, "evolution" as a principle in nature is a widely accepted phenomena. Things like Homology vs the Cambrian do not disprove evolution. Logically given that we are talking about events that took place hundreds of thousands if not millions of years ago, it is quite likely that we don't have the full picture yet from the extant fossil record (and may never have it). However, even without that, we can still say firmly that all life on earth starts with single cell organisms that "evolved" over time into ever more complex organisms leading to the life forms we see on the planet today. How that happened may be up for debate but the fact that it happened is really not being debated.
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quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: Blast from the past.
I remember that when researching peoples w/o a god concept.
Yet, sleep deprived as a people, they mass hallucinate a spook any damn way and what would happen if one of them dared say: "I don't see shit!" For such a minimum population sized people, social misfit behaviour is unthinkable with no where for a denier to go, the ultimate in peer pressure.
And Igagai isnt your run of the mill spook. The Pirahã's Igagai is a demiurge superspook. See https://pib.socioambiental.org/en/Povo:Pirah%C3%A3 for coverage unbiased by an anthropologist in love not emotionally dettached to his subject matter people and himself undergoing a 'conversion' from Christianity to Atheism.
Have you attended any Vodoun related religion's service? How can an old woman smoke cigars and drink a bottle of rum and be sober an hour later when her Rider dismounts? Nevermind alcohol poisoning. Or what about Horses chewing busted bottle glass, no lacerations, no blood? And everybody there, not just the believers and practitioners are witness to the sights and sounds?
Spooks are real. Do they actually exist w/o believers? No superspook/god can travel from place to place w/o its worshippers taking it there.
I guess I do hold onto a little spookism myself. My father (s"a) inhabited my youngest son and nobody can rationally explain how a 3 yr old wakes up, turns around, exclaims her first and last name during a TV bio of the famous jazz singer he dated off and on in the 40's. When the segment ended he laid back down rolled over and continued napping.
And I wasn't even there. His mother my 3rd wife told me about it laughing at how odd the occurence was. Her whole look and vibe changed when I told her my dad was the singer's stage door Johnny whenever she played his city.
Almost everyone has had those experiences. But most people then go through life and shut those experiences out. So when conversations like this come up, even the most hardened atheists actually argue positions that go against their own experiences. Some of them, if you ask them they'll tell you that they have had those experiences. Part of the reason why they shut those experiences out is because most people can't process what they can't reconcile. There is no model right now that can explain "spookism" or allow lay people to replicate those experiences at will. As far as we know, we live in a material universe with no room for spookism. Of course, if we could 'travel' to the molecular level we would be able to confirm that our concept of reality is an illusion. But lay people can't tap into this information at will, so we're blind to non-material reality.
This is why quantum physics is a blessing. For the first time in modern science we have a field that can look directly into that molecular realm where at least some spookism takes place ("spooky actions at a distance", as Einstein called it) and retrieve facts about the universe that we can't perceive in day to day life. The beauty of it is that quantum physics is the only field looking into this, that is largely immune to attacks by nay sayers like Darwinists. So, to me, there are a lot of parallels between ancient knowledge and science. It's up to quantum physics to investigate these parallels. So, for instance, we know that the universe seems to be conscious. What happens if we further demystify the relationship between the origin of life and the seemingly conscious universe? Do we get closer to something approximating ancient knowledge? I think we will, but we can't get too far ahead of ourselves. Controlled experiments should be the backbone of establishing any parallels and hypotheses. Not speculation, blind faith or accounts of paranormal experiences like Everett's story. Although these things have a time and place (e.g. setting up studies), they're rarely smoking guns and usually have additional (i.e. natural) explanations, as you pointed out.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Now imagine if science was not dismissive of this type of thing. Then we would have to take seriously the idea that there was a being who lived in the clouds who would kill us if we went into the jungle. - though as guests we might not go there out of respect for our hosts
Don't you have a video to watch and respond to?
quote:Originally posted by Swenet:
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: if not what prominent quotes of Darwin do you think are wrong?
Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong and sometimes based on fraud and intellectual dishonesty:
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Very nice video. However, just for those who may be following, "evolution" as a principle in nature is a widely accepted phenomena. Things like Homology vs the Cambrian do not disprove evolution. Logically given that we are talking about events that took place hundreds of thousands if not millions of years ago, it is quite likely that we don't have the full picture yet from the extant fossil record (and may never have it). However, even without that, we can still say firmly that all life on earth starts with single cell organisms that "evolved" over time into ever more complex organisms leading to the life forms we see on the planet today. How that happened may be up for debate but the fact that it happened is really not being debated.
Thanks. I don't have my books at hand for quotes, and I'm kind of rusty in this subject since I haven't read on it in a long time. Good thing I was still able to find the two YT videos I posted in this thread.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong
name a few instead of telling us to read books and watch videos.
I see people try to make arguments in threads where they say the answer is in a book, read the book or they say "we already answered this in this other thread" and then there is a link to a 20 page thread where the issue was not resolved it was going back and forth with different opinions.
All this means the person doesn't have a handle on the information, the ability to come up with exmaples
You should be able to present a Darwin quote from one of his primary works, show how it is wrong and then say what is right, that is a minimum reasonable request
With all this attack on Darwin you need to sharpen your butter knife
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong
name a few instead of telling us to read books and watch videos.
I see people try to make arguments in threads where they say the answer is in a book, read the book or they say "we already answered this in this other thread" and then there is a link to a 20 page thread where the issue was not resolved it was going back and forth with different opinions.
All this means the person doesn't have a handle on the information, the ability to come up with exmaples
You should be able to present a Darwin quote from one of his primary works, show how it is wrong and then say what is right, that is a minimum reasonable request
With all this attack on Darwin you need to sharpen your butter knife
-deleted--
I'm going to make it very simple for you. Post a criticism I made of Darwinism, that I did not back up. Because I see you're exaggerating my problems with Darwinism, so you can make a big sensation. The thread title says what my main problem is with Darwinists: they limit the amount of evolutionary processes based on their philosophy of a materialistic universe. Somehow you turned this into a criticism of adaptation and other aspects of Darwinism I never mentioned. So prove you're not just making it up when you say I've been unable to come up with examples.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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The True History of Elijah Muhammad By Elijah Muhammad
The word "spookism", I had thought Elijah Muhammad came up with that because I had heard people use that word a lot when talking about The Nation of Islam's view on the traditional concept of God in Christianity. The word was used a lot on such conversations, however on further research it seems Elijah Muhammad preferred "spook" to "spookism" and we can see above what he meant by it. No doubt many other people of the era and later where inspired by this and used either "spook" or "spookism". The basic idea is that there is no deity watching over us, the Black man is God and Master Fard Muhammad came "in the person of God". Dr Karenga used it, later in his own way:
quote: We are not interested in spookism which is what our spiritualism in Africa degenerated into. That is, invested in a spook estate up in the sky and paying little attention to real estate on this earth. Kwanzaa: Origin, Concepts, Practice (1977)
As for the word with the "ism" attached, an earlier example, "spookism" it appears to be applied a trend of occultism, hypnotism and holding seances in the late 19th century An 1894 example> The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Volume 48
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a new religious movement based on the belief that the spirits of the dead exist and have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. The afterlife, or the "spirit world", is seen by spiritualists, not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs — that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans — lead spiritualists to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. Some spiritualists will speak of a concept which they refer to as "spirit guides"—specific spirits, often contacted, who are relied upon for spiritual guidance.[1][2] Spiritism, a branch of spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and today practiced mostly in Continental Europe and Latin America, especially in Brazil, emphasizes reincarnation.[3]
Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-speaking countries.[2][4] By 1897, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe,[5] mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes.
