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Negoba 
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
 Topic: The Evolution and Spirituality ThreadPosted: December 07 2009 at 19:31 |
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Just wonder what people think about holons:
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Dean
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 13:04 |
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Once a deity gives its creation the ability to question then all bets are off, whether we have the mental capacity to figure out the puzzle is immaterial, the damage has been done - the umbilical has been cut. It's not that we won't arrive at the right answers, we just haven't addressed the right questions to know when we get the right answers. (And then we can apply Sherlock Holmes' favourite maxim: "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - something he himself would have done if he had any inkling that he was a fictional character).
But that will still not refute or prove the existence of a diety or supreme being - it will only demonstrate the most likely mechanism by which the process operates - an achievement that would make any diety proud of its creation I'd have thought. If we could create a computer that could rationalise how it was made that would be pretty spectacular.
[Of course the logical conclusion of the Celestial Autos analogy is that we'll all be driving Shinto Hybrids in the near future ... or walking everywhere.  ]Edited by Dean - September 29 2009 at 13:04 |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 12:09 |
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C.S. Lewis talks about just such things in Mere Christianity. He makes some interesting arguments and some not very persuasive ones, but it's interesting hearing a scholar who believes do some of the reasoning.
But at least part of it is what you've suggested, that if the creator intervenes within the creation directly, it destroys the autonomy of the creation. It become merely a puppet show. And one would assume that the one thing a sentient creator might wish for is company.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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ExittheLemming
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: October 19 2007 Location: Penal Colony Status: Offline Points: 11415 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 11:58 |
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Erm...I've always been haunted by this scenario:
Would a deity bestow the requisite tools upon mankind to be able to confirm his own existence using purely rational and scientific methods alone ? Otherwise, why kneel in supplication before the CEO of Celestial Autos when you can build another car yourself ? So, even if our scientific efforts refuted the existence of a deity (by that I mean the hypothesis is not supported by the available data) this would not remove entirely the possibility of an erm...cosmic architect i.e. could there be some data that is not observable as beyond our human sensory/cognitive perception and designed that way ?) Ain't this a bit like Sherlock Holmes introducing himself to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the street ? (My head melts when I try to solve this  )Why would the old critter rope off parts of his creation ? (To perpetuate belief only by free-will ? Insert can of worms here) Ergo, was God stingy with the grey matter ? (Clearly parsimonious in my case  ) |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 11:11 |
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Work computer does not run Java....IT nazis....I can waste my spare time here but not use anything fun.
I'll watch it at home tonight. Edited by Negoba - September 29 2009 at 11:11 |
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:51 |
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^ I wish the forum would allow Java applets - a double pendulum simulation is even more fascinating than that simple animation http://www.myphysicslab.com/dbl_pendulum.html
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:42 |
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I dig the thingy, I watch it over and over.
I love this subject matter. There is a beauty to it, that does feed me spiritually. And by that I mean my personal (perceptual) experience of my existence. So much of it is beyond my understanding, but there is so much to behold.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:38 |
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As I said above; no, it doesn't prove or refute anything in real terms. I honestly do not think they will ever be able to prove or refute the existence/non-existence of God. If they did, people would still doubt it and refuse to believe it.
However, the whole concept convinced me more than ever of what I know to be true. I wish I could understand a lot of this more easily and also get my point across better. It is not just due to what I said in my previous message that makes me think that way. I am not scientifically minded, so I cannot really explain it as I'd like to. |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:32 |
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Ah, odd that - if I were a supreme being and wasn't in any immediate hurry for the finished product, then that is exactly how I would do it - far easier than painstakingly constructing every single living thing one species at a time.
It still doesn't prove or refute anything.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:27 |
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There are different degrees of random - some apparently random events are periodic (ie repeating patterns) on a scale to complex to process, and some events that look cyclic have minor variances that mean they are not repeating.
A simple pendulum produces a predictable periodic motion whereas a double pendulum is chaotic and aperiodic and will result in an extremely complex motion.
 So systems that appear to rely on random chance can also be the result of the interaction of very simple predictable events and only give the illusion of being random to the observer.
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:20 |
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Oh I see. I either switched off there or they didn't mention that...
As for incomprehensible statement: I am now more adamant than ever that God does not exist after finding out a bit more about cells, primordial soup, amino acids and all that. If indeed we are all evolved from just one cell, then that doesn't make me think a God would go to so much trouble as to create it all (if you see God as the creator, of course). |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:14 |
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could you run through that one more time for the hard of comprehending.
No that's just transferring the problem from one resource to another. The energy put into the cell to produce combustable oil has to come from somewhere.
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 10:00 |
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Oh it didn't refute the existence of God, but to me, it really convinced me there wasn't one. Although I have never believed a God existed in the first place, mind you.
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 09:56 |
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Well this is an area where I think there is still alot to be learned. But the I think the idea of self-organizing systems is something that needs to seep in to culture. Life didn't happen by complete random chance, there are natural laws that promote organization, and these almost always involve multiple interactions of subcomponents. So things are random, and then a more complex stability point is found. The activity of the system is no longer random. From there additional complexity can occur, at a rate that is statistically impossible without the organizing properties of the equilibrium points.
I know it's convoluted but it is a critical point in thinking about our origins.
Again, though, these things neither support nor refute the existence of God. Edited by Negoba - September 29 2009 at 09:57 |
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 09:51 |
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One thing that was made clear to me though is that it's once and for all made me definitely convinced there is no God of any kind.
Also, it seems at Harvard, they can now use cells to make Diesel. Does this mean the depletion of oil in the future is now a thing of the past? Edited by James - September 29 2009 at 10:27 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 09:40 |
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I agree (even though I admit to not knowing much about the subject) but there is a huge gap (in terms of geological time) between the "primordial soup" (random collection of amino acids) and the first single-celled lifeform.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 09:33 |
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I'll have a stab at the second question James.
Yes - the laws of physics are the same on every planetary body in the Universe, and the scale of the Universe is so large that statistically it is possible for the chemistry (and thus biology) of single cell life to have emerged. Assuming that this can only occur on planets of a given age, then it could have happened on planets that are older than ours (since our Sun and thus our planet is not specifically unique, nor was it the first or the oldest) and it could happen again by the same logic. Our body chemistry is carbon-based by virtue of the environment we emerged into - from a physics point of view other elements have similar properties as carbon - the most obvious being silicon - here on Earth life is carbon and computers are silicon (we have the technology to make germanium computers but silicon is better, cheaper and easily available in it's crystalline form, we could make carbon computers, but crystalline carbon is a little pricey and difficult to work
), so under different circumstances (pressure heat chemistry) silicon-based lifeforms are feasible. |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 09:17 |
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James,
These are fundamental questions that I don't think have been answered. It is virtually impossible that a cell was the first living thing as it's too complicated to happen de novo. Let me place this firmly out there. Life would never have occurred "by chance" as we conceive of it. All life involves self-sustaining systems and self-organizing systems. But life is not the only thing that does this. Simpler systems can still exhibit these properties and it from one of those simpler systems that life literally evolved as simply a progressively more and more complex self-organizing system.
This idea does not require any kind of divine intervention, but neither does it disprove any such thing either. It's just another example of how elegant and complex the universe we live in is.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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VanderGraafKommandöh
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 04 2005 Location: Malaria Status: Offline Points: 89372 |
Posted: September 29 2009 at 08:42 |
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Although only slightly related, I want to ask a question or two.
I was watching a rather fascinating 3 part series about Cells last night and the general idea, as you are all likely aware, is that all lifeforms have evolved from just one cell. Well, what I want to ask is this: is it not possible that there could have been more than one identical cell and different life forms have formed from each one and then evolved, rather than one just evolving into whatever it evolved into first (such as an Amoeba) and then eventually evolving into all life that has ever existed on earth. I realise that that one cell's initial creation was indeed just pure luck and depended on the correct chemicals but is not possible for several to have been formed at the same time? I am not really scientifically minded, so if this is easily answered, then I do apologise. My other question is: If therefore this one cell created all life on earth, what are the possibilities of such a cell forming on other planets? Could there have been a cell created millions of years before the one that created life on earth, or could it be the case it hasn't happened yet. Will it ever happen? Or maybe cells are made by different chemicals on other planets? Apologies if I have got some basic facts wrong and please feel free to correct them, if that is indeed the case. Your insight is much welcomed. |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 24 2009 at 12:19 |
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Events occuring in a timeless reality is a little too difficult for me to fathom. Of course, anything approaching infinity is beyond human understanding. We can point to it, say "yeah it's kind of like that," but you it's a concept completely outside the realm of our experience.
What is the link between complex molecules and something we'd call life? What forces started the process?
None of the things we observe prove the existence of a higher power, but some of them certainly make you wonder. The biggest problem is that "higher power" can mean alot of things. Whether that power is conscious, or benevolent, or within or without our realm of existence, all impossible to know. Reasonable hunches are possible.
I am very interested in a field of study called complexity which involves "Self-organizing systems," or properties of groups that tend to lead to increased complexity over time. It is possible that this field could actually bolster atheist though by explaining phenomena which just don't make sense mechanistically. Unfortunately, it's very hard to mathematically model well, and some people think it's too "out there." At the same time, little bits and pieces of the field are getting assumed into current scientific thought all the time.
The higher power may still be math at some level.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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The Evolution and Spirituality Thread
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ExittheLemming wrote: