Role of Religions

[wigginhall]

Back to Paley's watch, really.

[Sriram]

As Maeght has suggested, you can surmise all you wish, but the fact that all changes and improvements to such things as computers and planes are totally dependent on an outside agency flies in the face of evolutionary theory and practice, where the basic principle of the evolution of living things by natural selection is well understood, well evidenced and needs no outside agency at all for this process to take place.

Why an outside agency? Changes in organisms are directed from the inside.  Consciousness works from inside the DNA, I expect.

You have to get rid of this image of an external individual God sitting in heaven and directing life on earth. I am talking of an inner Consciousness. 

[torridon]

Why an outside agency? Changes in organisms are directed from the inside.  Consciousness works from inside the DNA, I expect.

You have to get rid of this image of an external individual God sitting in heaven and directing life on earth. I am talking of an inner Consciousness.

In that case maybe the phrase 'intelligent intervention' is causing confusion.  'Intervention' usually implies some outside agency, something separate to the system acting to change the internal operation of a system from elsewhere.  If you are talking about the normal working of a system, then it is not really an intervention.

[Sriram]

In that case maybe the phrase 'intelligent intervention' is causing confusion.  'Intervention' usually implies some outside agency, something separate to the system acting to change the internal operation of a system from elsewhere.  If you are talking about the normal working of a system, then it is not really an intervention.

Normal and abnormal are relative terms. I have always said that there is nothing 'supernatural'.  Everything is natural.

Consciousness working through the DNA could mean'inside' or not necessarily 'inside'. In a world consisting of energy (matter is energy), what is 'inside'?

If we make changes in the software of some computer equipment. Are we 'inside' the computer? No. But we still work from inside the computer.

[torridon]

Normal and abnormal are relative terms. I have always said that there is nothing 'supernatural'.  Everything is natural.

Consciousness working through the DNA could mean'inside' or not necessarily 'inside'. In a world consisting of energy (matter is energy), what is 'inside'?

If we make changes in the software of some computer equipment. Are we 'inside' the computer? No. But we still work from inside the computer.

In that example, the 'we' is external to the computer surely ?

[Sriram]

In that example, the 'we' is external to the computer surely ?

That is because we don't know the true nature of Consciousness.   Whether it is 'inside' or 'outside' or 'everywhere' or 'all around', we cannot say.

[Enki]

Why an outside agency? Changes in organisms are directed from the inside.  Consciousness works from inside the DNA, I expect.

You have to get rid of this image of an external individual God sitting in heaven and directing life on earth. I am talking of an inner Consciousness.

You've missed the point, Sriram. Your examples(planes, computers) depend on an outside agency for their modifications. Evolution is different. 1) It only applies to living things 2) There is no need for any outside agency for the process to work. That is why your examples are inappropriate. The process of evolution by natural selection(brains) and the modifications and improvements to planes and computers haven't got the similarity that you suggest.

Your idea of 'inner consciousness' is just an extremely vague surmise on your part. As Torri says, you seem to be simply overlaying your views of some sort of spiritual component on the natural processes which don't need any sort of 'consciousness' for them to work. If you wish to think that there is some sort of 'inner consciousness' at work, that's your affair, but to convince me, you would have to come up with 1) a more exact definition and 2) some tangible evidence of it actually existing.

[wigginhall]

That's the great thing about the spiritual/supernatural/religious.   It tends to be wonderfully elastic, and non-empirical.   You might as well say that the shining doves of Alpha Centauri are in control.   May your shiningness shine in a sort of shiney way!

[Sriram]

You've missed the point, Sriram. Your examples(planes, computers) depend on an outside agency for their modifications. Evolution is different. 1) It only applies to living things 2) There is no need for any outside agency for the process to work. That is why your examples are inappropriate. The process of evolution by natural selection(brains) and the modifications and improvements to planes and computers haven't got the similarity that you suggest.

Your idea of 'inner consciousness' is just an extremely vague surmise on your part. As Torri says, you seem to be simply overlaying your views of some sort of spiritual component on the natural processes which don't need any sort of 'consciousness' for them to work. If you wish to think that there is some sort of 'inner consciousness' at work, that's your affair, but to convince me, you would have to come up with 1) a more exact definition and 2) some tangible evidence of it actually existing.

