Locking
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7723
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 06:13
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If a pattern is aperiodic and non-random it has specified complexity. The shape of “i” would qualify. Yes there is a continuum with the shape of “i” being at one extreme and you at the other. The extremes don’t have anything to do with it though, because all other objects with specified complexity arise from a mind. The question is whether living things are unique among things with specified complexity or like everything else that has that quality. Wikipedia has this quote from origin of life researcher Leslie Orgel: “In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity He thought that naturalistic processes could explain it, which is why I don’t understand why you don’t grasp this concept. It’s not a biased term. EDIT: I see your point, *i. It does have meaning though. The genetic code is aperiodic and nonrandom. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 06:25: Message edited by: Stillness ] Posts: 701 | Registered: Thursday, November 30 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 06:55
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quote:So you're saying that if I find a rock shaped like the letter I, it must have been produced by a mind? Honestly, I knew you were going to make yourself look ridiculous sooner or later, but I didn't know you'd do it so quickly. By the way, you might be interested to know that by your definition, the digits of pi have specified complexity: they're not periodic (any schoolchild knows that they never repeat), but they're also obviously not random. Pi isn't the product of any mind, though -- it's just a natural consequence of what a circle is. Honestly, Stillness, I've met poached eggs with better debating skills. Check that your own arguments hold water before you put them out there for us to tear apart. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 07:00: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7557
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 08:10
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Can somebody please explain to me in small words how a two-line post by a member with frankly qustionable forum status turned into this mutant thingimagin? -------------------- "Fear that which mortality has rejected" -Galvin Magnus Posts: 942 | Registered: Sunday, October 8 2006 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 10374
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 08:15
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In small words:mutation during evolution -------------------- You must show me respect becouse...never mind why but do respect me! All hail me, your...something. Don't contradict me or I'l...GUARDS! Posts: 263 | Registered: Sunday, September 9 2007 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7723
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 09:43
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Ok Thuryl, you got me with the “i.” I was thinking about the letter drawn by a person meant to convey information. So you caught me with a poorly stated argument. Good job. You get a cookie. The problem with the rock is it would still be random even though it looks like an “i.” It would tell you absolutely nothing. In fact, even an “i” made by a person is random unless it actually conveys information. Pi is aperiodic, but how is it not random? If I draw a triangle and measure the ratio of the length of the legs and it = 1.36490220013784…, is that random? What if I draw a million more triangles with the same ratio? If not, what is the purpose? Let me explain why life has specified complexity. The pattern of a single blue whale is non repeating. It is not a property of the amino acids in her to form blue whales. They have to be driven to do so by a code. Leave them be and you get nothing. It is therefore non-random. Posts: 701 | Registered: Thursday, November 30 2006 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 10:06
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"If a pattern is aperiodic and non-random it has specified complexity." A letter 'i' written in a letter evidently counts as non-random, but "even an 'i' made by a person is random unless it actually conveys information." So, apparently: 'having specified complexity' is an exact synonym for 'conveying information'. Is that your final answer? [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 10:14: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 10:48
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quote:Now here's the thing. Can we trace all topics of such substance back to inane one-liners by abrasive newbs? Because clearly if we can't, then evolution from a common ancestor is false, and we should all go to church and do penance. :P Now here's something I'm curious about. Stillness, you said you don't believe in a common ancestor, but agree that the process known as evolution takes place. How far back do you place the point where species were created/spontaneously-generated? -------------------- TM: "I want BoA to grow. Evolve where the food ladder has rungs to be reached." Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 11:08
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quote:I'm amused that you provide this link even though you apparently haven't thought through the consequences of all the statements on the page. "The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, complexity theory, or biology." (Three citations follow.) You might also want to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent quote:There are algorithms for generating it. Random numbers should not be predictable; they should be truly probabilistic, like quantum mechanics (not, strictly speaking, like a coin flip, since one could predict the outcome of a coin flip if one knew the initial conditions of the flip and the exact properties of the coin and medium). Give me enough time, and I can tell you what is coming next in the digits of pi; I can't tell you the outcome of a measurement of an electron's position, because that's truly probabilistic. But until you can provide a single instance of an atheist scientist who agrees with anything that you're saying, I have to consider this entire discussion silly. Of course a few evangelicals are going to put out garbage science in support of their beliefs. It's not really even worth paying attention if that's all it is. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 11:19: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 11:31
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Well, it's not resonable to make atheism the criterion for scientific authority. But it is reasonable to ask for scientific work about specified complexity that is not just special pleading against evolution by a handful of cranks. Complexity in general is a subject of high current scientific interest in several well-funded fields that have nothing whatever to do with evolution. If there were any clear concept of complexity that had real implications for intelligence, hundreds of computer scientists would be all over it, with millions of dollars in grant money and armies of graduate students. It's conceivable that this is in fact the case, but that the CS research uses different names for the same concepts. Or maybe physicists or analytical philosophers or neurobiologists have been following the same thoughts, with their own different terminology. This is the kind of thing we'd like to hear about. What is not remotely plausible is that half a dozen anti-evolutionists have a solid idea in complexity theory and no-one else cares about it. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7723
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 11:50
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Lol, you put words in my mouth and then ask if that’s my final answer. I don’t know Regis, let me think…I feel like you’re trapping me, but…I’ll have to say…um…uh…I don’t…know…. Yeah, I wouldn’t say synonyms, but things with specified complexity have information content. I would definitely say “strongly related terms.” Are energy and work synonymous? Let’s compare three concepts –randomness, order, and specified complexity. Think about the shortest algorithm you’d need to write to generate a random arrangement. 1. Print any letter. 2. Return to step 1. You could generate volumes full of random letters. Now an ordered arrangement: 1. Print ‘XYZ’. 2. Return to step 1. Again, you could generate volumes of ordered (periodic) letters. Now what if you wanted to generate volumes of information - say the Encyclopedia Britannica. What would your algorithm look like? It would have to be big enough to have every letter in the right place. “[T]here is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.” R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986), p. 115 quote:You mean in time? Like what year? I don’t know. My guess is way less than 4 billion years, but I’m not dogmatic on that. And I don’t think that “species” were created. That’s an artificial designation. So I could see a big cat evolving into the lion, the tiger, the cougar, etc. quote:No problem…By the way, what if I said, “I won’t consider common descent until you can show me one of Jehovah’s Witnesses that accepts it.” Would that be logical? quote:And I can tell you the next number in the ratio between my triangle legs and generate algorithms to make it. What does that have to do with whether or not something is random? I can pick any random number and memorize it or write programs to spit it out. Posts: 701 | Registered: Thursday, November 30 2006 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 12:02
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quote:The discussion is not whether evolution fits into the JW perspective of the world. The discussion is whether evolution fits into the scientific one. In the former discussion, your objection above would be reasonable, but in the current (latter) one, probably not. I notice that you said, "No problem," and then you didn't do it. I'm waiting. quote:I explained that in the rest of the post. A number is not random if it can be predicted. (To be precise, I'm talking about true randomness, not pseudorandomness.) [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:10: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7723
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 12:08
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"No problem" as in "do what you please." I think I was thinking of abiogenesis. I don't know that I've come across atheists that don't accept common descent. And how would you predict pi? In what way are my triangles random that a circle is not? EDIT: The discussion is not whether evolution fits into the atheist perspective of the world. The discussion is whether evolution fits into the scientific one. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:12: Message edited by: Stillness ] Posts: 701 | Registered: Thursday, November 30 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 12:16
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quote:Again, the kind of data with the most information content per bit is random data. When I asked you whether you knew this, you spouted off some stuff about specified complexity being non-random. Considering that mathematicians don't actually have any reliable algorithm for determining whether a given sequence is truly random, identifying specified complexity would be quite a feat if it existed. quote:That's not the same as the shortest algorithm you'd need to recreate a specific random arrangement which had been generated in the past. You seem to be implicitly assuming some vague idea that all randomly-generated sequences are somehow equivalent, which is an idea that has no place in mainstream information theory. quote:Note that that says "information capacity", not "information". The actual amount of information will be less, because the data encoded in DNA is somewhat compressible. quote:A truly random infinite sequence of digits, by definition, would require an infinitely large amount of data to store its exact value. The randomness of a sequence is path-dependent: if a sequence has been generated by a deterministic algorithm, IT'S NOT RANDOM. The exact value of pi can be encoded by a simple definition: the ratio of any given circle's circumference to its diameter. A relatively simple algorithm can calculate the digits of pi to arbitrary precision. Pi is in fact about the least random number we know of, even though its digits behave like random digits in subtle and intriguing ways. Incidentally, when you claim that specified complexity is "not random", are you claiming that specified complexity is also path-dependent: that is, that anything generated by a wholly or partially random process is by definition incapable of containing specified complexity? Because if so, your argument comes perilously close to question-begging. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:34: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 12:21