Spiritualism flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent spiritualists were women, and like most spiritualists, supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.[2] By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud perpetrated by mediums, and formal spiritualist organizations began to appear.[2] Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as Millerism and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening.
This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell
a song "Spirit Rappings," which became extremely popular in 1853 amidst the seance craze at the dawn of the American Spiritualist Movement, which flourished from the 1840s to 1920s.
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong
name a few instead of telling us to read books and watch videos.
I see people try to make arguments in threads where they say the answer is in a book, read the book or they say "we already answered this in this other thread" and then there is a link to a 20 page thread where the issue was not resolved it was going back and forth with different opinions.
All this means the person doesn't have a handle on the information, the ability to come up with exmaples
You should be able to present a Darwin quote from one of his primary works, show how it is wrong and then say what is right, that is a minimum reasonable request
With all this attack on Darwin you need to sharpen your butter knife
-deleted--
I'm going to make it very simple for you. Post a criticism I made of Darwinism, that I did not back up. Because I see you're exaggerating my problems with Darwinism, so you can make a big sensation. The thread title says what my main problem is with Darwinists: they limit the amount of evolutionary processes based on their philosophy of a materialistic universe. Somehow you turned this into a criticism of adaptation and other aspects of Darwinism I never mentioned. So prove you're not just making it up when you say I've been unable to come up with examples.
Again, you cannot mount an attack on Darwin without quoting an example from Darwin's primary work, stating how it's wrong and then saying what is right
And if you want to claim you already did that it's simple enough for you to quote yourself doing it
Posts: 42935 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Not necessarily quotes, but I agree with this scientist that most of these claims made by Darwinists are wrong
name a few instead of telling us to read books and watch videos.
I see people try to make arguments in threads where they say the answer is in a book, read the book or they say "we already answered this in this other thread" and then there is a link to a 20 page thread where the issue was not resolved it was going back and forth with different opinions.
All this means the person doesn't have a handle on the information, the ability to come up with exmaples
You should be able to present a Darwin quote from one of his primary works, show how it is wrong and then say what is right, that is a minimum reasonable request
With all this attack on Darwin you need to sharpen your butter knife
-deleted--
I'm going to make it very simple for you. Post a criticism I made of Darwinism, that I did not back up. Because I see you're exaggerating my problems with Darwinism, so you can make a big sensation. The thread title says what my main problem is with Darwinists: they limit the amount of evolutionary processes based on their philosophy of a materialistic universe. Somehow you turned this into a criticism of adaptation and other aspects of Darwinism I never mentioned. So prove you're not just making it up when you say I've been unable to come up with examples.
Again, you cannot mount an attack on Darwin without quoting an example from Darwin's primary work, stating how it's wrong and then saying what is right
It's perfectly okay to criticize a position I'm describing or paraphrasing, and refer people to books if they want sources.
The problem here is that you want to debate people and you expect them to personally educate you at the same time. That is why you won't accept reading materials. You're too lazy to read a book or listen to a lecture. So you start to invent "rules" and instructions on how quotes must be hand delivered to you, as if people are here to jump through your hoops.
You're clueless about what the conversation is about, and you're not invested enough in your own education to learn. I can't help you with that. Sorry.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
When I use spook I mean any, but usually anthropomorphic, intangible being thought capable of communicating with humans. Great god, demiurge, gods, neter, angels, demons, elemental spirits, ancestor spirits, saints. Don't play me cheap.
BTW the Mwalimu is an acclaimed Egyptologist. https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Ideal-Ancient-African-Studies/dp/0415947537 He gave Kawaida to the descendants of the Maafa. Unfortunately his anti-spook intolerance got in the way of Kwanza acceptance. Instead of continuing the useful lie that he adapted the holiday, he came out and said he made it up. Why? Because people in Oakland were sacrificing chickens and he did not like it. No not one bit.
Now Kwanza is a holiday mostly practiced by white parents who have black or part black children.
Rationality killed the cat. People need spooks. It's the flame under the O pipe.
posted
For readers who are interested. Here is an example of a quote from Darwin that gets right to the bottom of my issues with Darwinism
quote:I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.... If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish.. ."
Darwin says in his own words that Darwinism was never meant to get to the bottom of how evolution works. He says here that if evolution wasn't driven by materialistic and random processes, he would reject his own theory. Why, if his intention is supposedly to get to the bottom of evolution? Darwin seems to have approached evolution like a personal pet theory that he only took an interest in because it appealed to him philosophically. Darwin was already deeply committed and wedded to philosophical materialism, at least as far as life is concerned.
People who are interested can find the quote and more criticisms people have with Darwinism in the lecture I posted.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: For readers who are interested. Here is an example of a quote from Darwin that gets right to the bottom of my issues with Darwinism
quote:I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.... If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish.. ."
Darwin says in his own words that Darwinism was never meant to get to the bottom of how evolution works. He says here that if evolution wasn't driven by materialistic and random processes, he would reject his own theory. Why, if his intention is supposedly to get to the bottom of evolution? Darwin seems to have approached evolution like a personal pet theory that he only took an interest in because it appealed to him philosophically. Darwin was already deeply committed and wedded to philosophical materialism, at least as far as life is concerned.
People who are interested can find the quote and more criticisms people have with Darwinism in the lecture I posted.
Personally it sounds more like splitting hairs versus "divine intervention". All mutations and change in life is based on natural processes. Chemistry and all that lies within the universe is a natural process. Rules and laws that govern the universe and natural processes within it are understandable and can be shown to be consistent. Cellular biology and division is shown to be based on genetic mutation. Genetic mutations are based on environmental feedback. That is the basis of all evolutionary change in living organisms.
Now that said, there are some who do not agree with the process of cellular development as purely based on natural selection.
quote: All aspects of biological diversification ultimately trace to evolutionary modifications at the cellular level. This central role of cells frames the basic questions as to how cells work and how cells come to be the way they are. Although these two lines of inquiry lie respectively within the traditional provenance of cell biology and evolutionary biology, a comprehensive synthesis of evolutionary and cell-biological thinking is lacking. We define evolutionary cell biology as the fusion of these two eponymous fields with the theoretical and quantitative branches of biochemistry, biophysics, and population genetics. The key goals are to develop a mechanistic understanding of general evolutionary processes, while specifically infusing cell biology with an evolutionary perspective. The full development of this interdisciplinary field has the potential to solve numerous problems in diverse areas of biology, including the degree to which selection, effectively neutral processes, historical contingencies, and/or constraints at the chemical and biophysical levels dictate patterns of variation for intracellular features. These problems can now be examined at both the within- and among-species levels, with single-cell methodologies even allowing quantification of variation within genotypes. Some results from this emerging field have already had a substantial impact on cell biology, and future findings will significantly influence applications in agriculture, medicine, environmental science, and synthetic biology.
Darwinism presupposes a materialistic universe. Materialism means nature is thought to conform to Newtonian physics. But nature doesn't conform to Newtonian physics. This has been proved many times by modern physics. Since Newtonian physics begins to break down at the level of cells and molecules, this means that Darwinism is dated as far as some of its premises. Just one example of that:
quote:Newton’s Laws of Motion themselves are now known to be only an approximation. In situations where all the velocities involved are small compared to the speed of light, Newton’s Laws of Motion are highly accurate, but at very high velocities one needs Einstein’s more refined theory of Special Relativity. Newton’s Laws of Motion also break down when dealing with the very small objects of atomic physics. In this realm the more complex Quantum Mechanics is needed to give an accurate description of how particles move and interact.
Darwinism implicitly and explicitly compartmentalizes science in into two artificial constructs: "natural" and "non-natural". Darwinists (including Darwin himself) include in the latter category everything about nature that does not involve physical processes (e.g. key concepts in quantum physics, religion, consciousness, etc.) and dismiss the whole category as "miraculous". So, when Darwinists say "natural processes", they're not actually talking about natural processes. They are talking about a stripped down and distorted version of nature that is rooted in philosophy, not science.
Also, while you may think you agree with Darwinists' notion of "natural", they do not consider consciousness and other things you've talked about, as natural. Also, the ancient systems you're talking about can't be explained in terms of the limited processes Darwin accepted as natural. So, when you say the ancients learned about the cosmos through internal reflection, and "as above, so below", you think that is chemical? Do you think this kind of interconnectedness involving the universe is accepted in Darwinist thought? How do you see your ideas as going hand in hand with Darwinism, when the processes your ideas rely on, are considered miraculous? The way I see it, Darwinists would see your ideas as involving non-natural and supernatural processes.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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Darwinism presupposes a materialistic universe. Materialism means nature is thought to conform to Newtonian physics. But nature doesn't conform to Newtonian physics. This has been proved many times by modern physics. Since Newtonian physics begins to break down at the level of cells and molecules, this means that Darwinism is dated as far as some of its premises. Just one example of that:
quote:Newton’s Laws of Motion themselves are now known to be only an approximation. In situations where all the velocities involved are small compared to the speed of light, Newton’s Laws of Motion are highly accurate, but at very high velocities one needs Einstein’s more refined theory of Special Relativity. Newton’s Laws of Motion also break down when dealing with the very small objects of atomic physics. In this realm the more complex Quantum Mechanics is needed to give an accurate description of how particles move and interact.
Darwinism implicitly and explicitly compartmentalizes science in into two artificial constructs: "natural" and "non-natural". Darwinists (including Darwin himself) include in the latter category everything about nature that does not involve physical processes (e.g. key concepts in quantum physics, religion, consciousness, etc.) and dismiss the whole category as "miraculous". So, when Darwinists say "natural processes", they're not actually talking about natural processes. They are talking about a stripped down and distorted version of nature that is rooted in philosophy, not science.
Also, while you may think you agree with Darwinists' notion of "natural", they do not consider consciousness and other things you've talked about, as natural. Also, the ancient systems you're talking about can't be explained in terms of the limited processes Darwin accepted as natural. So, when you say the ancients learned about the cosmos through internal reflection, and "as above, so below", you think that is chemical? Do you think this kind of interconnectedness involving the universe is accepted in Darwinist thought? How do you see your ideas as going hand in hand with Darwinism, when the processes your ideas rely on, are considered miraculous? The way I see it, Darwinists would see your ideas as involving non-natural and supernatural processes.
Well that sounds like a good break down of the distinctions and problems with Darwinist thought then if accurate. I am going to admit my understanding of the subject goes only back to what I learned in high school biology and so those other aspects of Darwinism you spoke of are new to me.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
^You're probably already familiar with what I said, but maybe you're not used to the way I explained it. Here is an example of a debate between materialists and their opponents that resurfaces in the media from time to time:
quote:Dennett has walked that path before. In “Consciousness Explained,” a 1991 best-seller, he described consciousness as something like the product of multiple, layered computer programs running on the hardware of the brain. Many readers felt that he had shown how the brain creates the soul. Others thought that he’d missed the point entirely. To them, the book was like a treatise on music that focussed exclusively on the physics of musical instruments. It left untouched the question of how a three-pound lump of neurons could come to possess a point of view, interiority, selfhood, consciousness—qualities that the rest of the material world lacks. These skeptics derided the book as “Consciousness Explained Away.” Nowadays, philosophers are divided into two camps. The physicalists believe, with Dennett, that science can explain consciousness in purely material terms. The dualists believe that science can uncover only half of the picture: it can’t explain what Nabokov called “the marvel of consciousness—that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.”
^I'm sure you've seen the clashes between materialists and their opponents. Darwinism vs intelligent design is just one arena where these debates takes place. Consciousness is another one, but most lay people only get bits and pieces because the media only reports on the more 'juicy' stuff people take an interest in. The book below is a good book on the latest findings in physics. It explains among other things why materialism is wrong, unscientific and how proponents of materialism/Newtonian physics are trying to suppress these new findings.
posted
Interesting conversation surrounding the "Why Africa" question.........much of which I haven't ever though to even ponder. I just want to throw 2 things out there:
And it was interesting to see the climatic variability and what consequences it could have had regarding the advancement of our species.
Posts: 2463 | From: New Jersey USA | Registered: Dec 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: ^You're probably already familiar with what I said, but maybe you're not used to the way I explained it. Here is an example of a debate between materialists and their opponents that resurfaces in the media from time to time:
quote:Dennett has walked that path before. In “Consciousness Explained,” a 1991 best-seller, he described consciousness as something like the product of multiple, layered computer programs running on the hardware of the brain. Many readers felt that he had shown how the brain creates the soul. Others thought that he’d missed the point entirely. To them, the book was like a treatise on music that focussed exclusively on the physics of musical instruments. It left untouched the question of how a three-pound lump of neurons could come to possess a point of view, interiority, selfhood, consciousness—qualities that the rest of the material world lacks. These skeptics derided the book as “Consciousness Explained Away.” Nowadays, philosophers are divided into two camps. The physicalists believe, with Dennett, that science can explain consciousness in purely material terms. The dualists believe that science can uncover only half of the picture: it can’t explain what Nabokov called “the marvel of consciousness—that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night of non-being.”
^I'm sure you've seen the clashes between materialists and their opponents. Darwinism vs intelligent design is just one arena where these debates takes place. Consciousness is another one, but most lay people only get bits and pieces because the media only reports on the more 'juicy' stuff people take an interest in. The book below is a good book on the latest findings in physics. It explains among other things why materialism is wrong, unscientific and how proponents of materialism/Newtonian physics are trying to suppress these new findings.
As far as Darwin goes we are really talking about multiple different concepts. Evolution as a word is broadly well defined and most people understand it as biological "change over time" according to what they have been taught in high school. The more arcane aspects of Darwinism is something most people won't get from standard high school teaching especially as it relates to materialist doctrine versus other philosophical concepts. Those things wont generally be encountered until you get into a good college philosophy course.
That said, it all goes back to what I was saying earlier that older cultures did not try to or expect to answer all the questions about the whys and hows of life and its origins. Therefore cosmology and philosophy evolved as a more general way of defining more well defined "principles" or "concepts" of nature even if they didn't have a precise mathematical or "scientific" understanding or way of describing them. And this goes back to that whole argument about rationalism versus spookism as some view the ideas of quantum physics and alternate dimensions as a return to quasi mystical concepts that cannot firmly be explained purely in scientific terms. Or as you call it materalism vs others.
I view most of these modern debates as basically splitting hairs as a result of the schism of rationalist thinking which just ignored the history of how science and human evolution of understanding of the universe came about. For example, the same math that arose out of a branch of abstract ontological principles regarding the nature of the universe allowed Einstein to formulate the theory of relativity without ever being able to prove it in discrete reality. Yet nobody debated his use of theoretical math to come to that conclusion. Similarly people who came up with quantum theory are using the same abstract theoretical framework which is math itself to come up with the concept quantum mechanics. From this comes ideas such as superposition which deals with the whole idea that there is no such thing as 1 or 0 in a quantum realm as opposed to various theoretical states of both zero and one at the same time. But one and zero themselves are fundamental abstract concepts that arose out of philosophy and cosmology in ancient times such as "nun" (null/void) from AE and shunya from ancient India. All of which go back to the concept of to be or ontology regarding the state of origin and existence of the universe. At the end of the day this is all abstract ontological discourse with various branches and variations in terms of discrete forms of philosophical thought and adherents. Just like zero was a mystical concept in ancient times so too may quantum mechanics (or the general theory of relativity) be considered passe in the future. The problem is our physical ability to go out and experience all the possible potential "theoretical" states of matter in the universe are limited and therefore outside of some more "materialist" (as in readily observable and provable phenomena) many other concept will strictly remain in the realm of theoretical and abstract, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
Nobody is going to say we should throw out theoretical math as it allows for the development of some theories and concepts that they don't agree with. And as such it must be understood that math itself came out of "theoretical" cosmological principles in ancient times that many today would consider irrational. And ultimately this is just another form of cosmology using theoretical math and philosophical rhetoric to justify certain beliefs. At the end of the day many of the things they are debating are not able to be proven/disproven in any absolute logical way, which is why you have cosmology to begin with in providing general answers or conceptions about the unknown or intangible (such as thoughts and the mind). And really it has gotten so complex with so many offshoots and branches with their own distinct derivative concepts that you can't really lump them all together easily in terms of being for or against evolution because evolution itself is a very broadly defined set of various beliefs and philosophies about creation.
quote: Since eliminative materialism claims that future research will fail to find a neuronal basis for various mental phenomena, it must necessarily wait for science to progress further. One might question the position on these grounds, but other philosophers like Churchland argue that eliminativism is often necessary in order to open the minds of thinkers to new evidence and better explanations.
quote: Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
In Idealism, mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject and secondary. In philosophical materialism the converse is true. Here mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, for example) without which they cannot exist. According to this doctrine the material creates and determines consciousness, not vice versa. Materialists believe that Matter and the physical laws that govern it constitute the most reliable guide to the nature of mind and consciousness.
Materialist theories are mainly divided into three groups. Naive materialism identifies the material world with specific elements (e.g. the scheme of the four elements—fire, air, water and earth—devised by the Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles). Metaphysical materialism examines separated parts of the world in a static, isolated environment. Dialectical materialism adapts the Hegelian dialectic for materialism, examining parts of the world in relation to each other within a dynamic environment.
Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the discoveries of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter, such as: spacetime, physical energies and forces, dark matter, and so on. Thus the term "physicalism" is preferred over "materialism" by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous.
Philosophies contradictory to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism, dualism, and other forms of monism.
quote: Monism attributes oneness or singleness (Greek: μόνος) to a concept e.g., existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them e.g., in Neoplatonism everything is derived from The One.[1] In this view only one thing is ontologically basic or prior to everything else. Existence monism posits that, strictly speaking, there exists only a single thing, the Universe, which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things.[2] Substance monism asserts that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance.[3] Substance monism posits that only one kind of stuff exists, although many things may be made up of this stuff, e.g., matter or mind.
Atum (atom) and Amun/Amen from AE are examples of Monism as well (from which the Greeks inherited much of their ideas) along with Buddhism and the Oneness of all things from Asia.
quote: In Ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan theology, "Nun" is the dark & inert stuff dominating what exists before creation. This founding concept of Egyptian thought, is conceived as an endlessly vast expanse of water, an unlimited ocean. This massive mass does not verge upon or tend towards manifestation, actualization, materialization, realization, spatialization or temporalization. It encloses and penetrates every thing : the sky "pet", the Earth "ta" and the netherworld "duat". Already in the Pyramid Texts ca. 2300 BCE, this crucial ontological divide between creation and what lay before it, was pivotal, and returned in all subsequent religious corpora like the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead and the New Kingdom Underworld Books, in particular the Amduat.
From the vantage point of existence, the "virtual adverb clause" expressing this dark stuff as in "before he has had" or "he has had not yet ..." Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, § 402, signals nonexistence t < 0, i.e. a state-of-no-state before the transformations "kheper" at hand in nature come came into being. So in Egyptian speculative cosmology, "being" encompasses precreation pre-existent and nonexistent as well as actual, existing creation. The former is made of something quite unlike what is known in the visible universe. While creation hosts light and life, the dark stuff of precreation is inimical to it. Neither does the presence of the latter end with creation, for Nun is everlasting "djedet"
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: As far as Darwin goes we are really talking about multiple different concepts. Evolution as a word is broadly well defined and most people understand it as biological "change over time" according to what they have been taught in high school. The more arcane aspects of Darwinism is something most people won't get from standard high school teaching especially as it relates to materialist doctrine versus other philosophical concepts. Those things wont generally be encountered until you get into a good college philosophy course.
I wouldn't call these aspects of Darwinism arcane. According to the lecturer I posted earlier (Jonathan Wells) biology textbooks tend to have a materialist slant when it comes to evolution. On closer examination these materialist biases are never substantiated with any science; they are unproven and purely philosophical. But when you disagree with them Darwinists have all sorts of attacks ready to put down dissent, like it's a church that demands unquestioning loyalty. One example is the fallacious "teleology" argument. My thing is this. If there is no evidence for the materialist underpinnings of Darwinism, then Darwinists have no basis to denounce "teleology" a priori.
Scientifically, they're required to take an agnostic stance at the very least, not reject it out of hand. The same thing applies to all aspects of Darwinism other than what has been observed in the laboratory or in nature. Abiogenesis, the primordial soup, descent from a single cell, the supposedly purely chemical basis of evolution, selection causing cognitive modernity, etc. have never been observed in nature or the laboratory. Contrast this with natural selection, drift and mutation, which have all been observed. It's impossible to go from these three evolutionary processes to most of the rest of Darwinism. To do so is just a leap of faith. I wouldn't call these unproven doctrines of Darwinism 'arcane'; they are at the forefront and usually textbooks cover most of them. They are clearly rooted in the materialist worldview.
I've seen you take a similar stance against "teleology" (you called it "divine intervention"). Personally, I wouldn't call it that. In my view, 'direction' doesn't necessarily have to involve deities taking an interest in every evolutionary step along the way, like how a cook keeps returning to check on his oven. 'Direction' in evolution could just be another evolutionary process along with natural selection. Anyway, what I wanted to get to is that you seem to subscribe to consciousness and the universe being conscious. So how do you reconcile your position of a purely chemical basis of life with consciousness?