1. Evolution does not apply only to living things. It applies to products developed by humans too.

2. Emergent Properties and development of complexity do need intelligent intervention.  Whether the Intelligence is external or internal is a separate discussion. Some young scientists are trying to see if evolution is intelligent. 

[Enki]

1. Evolution does not apply only to living things. It applies to products developed by humans too.

2. Emergent Properties and development of complexity do need intelligent intervention.  Whether the Intelligence is external or internal is a separate discussion. Some young scientists are trying to see if evolution is intelligent.

1) Evolution by natural selection (which I clearly mentioned in Post 97 and Post 106) is the process of how evolutionary changes occur in living organisms over millions of years.

2) Emergence is the result of the interaction of multiple entities, producing structures, patterns or properties which are new or not able to be observed in any individual entity.
Intelligence and even consciousness might well be the result of some types of emergence, of course(e.g. the human brain) but it seems to depend on natural, if complex causal relations of the constituent parts. There is no evidence that a guiding intelligence has any part to play. 

[Bramble]

If evolution was intelligent would it really have produced humans?

[Sriram]

1) Evolution by natural selection (which I clearly mentioned in Post 97 and Post 106) is the process of how evolutionary changes occur in living organisms over millions of years.

2) Emergence is the result of the interaction of multiple entities, producing structures, patterns or properties which are new or not able to be observed in any individual entity.
Intelligence and even consciousness might well be the result of some types of emergence, of course(e.g. the human brain) but it seems to depend on natural, if complex causal relations of the constituent parts. There is no evidence that a guiding intelligence has any part to play.

Human products are selected too. Jeeps for rough terrain, airliners for high altitude,  ocean liners for high seas.  All perfectly adapted to their respective environments.  But obviously through intelligent intervention.

[wigginhall]

I was thinking about Paley's watch, a famous design argument, and I read an interesting comment about the stone that Paley also notices.

If Paley's argument is that the watch is designed, and so is the world, (a segue which is itself dubious), how about the stone.   Is it also designed?

This looks like another flaw in his argument, since he contrasts stone and watch.  The stone is natural, the watch isn't, but the stone is part of the designed world.    Or have I got it wrong?

[torridon]

Human products are selected too. Jeeps for rough terrain, airliners for high altitude,  ocean liners for high seas.  All perfectly adapted to their respective environments.  But obviously through intelligent intervention.

Yes, but that is a superficial take on things.  The intelligence that designs objects is itself something that evolved through natural selection.  We can say that jeeps and ocean liners are manifestations of our extended phenotype.  In any fundamental account, we rule out intelligence as first cause as it is a complex derivative product of simpler natural processes as far as we know.

[Sriram]

Yes, but that is a superficial take on things.  The intelligence that designs objects is itself something that evolved through natural selection.  We can say that jeeps and ocean liners are manifestations of our extended phenotype.  In any fundamental account, we rule out intelligence as first cause as it is a complex derivative product of simpler natural processes as far as we know.

Your comment..."In any fundamental account, we rule out intelligence as first cause as it is a complex derivative product of simpler natural processes as far as we know."

You are again taking that for granted aren't you?!

What I am trying to question and take further...you keep bringing back as though it is some forgone conclusion that cannot be questioned.  It is similar to the religious concept of God. An unquestionable conclusion.

Artificial Intelligence is the result of evolution of technology through intervention of human intelligence.   Similarly, why can't  human intelligence be the result of evolution of organisms through intervention of some other form of intelligence.  I agree we don't know and perhaps can't know, what it is.

[wigginhall]

I thought the point is that intervention from some other intelligence, is not required, to describe the evolution of intelligence.   After that, Occam's razor rules.

[ekim]

I think somebody should define what they mean by intelligence and include e.g. is it one simple attribute which permeates all life forms or does it have many forms according to the complexity of the organism.

[torridon]

I think somebody should define what they mean by intelligence and include e.g. is it one simple attribute which permeates all life forms or does it have many forms according to the complexity of the organism.

Slightly tangential, but it is interesting to note that intelligence has evolved at least twice independently on this planet - in vertebrates (us) and cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus etc). An octopus has much more distributed intelligence than humans, with each arm having what almost amounts to a brain of its own, so at some times it is like a creature with 8 arms, and at others it is like 8 autonomous but conjoined creatures.  The LCA of humans and cephalopods did not have a brain.