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quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_%CF%80 quote:I didn't say that your triangles were random. It depends on exactly what you're doing. I refer you, yet again, to the usual reference to further clarify what the word "random" actually means. quote:I rest my case. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 12:25: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 13:03
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Stillness, the only words I'm trying to put in your mouth are your own. I am simply trying to translate them into something clear, so I am trying to get you to accept a clear paraphrase. This is what one does in intelligent discussions. One spends a good 80% of the time trading paraphrases, to establish mutual comprehension. The right response to a proposed paraphrase is not rhetorical counterjabbing or parrying with a different topic. It's one of three things: a) Yes, that's exactly what I meant; b) No, that differs from my meaning in this respect here ... ; c) I'm not sure what that paraphrase of yours means; can I paraphrase it in turn like this ... . It may take a few rounds; that's par. The reason to do all this should become clear with experience. We all like to think that we have clever ideas. And we all find it much easier to imagine that we have a clever idea, than to actually have one. The temptation is therefore strong and constant, to obtain the pleasure of believing we have a clever idea, by the easier route of delusion. Only by allowing our ideas to be expressed by other people, who do not share our attachment to them, can we be sure how good our ideas really are. Usually, they are not good, and other people's unflattering paraphrases expose their badness. That's not rhetorical trapping; that's truth. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 9887
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 15:20
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First on random. Humans cannot create anything random. Computers cannot create anything random, because they were programed by humans. A monkey sitting down at a typewriter does not produce random script. It would favor some keys over others. My bottom line is that nothing that thinks, has insticts, or even has life can produce something random. If you have thought, instinct or life, and try to create something random you will create something that you can at least semi-comprehend. The closet thing that I can come up to for random is telling a computer to produce ten numeric digits, and the computer producing ten symbols that have no meaning. Creationism (forgive my word choice). What seems to either be taken for granted or no included on this topic is that species do not spring into creation after some amount of time. A Neanderthal did not one day give birth to a Cro-Magnon. I takes a span of time humans cannot dream of comprehending to create a new species. In the human life time of 70 to 100 years, the only current species that would even have come close to changing would have been an insect or a rodent, and even then the change would be minute caused by a mutation, not nearly enough to become its own species. In fact that is how species come about, a mutation in the genes of an individual. If it is successful the individual survives and passes the trait on, and after several mellennia, once the gene has spread through enough individuals and the individuals can no longer reproduce with another branch from the same ancestor, a new species is born. This would be how life sprung up from micro organisms. One day some amoeba sprouts cilia, which let it move faster and catch more food, it is so successful that a new species arises from it. Then a causes some amoebas to grow larger than others, at the cost of speed. It is successful so a new species is born. Then a mutation in one of the smaller amoebas causes it to one day attack the larger slower amoebas. It is successful so a new species is born. Eventually it turns into what it is today. -------------------- Hmm... Ornks, gazers and guacamole. What kind of food would you get? =:T:= Posts: 454 | Registered: Monday, August 20 2007 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 8030
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 15:33
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By Stillness quote:What I'm saying is that you continue to provoke debates concerning evolution, when you know many members disagree with you. It's foolish because you only make yourself appear hypocritical, as you waste time preaching to those you know will not accept your philosophy. I'm not sure as to what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, but I thought they were a denomination of Christianity. -------------------- I dub thee... Posts: 1384 | Registered: Tuesday, February 6 2007 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 16:43
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"I see your point, *i. It does have meaning though. The genetic code is aperiodic and nonrandom." I really don't think you see my point. I go to tell you why using quotes in scientific arguments is not really relevant in this case, yet you go ahead and post anyway and then you do not even refute the core of my arguments. The issue with this is as follows: 1) The term specified complexity has no meaning beyond something very subjective and non-quantifiable. Just about everyone within information theory says this. 2) Your arguments against evolution stem from the assertion that specified complexity cannot increase through "non-intelligent biological processes". This is based on a mathematical premise. 3) However, no one has yet come up with a way to quantify specified complexity in any rigorous sense: how much does a plant cell have relative to an animal cell? 4) To say that things cannot increase, one has to be able to give a relative measure of one object to another. 5) Therefore, the arguments you have asserted are total junk. You cannot have it both ways here. Simultaneously claiming math backs up your assertions while admitting the important "quantity" is inherently subjective and unquantifiable just does not work. One excludes the other. Sure, attach "meaning" to specified complexity based on one individual without the wide support of the scientific community. However, do not try and use the mathematical arguments surrounding them to try and back up your cause. They are fallacious. Until you can quantify (for example) how much complexity a daisy and a carrot have in a rigorous and meaningful way, your argument will continue to remain without substance. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 16:46: Message edited by: *i ] -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 18:16
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Thus Spake Thuryl: True enough, life doesn't "thrive" on competition: quite the opposite. In most places and at most times, life doesn't "thrive" at all. In fact, it barely gets by. . A rather joyless experience you must be having on this planet. That’s a pretty miserable view of what life on earth has been doing for unfathomable epochs of time. Life might disagree with you, that it is not thriving. I look at this world and see an incredible thriving of an incredible diversity of incredible life. Life is amazingly successful and perpetuating. What are you looking at? More importantly, with what eyes are you looking? no matter how disadvantageous it is to the organism as a whole, if a cell arises with the right set of mutations to allow it to reproduce unchecked, it will do so. You might be surprised what permits or disallows the possibility of cancer to take root in your body, or whether or not it is true that cancer is an inevitable occurrence in a human being if it only lived long enough. You can't wish cancer out of existence by pretending you live in a world of happy fuzzy hopping bunnies that spend all day hugging each other. The only thing that prevents cancer from overwhelming everybody all the time is the immune system. Your immune system is tied to your wishing/not wishing. Body and mind are united, not untied. You might be amazed what you can do with your immune system or with cancer with your state of mind. Of course, if you don’t believe it, you have gutted the possibility of experiencing it. We are all pretending to live in a world of our imagination here, even when you imagine otherwise. You live in yours, and you see life that does not thrive, and is based upon a principle of competition. If the result is the disaffectionate disposition you dispense, you’re not likely to be selling your product to me. I see humanity’s embracing of the lie that Life operates on the principle of competition as a means of justifying our killing and competing with one another, a view that evolved out of our earlier belief systems about God/the gods, who we painted in a similar light, made in our own image, as it were. It’s a great excuse to justify all our worst behaviors. I don’t care what anyone asserts—we are going to have to adopt a new paradigm of Life if we want to survive this century. You’ll forgive me if I fail to settle for the status quo that threatens our existence on this planet. If you find my cause for inherent optimism in the principle of life to be something to mock, that says more about you than me. However, that said, it also made me laugh. I’ll take happy fuzzy hopping bunnies over the maddening enslaving fuzzy turtles we have created in our own image here. The cells of the immune system, of course, also compete among themselves in a Darwinian struggle that's just as brutal as any cancer: white blood cells that can recognise antigens present in the environment survive and proliferate to millions of times their original number, while those that can't recognise antigens die out, leaving no descendants The letting go of that which is not successful in the body is not the same thing as the body competing with itself. Or are you saying our antigens kill other antigens as humans do humans? You are describing what life/evolution does: favor the successful and abandon the unsuccessful. The successful involves harmonious cooperation with the needs of the whole organism. This supports, rather than contrasts my point that cooperation, not competition, is The Principle of all life. quote:This is a great question, and I do not have an answer, but I have asked it too. I have a pretty clear picture of what a soul is and does in the human context, but I am not sure how and when it ties into life as a whole. My present inclination is to think that soul is inherently tied to life itself, as Life is a synonym for God, and there is nothing that is not a part of Life/God. Perhaps, when life becomes sufficiently conscious and aware, it becomes aware of its “soul.” Or perhaps “soul” is simply the natural capacity and experience that results from self-awareness as a part of Life. My sense is that all life contains the same thing that we come to experience as our soul. The confusion probably comes in by not really knowing clearly enough just what our soul really represents to us. What do you think? ... Stillness said: Now, my objection to common descent is that it’s logically flawed and lacking in it’s ability to explain anything real. It’s an interesting idea, but the evidence says something different. At the heart of it is what I believe to be an a priori rejection of anything outside a naturalistic explanation. That’s my problem with embracing it. I, and many who may have embraced evolution as our reality, also see God/Intelligence in the existence and principle of all life and its natural processes. I am far from clear on why you find contrary to evidence the process of evolution of life (including common descent) and lacking in ability to describe anything real? How is that? What do you think the evidence is saying, if most of scientific assertion on this matter is mistaken? If you want to believe that I choose religion over reason and evidence, I tell you like I told Salmon, go with that if it makes it easy. If you want the truth, look at my logic and challenge it. Just don’t do it on these boards because it’s not permitted. (Yes, I’m still bitter about the censorship). I don’t want or need to believe anything in particular about you. Nor am I concerned about your belief or logic. I am being curious about it, to understand it better, and to see whether other paradigms might possibly fit within what you are seeking to establish as your conviction. As for the censorship, you don’t see anyone censoring this thread now, do you? Someone refresh me on what is specifically supposed to not be permitted here, because I’ve only seen the occasional random complaint/thread-locking by Jeff, seemingly on whim more than any concise policy on what can or can’t be discussed here that is not violating the CoC. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 18:26