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: As far as Darwin goes we are really talking about multiple different concepts. Evolution as a word is broadly well defined and most people understand it as biological "change over time" according to what they have been taught in high school. The more arcane aspects of Darwinism is something most people won't get from standard high school teaching especially as it relates to materialist doctrine versus other philosophical concepts. Those things wont generally be encountered until you get into a good college philosophy course.
I wouldn't call these aspects of Darwinism arcane. According to the lecturer I posted earlier (Jonathan Wells) biology textbooks tend to have a materialist slant when it comes to evolution. On closer examination these materialist biases are never substantiated with any science; they are unproven and purely philosophical. But when you disagree with them Darwinists have all sorts of attacks ready to put down dissent, like it's a church that demands unquestioning loyalty. One example is the fallacious "teleology" argument. My thing is this. If there is no evidence for the materialist underpinnings of Darwinism, then Darwinists have no basis to denounce "teleology" a priori.
Scientifically, they're required to take an agnostic stance at the very least, not reject it out of hand. The same thing applies to all aspects of Darwinism other than what has been observed in the laboratory or in nature. Abiogenesis, the primordial soup, descent from a single cell, the supposedly purely chemical basis of evolution, selection causing cognitive modernity, etc. have never been observed in nature or the laboratory. Contrast this with natural selection, drift and mutation, which have all been observed. It's impossible to go from these three evolutionary processes to most of the rest of Darwinism. To do so is just a leap of faith. I wouldn't call these unproven doctrines of Darwinism 'arcane'; they are at the forefront and usually textbooks cover most of them. They are clearly rooted in the materialist worldview.
I've seen you take a similar stance against "teleology" (you called it "divine intervention"). Personally, I wouldn't call it that. In my view, 'direction' doesn't necessarily have to involve deities taking an interest in every evolutionary step along the way, like how a cook keeps returning to check on his oven. 'Direction' in evolution could just be another evolutionary process along with natural selection. Anyway, what I wanted to get to is that you seem to subscribe to consciousness and the universe being conscious. So how do you reconcile your position of a purely chemical basis of life with consciousness?
I am not really taking a stance on one side or another. My interest in biology in terms of evolution is not really that deep. The only point I am making is that all of this is just an evolution of human thinking/cognition about the origin of things. And as such there are many branches and sub branches of ideas about how life began. We could go on for days discussing all these views. So it goes far beyond the simple concept of evolution that I was taught in high school.
My general point is only that even today with all the advancements in science, we still are dealing with basically variations of cosmology. Granted this is science or math based but still very theoretical and bordering on a religion of its own. Hence it is still within the same vein of describing the origins of the universe as ancient philosophical and cosmological systems.
Curiously enough notice how Egyptian cosmology is not on that list as if Egyptian religion and mythology does not constitute cosmology, when most of the concepts in later systems of belief are presaged in AE thought.
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If you look at the authors of the book above, they are very progressive in their thinking, in terms of seeing room in physics for what Darwinists would consider supernatural. But even these progressive authors draw a clear line and disapprove of the notion that quantum physics validates the ancient knowledge you've been speaking on.
Though they deal with some very strange and frequently misrepresented material, they do an admirable job of avoiding and even denouncing quackery. They have some harsh words for What the Bleep Do We Know?, and deny that quantum mechanics supports mysticism http://chadorzel.com/principles/2006/08/09/review-quantum-enigma-physics/
Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm not saying you're wrong in posting about mysticism (I'm open to that being true, as I said earlier). But even these progressive researchers don't see any support for mysticism and things of that nature. So I thought it was interesting that you combined Darwinist ideas (which are far more conservative) with ancient knowledge. The two worlds couldn't be further apart. Maybe you don't want to get into that. That's okay. But you might want to keep that in mind for when you run into a member of the Darwinian church. Mysticism is not exempt from being disparaged and dismissed by Darwinists. They will probably assume you agree with divine intervention.
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Not much juice in this thread anymore, but I thought I'd add this:
quote:Despite Darwin’s claim that skepticism ruled only the latter part of his life, evidence from a large number of recently published private notebooks, dating from 1836 to 1844, has revealed that Darwin expressed belief in atheism and materialism as early as May 1838, several months before he developed natural selection. The notebook entries of 1838 were, according to evolutionist Ernst Mayr, “thoroughly materialistic.”19 Darwin wrote, “Being hereditary it is difficult to imagine [thought] anything but structure of brain,”20 and, “Love of the deity effect of organization, oh you materialist!…Why is thought being a secretion of brain, more wonderful than gravity a property of matter?”21 By July of 1838, he wrote, “To avoid stating how far, I believe, in materialism, say only that emotions, instincts, degrees of talent, which are hereditary are so because brain of child resembles parent stock.”22 It has also been pointed out that the marginal comments of the physiological books Darwin was reading at that time show that he sided with the materialists.23
Did Darwin lie about his late rejection of theism? Some seem to think so. Others, such as Neal Gillespie, have tried to reconcile Darwin’s theism with the notebook entries: “I would suggest that not only was Darwin’s materialism compatible in his mind with theism, but that it represented no interest in a thoroughgoing atheistic philosophical or metaphysical materialism.”24
The problem with Gillespie’s explanation is that it fails to account for the entries that were so apparently atheistic, such as, “The above argument [for free will] would tend to make man a predestinarian of a new kind, for the man would tend to become an atheist.”25 In a letter to J. D. Hooker a few years later, Darwin wrote, “I am almost convinced…that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.”26
Many scholars are coming to the conclusion that Darwin was in fact an atheist well before the publication of Origin.27 Howard Gruber stated, “The material gives clear evidence for Darwin’s realization during this period that his ideas were indeed materialistic, tending toward atheism, and therefore dangerous.”28 Stephen Jay Gould likewise said, “The notebooks prove that, Darwin was interested in philosophy and aware of its implications. He knew that the primary feature distinguishing his theory from all other evolutionary doctrines was its uncompromising philosophical materialism.”
His public statements say one thing, private notes say another. Darwin was a materialist during the whole time he wrote his book. One would have to be extremely naive to think that the Origin of Species would have come out like that in the hands of a genuine agnostic or theist. Darwinism has materialism written all over it.
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: If you look at the authors of the book above, they are very progressive in their thinking, in terms of seeing room in physics for what Darwinists would consider supernatural. But even these progressive authors draw a clear line and disapprove of the notion that quantum physics validates the ancient knowledge you've been speaking on.
Though they deal with some very strange and frequently misrepresented material, they do an admirable job of avoiding and even denouncing quackery. They have some harsh words for What the Bleep Do We Know?, and deny that quantum mechanics supports mysticism http://chadorzel.com/principles/2006/08/09/review-quantum-enigma-physics/
Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm not saying you're wrong in posting about mysticism (I'm open to that being true, as I said earlier). But even these progressive researchers don't see any support for mysticism and things of that nature. So I thought it was interesting that you combined Darwinist ideas (which are far more conservative) with ancient knowledge. The two worlds couldn't be further apart. Maybe you don't want to get into that. That's okay. But you might want to keep that in mind for when you run into a member of the Darwinian church. Mysticism is not exempt from being disparaged and dismissed by Darwinists. They will probably assume you agree with divine intervention.
I am only saying that modern math has its roots in mysticism. The concept of zero did not come from the Greeks, it came from mystical traditions in Eastern and African cultures. The origin of math lay in mystical traditions and the priesthoods within them. All of this goes back to a time when religion, mysticism, math, science and philosophy were not separated. That separation only came about in "western" thinking a few hundred years ago. Cosmology is a study of the origins of things and the root of it all lay in early mysticism. Over time as human cognition evolved, so too did our understanding of math and science. The purpose of modern cosmology is still attempting to answer the same questions being asked in ancient times and in ancient times using math as the "language of creation" or "language of god" was part of how and why mathematics was created in the first place.
quote: The ancient Greeks had no symbol for zero (μηδέν), and did not use a digit placeholder for it.[16] They seemed unsure about the status of zero as a number. They asked themselves, "How can nothing be something?", leading to philosophical and, by the medieval period, religious arguments about the nature and existence of zero and the vacuum. The paradoxes of Zeno of Elea depend in large part on the uncertain interpretation of zero.
The essence of 0 and 1 is the essence of being/not being and are fundamental parts of any form of ontology. This is where you get Nun(none) in AE cosmology and Sunya in Indian cosmology from which the number zero originates.
quote: Śūnyatā (Sanskrit; Pali: suññatā), pronounced ‘shoonyataa’, translated into English most often as emptiness[1] and sometimes voidness,[2] is a Buddhist concept which has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditation state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience.
In Theravada Buddhism, suññatā often refers to the not-self (Pāli: anattā, Sanskrit: anātman)[note 1] nature of the five aggregates of experience and the six sense spheres. Suññatā is also often used to refer to a meditative state or experience.
In Mahayana, Sunyata refers to the tenet that "all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature,"[4][5] but may also refer to the Buddha-nature teachings and primordial or empty awareness, as in Dzogchen and Shentong.
The only reason some of these modern theories are considered as "mystical" is because they are not always directly provable, but that is no different than many of Einsteins theories. And technically the split is between Einstein's unified field theory and Max Plank's Quantum theory. Both of these are cosmologies based on using theoretical mathematics as "the language of creation/the universe" with Einstein and Max Planck as scientific/mathematical "high priests" of their respective cosmological camps...... This isn't just about materialism and Darwinism as you referring to but putting them all in perspective along the historical timeline of human thought on the issue. These are extreme theoretical philosophies using math as their primary "proof", which doesn't guarantee these theories are correct. There is no way moral man can observe all the various aspects of the universe to prove such all encompassing theories. So at the end of the day these are just as "mystical" in some senses as anything in ancient times concerning many aspects of cosmology.
quote: By 1926, Albert Einstein had become completely unforgiving of quantum mechanics’ probabilistic interpretation of the universe and would step away from it forever. In Einstein’s mind, the universe must ultimately obey laws of physics that are fundamentally deterministic, and with respect to this, he would be uncompromising. Einstein made this most clear in response to a letter Max Born (1882–1970) had written to him when he said:
Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice.
Indeed, for the last 30 years of Einstein’s life (even including the last moments just before his death on April 18, 1955), his scientific endeavors were committed to this vision as he focused on finding a unified field theory. Among other things, such a theory was to unify gravity (as described by Einstein’s very own general relativity) and electromagnetism (as described by Maxwell’s equations), and most importantly, it was to rid physics of the “quantum uncertainty.”
The only way this relates to Darwin for me and what I am thinking is that much of modern science makes theoretical arguments based on logic and math that sometime don't turn out to be true or don't have enough proof to be proven/disproven. The jury is still out on the Cambrian explosion as we really don't have enough fossils to say for sure it isn't true. But at the same token since we know all those creatures in the Cambrian evolved from multi-cellular organisms which themselves evolved from single cell organisms, that isn't absolute proof against the 'tree' of evolution. It may be that we just don't have enough data and evidence to understand exactly how it happened. That is why often times many adherents to one or another of these theories are taken to "having faith" that one day they will be vindicated, almost like a religion (but not quite).
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How can you say that quantum physics and relativity are incomplete, but at the same time insist that life is a purely chemical process? Sounds like you're saying that science has to make improvements in a lot of areas, except when it comes to your position that life is a purely chemical process. The irony is that, out out of all the things I've just mentioned, your notion of a purely chemical basis of evolution is the only thing that has never been demonstrated in a lab, not even with experimenters instigating processes that are supposed to have happened purely on their own in your model of evolution.
How do you see purely chemical and material beings tune into non-chemical and non-material cosmological information? If I build a robot using organic or non-organic chemicals, it will never be able to have mystical experiences. It will also never be able to influence outcomes in experiments with observation, like humans can (double slit experiment). Hence, the controversy surrounding the double slit experiment, in which humans violate the Darwinian notion of a purely chemical/material basis of life. Humans can collapse wave function with mere observation. Chemical machines can't.
And if you don't want to get into this, that's fine. Don't feel obligated to continue a conversation you don't want to be in.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Here are my two questions to you.
How can you say that quantum physics and relativity are incomplete, but at the same time insist that life is a purely chemical process? Sounds like you're saying that science has to make improvements in a lot of areas, except when it comes to your position that life is a purely chemical process. The irony is that, out out of all the things I've just mentioned, your notion of a purely chemical basis of evolution is the only thing that has never been demonstrated in a lab, not even with experimenters instigating processes that are supposed to have happened purely on their own in your model of evolution.
I didn't say that they were incomplete, Einstein did. My point is they are theoretical based concepts with some direct observable aspects that have been proven but overall many aspects have not been observed or proven. Again Bohr and Einsteins debate over Quantum Physics vs The Unified Theory is primarily an advanced THEORETICAL physics argument.
quote: In physics, a unified field theory (UFT) is a type of field theory that allows all that is usually thought of as fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a pair of physical and virtual fields. According to the modern discoveries in physics, forces are not transmitted directly between interacting objects, but instead are described and interrupted by intermediary entities called fields.
Classically, however, a duality of the fields is combined into a single physical field.[1] For over a century, unified field theory remains an open line of research and the term was coined by Albert Einstein,[2] who attempted to unify his general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. The "Theory of Everything" [3] and Grand Unified Theory[4] are closely related to unified field theory, but differ by not requiring the basis of nature to be fields, and often by attempting to explain physical constants of nature. Earlier attempts based on classical physics are described in the article on classical unified field theories.
The goal of a unified field theory has led to a great deal of progress for future theoretical physics and continues to progress prominently. Although UFT may concern all types of the forces, it has to reveal the natural principles in connection with Quantum field theory, Quantum Chromodynamics, Gravitational Wave, General Relativity,[5] General Symmetric Fields, and General Asymmetric Fields of Ontology and Cosmology.
...
Current status Theoretical physicists have not yet formulated a widely accepted, consistent theory that combines general relativity and quantum mechanics to form a theory of everything. Trying to combine the graviton with the strong and electroweak interactions leads to fundamental difficulties and the resulting theory is not renormalizable. The incompatibility of the two theories remains an outstanding problem in the field of physics.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: How do you see purely chemical and material beings tune into non-chemical and non-material cosmological information? If I build a robot using organic or non-organic chemicals, it will never be able to have mystical experiences. It will also never be able to influence outcomes in experiments with observation, like humans can (double slit experiment). Hence, the controversy surrounding the double slit experiment, in which humans violate the Darwinian notion of a purely chemical/material basis of life. Humans can collapse wave function with mere observation. Chemical machines can't.
And if you don't want to get into this, that's fine. Don't feel obligated to continue a conversation you don't want to be in.
As noted above I personally did not create the "camps" or schools of thought trying to come up with a comprehensive theory of everything. These schisms within science are simply folks believing that "rational" science as has come to dominate "western" thinking is going to be able to explain EVERYTHING in the universe. Obviously that is a quantifiably false statement. All I am saying is that many aspects of modern science are as arcane and mystical because of their reliance on THEORETICAL math as ancient schools of cosmology based on arcane symbolism. And the fact is the two are closely related as the symbolic language of math came out of the symbolic schools of thought of the ancient cosmological and mystical systems..... It is this absurd belief that there is some "rational" way to explain EVERYTHING in the Universe when humans as mortal creatures are not and never will be able to touch or glimpse infinity is the problem. At the end of the day a "theory of everything" is tantamount to a religion depending on faith and adherents based on faith as opposed to direct evidence. In the ancient times "gods" were the symbols of "the theory of everything" meaning things humans will never be able to understand. The purpose of symbols and philosophy is to handle THEORETICAL arguments, like the "purpose of life" and "origin of life" knowing full well that there is never going to be a final answer and therefore remain in the world of theoretical cosmology, philosophy or religion. That is why all these things have a shared origin. I no more expect a "god" to come down and give us the tablets of hermes than some scientist or mathematician to create their own emerald tablets of thot with a single explanation of everything. At the end of the day the "key" to the enigma is that the human brain and cognitive function gives us the ability to observe reality and contemplate theories about its origin and that is the meaning of the "evolutionary conscious" principle found in ancient systems of belief embodied in various so-called mystical schools. It is the supreme arrogance of some of these folks in the belief it is even possible for such a solution for EVERYTHING in the domain of "rationality" that is tantamount to a dogma and religion in its own right.
Separate from that, I separate the general concept of evolution from Darwin in the sense that evolution in general is accepted even if all of Darwin's beliefs around it are not. And the general concept of evolution is not necessarily invalidated by the cambrian explosion, in the sense that this does not show that the known phyla of life on earth did NOT come from multi celled and ultimately single cell organisms. The question is how this happened and I am not shocked that we don't have all the answers yet.
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posted
You never answered the question. Let's try it again.
If humans can collapse the wave function with mere observation, and chemical machines can't, isn't that evidence against a purely chemical basis of evolution?
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I never answered the question because I never said what you are claiming I said. Nowhere in anything I posted did I believe that quantum physics disproves chemistry and the chemical basis of evolution. Where did you even see me saying that?
If you can post where I said that or where you THINK I said that it would be helpful.
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I'm not accusing you of saying quantum physics disproves the chemical basis of evolution.
I'm saying you said earlier that the purely chemical basis of life is undisputed and factual. But this position is inconsistent with your belief in mysticism. One needs consciousness for mysticism, and chemistry doesn't lead to consciousness.
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I'm not accusing you of saying quantum physics disproves the chemical basis of evolution.
I'm saying you said earlier that the purely chemical basis of life is undisputed and factual. But this position is inconsistent with your belief in mysticism. One needs consciousness for mysticism, and chemistry doesn't lead to consciousness.
Actually this is what I said:
quote: Nobody is going to say we should throw out theoretical math as it allows for the development of some theories and concepts that they don't agree with. And as such it must be understood that math itself came out of "theoretical" cosmological principles in ancient times that many today would consider irrational. And ultimately this is just another form of cosmology using theoretical math and philosophical rhetoric to justify certain beliefs. At the end of the day many of the things they are debating are not able to be proven/disproven in any absolute logical way, which is why you have cosmology to begin with in providing general answers or conceptions about the unknown or intangible (such as thoughts and the mind). And really it has gotten so complex with so many offshoots and branches with their own distinct derivative concepts that you can't really lump them all together easily in terms of being for or against evolution because evolution itself is a very broadly defined set of various beliefs and philosophies about creation.
Among other things. You are over generalizing and paraphrasing.
I also said this:
quote:The ultimate symbol of evolution, chemistry, alchemy and science in the ancient world was the pyramid. It is the symbol of change. In the pedestrian view, it simply means a tomb, but in symbolic and cosmological terms it represents the first spark, first time and first act of creation. Or more technically, it represents the first chemical/atomic reaction or in essence the big bang which brought forth light and fire. From that metaphysical/philosophical first spark came a sequence of chemical reactions much like a ripple in time and space from which all life is ultimately derived. And chemistry is all about measuring "change" due to the interaction of the elements over time in different ways. This is why the pyramid was adopted by the platonic school in Greece and why the triangle is the symbol of change to this day in mathematics.
Now it has come full circle where many scientists are spouting theories that sound metaphysical or mystical, such as alternate universes and so forth. Because at the end of the day there is no rational way to explain everything in the known universe, some aspects are going to remain quasi-mystical and philosophical in nature.
But then again, many of the concepts we take for granted today would have been seen as "mystical" or metaphysical 2000 years ago or more.
"Evolution" is a broad category of related ideas that have over time branched into many different "sub groups". I am only pointing out that "evolution in general" not a specific type of evolution is broadly agreed upon. Where the disagreements come into play is in the details....
And I never said that mysticism was a trump for, substitute for, replacement for, inferior to or superior to chemistry. What I said was that early concepts of chemistry, math, religion, cosmology and philosophy were all together as part of the human search for origins and meanings in life and the cognitive evolution related to that search for meaning. That was the unified theory before Einstein created one. Unified not in the sense of having the answers or being superior to modern science but understanding that all are different ways of trying to understand the same thing: creation, life, the universe, etc.
Ultimately my opinion is all these splinter groups within various concepts is where the confusion comes from. Evolution is one word but within that comes all these various different ways of understanding it, some diametrically opposed to others, but all the same calling themselves "evolutionary theory".
quote: Evolutionary thought, the conception that species change over time, has roots in antiquity – in the ideas of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese as well as in medieval Islamic science. With the beginnings of modern biological taxonomy in the late 17th century, two opposed ideas influenced Western biological thinking: essentialism, the belief that every species has essential characteristics that are unalterable, a concept which had developed from medieval Aristotelian metaphysics, and that fit well with natural theology; and the development of the new anti-Aristotelian approach to modern science: as the Enlightenment progressed, evolutionary cosmology and the mechanical philosophy spread from the physical sciences to natural history. Naturalists began to focus on the variability of species; the emergence of paleontology with the concept of extinction further undermined static views of nature. In the early 19th century Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 – 1829) proposed his theory of the transmutation of species, the first fully formed theory of evolution.
And this development of the "modern" form of evolutionary theory coincides with the move away from alchemy and mysticism in European science towards "rationalism"...... (And thus the attempt to pretend that western thinking was "rational" all along when it wasnt). Not to mention the roots of the ancient "classical" views informed by even older more ancient views.
And it is also at this same time that you saw the develoment of social evolutionary principles as an underpinning of concepts related to the "superiority" of Western thinking, which justified the outright denial of and distortion of that said history.
quote: Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or cultural evolution are theories of cultural and social evolution that describe how cultures and societies change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes that tend to increase the complexity of a society or culture, sociocultural evolution also considers process that can lead to decreases in complexity (degeneration) or that can produce variation or proliferation without any seemingly significant changes in complexity (cladogenesis).[1] Sociocultural evolution is "the process by which structural reorganization is affected through time, eventually producing a form or structure which is qualitatively different from the ancestral form".[2]
Most 19th-century and some 20th-century approaches to socioculture aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies have reached different stages of social development. The most comprehensive attempt to develop a general theory of social evolution centering on the development of sociocultural systems, the work of Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), operated on a scale which included a theory of world history. Another attempt, on a less systematic scale, originated with the world-systems approach from the 1970s.
More recent approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies and reject the idea that cultures differ primarily according to how far each one is on some linear scale of social progress. Most modern archaeologists and cultural anthropologists work within the frameworks of neoevolutionism, sociobiology, and modernization theory.
posted
I'm referring to this post, in which you seem to limit evolution to purely chemical and material processes. This leaves little room for consciousness (which mysticism and other things you've talked about, are said to rely on).
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Personally it sounds more like splitting hairs versus "divine intervention". All mutations and change in life is based on natural processes. Chemistry and all that lies within the universe is a natural process. Rules and laws that govern the universe and natural processes within it are understandable and can be shown to be consistent. Cellular biology and division is shown to be based on genetic mutation. Genetic mutations are based on environmental feedback. That is the basis of all evolutionary change in living organisms.
In the end it doesn't matter that much to me though. I was just trying to make sure you got the point I was trying to make. But if you see no inconsistency between the highlighted parts above and with mysticism, then more power to you.
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I'm referring to this post, in which you seem to limit evolution to purely chemical and material processes.
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Personally it sounds more like splitting hairs versus "divine intervention". All mutations and change in life is based on natural processes. Chemistry and all that lies within the universe is a natural process. Rules and laws that govern the universe and natural processes within it are understandable and can be shown to be consistent. Cellular biology and division is shown to be based on genetic mutation. Genetic mutations are based on environmental feedback. That is the basis of all evolutionary change in living organisms.
In the end it doesn't matter that much to me though. I was just trying to make sure you got the point I was trying to make. But if you see no inconsistency between the highlighted parts above and with mysticism, then more power to you.
OK I get your question. Natural in this sense means as opposed to "divine intervention". Again, this is the problem when you have so many camps taking so many slants within various concepts that words become overloaded with alternate meanings based on how one camp defines its cosmology.
If it didn't come from some magical, god like intervention that is outside what we know about nature then it is natural (or even without mans influence). That is the standard definition.
Going by that there is no contradiction. This is why these folks are splitting hairs and confusing things by appropriating terms and overloading them beyond the original intended meaning. That is the point I was making. Most of these camps are saying what I said for the most part but only differ in the details. Same as with the "general meaning of evolution" versus all the various sub-groups and ideologies within "evolutionary thinking" or "evolutionary philosophy".
Hence what you pointed out is getting at this:
quote: The philosophical or metaphysical architecture of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is analyzed and discussed. It is argued that natural selection was for Darwin a paradigmatic case of a natural law of change -- an exemplar of what Ghiselin (1969) has called selective retention laws. These selective retention laws lie at the basis of Darwin's revolutionary world view. In this essay special attention is paid to the consequences for Darwin's concept of species of his selective retention laws. Although Darwin himself explicity supported a variety of nominalism, implicit in the theory of natural selection is a solution to the dispute between nominalism and realism. It is argued that, although implicit, this view plays a very important role in Darwin's theory of natural selection as the means for the origin of species. It is in the context of these selective retention laws and their philosophical implications that Darwin's method is appraised in the light of recent criticisms, and the conclusion drawn that he successfully treated some philosophical problems by approaching them through natural history. Following this an outline of natural selection theory is presented in which all these philosophical issues are highlighted.
But the point I am making is that ALL evolutionary theories are talking about the process of change within biology. The difference is in the HOW. I personally hold that natural means "arising from within nature" and as such is not an argument AGAINST evolution. To me trying to even use such a word as a archetype for an argument against evolution is silly, which creates more confusion not less.
quote: Evolution and philosophy have a relationship as old as the idea of evolution itself. This is partly due to the fact that science and philosophy only separated about the time evolutionary theories were being first proposed, but also because - especially in the Darwinian context - evolution was opposed to many cherished philosophical doctrines.
The first main criticisms of evolution lay in the idea that species were eternal types, and so by definition species could not change. More recently, criticisms have rested on the notion of science itself, that evolution fails to meet the standards of true science, views that also were expressed at the time of Darwin and earlier. If we are to understand these criticisms, we must understand the philosophy of science in some detail.
Many other topics of philosophical debate have been raised, and they are briefly reviewed: reductionism, progress and directionalism, teleology, naturalism, and evolutionary ethics. Not all of them are related to creationism, but all apply to antievolutionary arguments by those working from a humanities slant. Finally, the view has been put, even by philosophers like Popper who admire and accept evolutionary theory, that it is a tautology and metaphysical rather than science.
My conclusion is that evolution, especially the modern theories, is science at its best, and when it and the nature of science are considered realistically, evolution is not lacking from a philosophical perspective. This essay will deal with these philosophical questions and misunderstandings about evolution:
Is the principle of natural selection a tautology? [The 'tautology' of fitness] Is evolutionary science real science? [The nature of science] Can evolutionary theory make predictions? [Predictions and explanations] Are species fixed types? [The 'species problem'] Should biology be reduced to physics? [Reductionism and biology] Is evolution progressive or directional? [The ladder of progress versus the bush of evolution] Is there a goal to evolution? [Teleology in biology] Does science have to be 'naturalistic'? [Ruling out supernatural explanations] Does the theory of evolution impose a 'might is right' morality? [Social Darwinism] Is evolution a metaphysical system akin to a religion? [Worldviews and science]
Suffice to say most of the support for Darwin's evolutionary theories are coming from genetics.
quote: A substantial part of biodiversity is thought to have arisen from adaptive radiations in which one lineage rapidly diversified into multiple lineages specialized to many different niches. However, selection and drift reduce genetic variation during adaptation to new niches and may thus prevent or slow down further niche shifts. We tested whether rapid adaptation is still possible from a highly derived ecotype in the adaptive radiation of threespine stickleback on the Haida Gwaii archipelago, Western Canada. In a 19-year selection experiment, we let giant sticklebacks from a large blackwater lake evolve in a small clearwater pond without vertebrate predators. A total of 56 whole genomes from the experiment and 26 natural populations revealed that adaptive genomic change was rapid in many small genomic regions and encompassed 75% of the change between 12,000-year-old ecotypes. Genomic change was as fast as phenotypic change in defence and trophic morphology, and both were largely parallel between the short-term selection experiment and long-term natural adaptive radiation. Our results show that functionally relevant standing genetic variation can persist in derived radiation members, allowing adaptive radiations to unfold very rapidly.
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Just another example of shameless transformer Optimus Prime flip flops, which we're supposed to believe don't contradict threats made just yesterday. Not saying Doug's positions here are "super pseudo science"; I'm saying 'Maestro' is using empty rhetoric of oppressive elements in mainstream science one day, and then dabbles with ideas that would be considered even more pseudo science than what he threatened to delete, yesterday.
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Alright Optimus Prime. Let us know when you flip flop back and come back to planet earth.
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