[Shaker]

1. Evolution does not apply only to living things. It applies to products developed by humans too.

2. Emergent Properties and development of complexity do need intelligent intervention.  Whether the Intelligence is external or internal is a separate discussion. Some young scientists are trying to see if evolution is intelligent.

I am at a loss to understand why nobody else has picked up on the fact that Sriram has on this thread (at least) been consistently guilty of committing the fallacy of equivocation; that is to say, eliding the difference between the definition of evolution in the standard evolutionary biological sense ("the change in allele frequencies over time in any given gene pool") and the loose, casual sense of change over time in non-living, non-biological insentient objects such as cars which change over time due to extensive R&D at the instigation of human wants, such as in race horses which run faster, dairy cows which yield more milk more profitably, and cute puppies who have the Kinderschema of human babies (huge wide eyes; tiny snub noses etc.) and so forth. The fallacy is in eliding the gulf between the one and the other without carefully and clearly and clinically delineating between the formal and the technical sense and the loose, non-technical sense (just as creationists do with the word 'theory,'). I'm at a loss as to how anybody has allowed this clown to get away with this. Darwin, with no genetic basis, grasped the difference between natural and artificial selection well before 1859. Why doesn't Sriram?

Rhetorical question of course.

[Enki]

Hi Shaker, nice to see you back.

I have to disagree. I was well aware that Sriram was playing fast and loose with evolution in the scientific sense. I tried to make this clear in post 97, again in post 106, when I  summed up by saying:
"The process of evolution by natural selection(brains) and the modifications and improvements to planes and computers haven't got the similarity that you suggest."

and again in post 109.

I saw no point in continuing because simply repeating the same objections gets us nowhere if they aren't accepted by the other party. My attitude is that he is welcome to his ideas if it rocks his boat.

[Sriram]

I am at a loss to understand why nobody else has picked up on the fact that Sriram has on this thread (at least) been consistently guilty of committing the fallacy of equivocation; that is to say, eliding the difference between the definition of evolution in the standard evolutionary biological sense ("the change in allele frequencies over time in any given gene pool") and the loose, casual sense of change over time in non-living, non-biological insentient objects such as cars which change over time due to extensive R&D at the instigation of human wants, such as in race horses which run faster, dairy cows which yield more milk more profitably, and cute puppies who have the Kinderschema of human babies (huge wide eyes; tiny snub noses etc.) and so forth. The fallacy is in eliding the gulf between the one and the other without carefully and clearly and clinically delineating between the formal and the technical sense and the loose, non-technical sense (just as creationists do with the word 'theory,'). I'm at a loss as to how anybody has allowed this clown to get away with this. Darwin, with no genetic basis, grasped the difference between natural and artificial selection well before 1859. Why doesn't Sriram?

Rhetorical question of course.

Ippy...you got company....! 

[SusanDoris]

Ippy...you got company....! 

Excellent and very welcome back company too.

[Sriram]

Ippy...you got company....! 

On second thoughts...I am sorry Ippy. You are a fairly nice guy even if you do troll me around.   

I think I made an unfair comparison. Sorry!

[Shaker]

Hi Shaker, nice to see you back.

I have to disagree. I was well aware that Sriram was playing fast and loose with evolution in the scientific sense. I tried to make this clear in post 97, again in post 106, when I  summed up by saying:
"The process of evolution by natural selection(brains) and the modifications and improvements to planes and computers haven't got the similarity that you suggest."

and again in post 109.

I saw no point in continuing because simply repeating the same objections gets us nowhere if they aren't accepted by the other party. My attitude is that he is welcome to his ideas if it rocks his boat.

Apologies: I didn't see that.

It's certainly true that if someone who spouts fallacious (non) reasoning doesn't accept it as such, there's not really a lot you can do. That's why the 'Searching for God' thread is as long as it is.

[ippy]

On second thoughts...I am sorry Ippy. You are a fairly nice guy even if you do troll me around.   

I think I made an unfair comparison. Sorry!

Just because I prefer to generally simplify my words as much as I can doesn't make me wrong for all of the time or just because my view differs from yours I'm a time waster.

Let's face it Sriram can't remember the whole of that recent post of yours on this thread I commented on but I can clearly remember you more or less drowned yourself out of any sensible exchange with a howler of a major rubbish N P F statement/fail, one of the two take your pick.

I noted the comment about me being a reasonable bloke, no mention of modesty?

Regards ippy