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quote:I wasn't eager to bring this up, but since you have broached the topic, you have a fantastic ability to position yourself as anti-"x" without ever coming forth with an accepted substitute. Why is that? The reason I earlier mentioned that I was a skeptic was to allow you the opportunity to disclose that you are a cynic. Because certainly that appears to be the case, both in this discussion and in others. You are certainly welcome to not interpret the fossil record as reputable archaeologists and anthropologists have done. That is certainly within your rights. But you lack credentials, you lack supporting documentation, you lack colleagues with documentation and credentials, and you lack any verifiable alternatives to the things you oppose. I mean it should be easy. All you need to do is say that you don't think evolution is the proper mechanism for explaining all the stuff that lives on this planet, and why that is so. And then propose a different mechanism, and show how it explains all the stuff that lives on the planet and also explain how I can use that mechanic to guess at things that should exist if I were to look for them. Because that is what evolution is currently able to do for scientists, and it is really neat to be able to predict things like that. -------------------- Synergy, et al - "I don't get it." Argon - "I'm at a loss for words..." Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 18:53
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I was about to start typing up a long response to Synergy's New Age gobbledygook, but it's not worth it. We're not going to agree. He's going to live in his land of semi-anti-solipsistic relativism and I'm going to live in my rational, scientific world. In fact, according to my understanding, that's perfectly fine and my choice, although it's a regrettable one. But ignorance of science is not something I can let slide. Life is thriving, yes, but it thrives because organisms are in constant competition. Many organisms are not thriving; that's natural selection. That's what Thuryl said. You're also missing Thuryl's point about cancer and the immune system. Cancer is natural selection: a cell that can reproduce rapidly and infinitely produces more infinitely rapidly producing cells. That's the phenomenon of cancer. It's really no different from bacteria doing it in a flask except for the consequences to the host. —Alorael, who doesn't agree so much with Thuryl about bodies being competition-based. Most systems are regulated enough thatthey can't really be said to be competition at the level of single-celled sub-organisms. White blood cells that don't recognize an antigen die, but not because they fail to compete. The feedback is positive, not negative, in the immune system loop. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 19:20
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Synergy, it would gratifying to me — I don't know why — if you ever in your life learned the difference between Darwinism and Social Darwinism. The former does not lead inevitably, or really at all, to the latter. The fact that competition exists in nature and has been an effective tool for evolving life is not evidence that we need to model ourselves in any way on it. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 19:21: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 19:24
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quote:FYT. Any organism that exists, exists because it is operating on a principle of incredible overall internal collaboration and unity. When we choose to apply this principle more fully at an even higher scale of life, "externally," we will see life that thrives exponentially more than it manages to under a competitive scheme. In reality, there is no "external" because the scale extends perpetually. We are all one life. In this relativistic universe, there are many levels and layers of "truth." Science describes many "truths" at one level, and these are many and wondrous indeed. There are also higher truths which can effectively render them no longer determinant. Jesus broke the "laws" of physics habitually. He was operating by a higher law than what science frequently submits to. I have witnessed the laws of physics being undeniably broken in my own body. So, sorry, if I am unable to comply with the scientific model of defining all possible reality. It is an incomplete picture. One man's "gobbledygook" is another's sacred truth. There would be less killing in this world, figuratively and literally, if there were more honoring of our differences, and trusting in our ability to find our truth, rather than the need to exert one's rightness, and the certainty of an absolute truth for all. I will continue to endeavor to do so. -S- Kel - do you really think that belief that life operates by a principle of competition, rather than collaboration, does not ultimately affect all our social behavior? Social Darwinism is a product of beliefs in aspects of biological Darwinism...along with other things. There is a reason it is named after him. We are what we believe. We do everything we do based upon our belief about life. It's okay if we totally disagree on this. I invite you to look at the state of the world which is enthralled at present with dog eat dog competitiveness, and tell me how it's working for us. [ Wednesday, January 09, 2008 19:32: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • N:R Items • The Lonely Celt • A5 Items • A5 Map Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 19:31
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 *for after the bloodletting to cure your fever. -------------------- Synergy, et al - "I don't get it." Argon - "I'm at a loss for words..." Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Wednesday, January 9 2008 19:34
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quote:Your description of Darwinism does not match scientific understanding from any time in the recent past. quote:Your description of the state of the world does not match the actual world. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |