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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: zazang]
#68953
04/21/06 22:17
04/21/06 22:17
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236 San Diego, CA
Marco_Grubert
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Quote:
A fish with fins moves against gravity in water,then why cant it evolve into a bird with wings and move against gravity in air ?
Because underwater it only has to deal with a fraction of gravity under water. Buoyancy takes most of it away, making swimming almost weightless. A land creature has more experience with gravity than a fish.
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but think of a modern PC...slowly built from the first PC by Babel(?) into the PC ur typing away right now...now I know that a PC was "created" but I'm only talking about the idea of "change" of the PC over years to the current state
You're probably referring to Babbage (who didn't build it). Either way that's as bad an analogy as creationists speaking about evolution from rock to human.
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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#68954
04/21/06 22:23
04/21/06 22:23
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718 Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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Creationists don't believe that aging and disease necessarily went hand in hand with creation. I feel kind of like a broken record saying this, but christians believe that (according to the bible) death, disease, and all of that fun stuff weren't a part of life until (within the very first generation's span) humans sinned and caused all of this stuff to happen to themselves.
Actually, we believe that death and disease and all of that are unnatural intrusions (that have just become part of every day life). But, that's kind of hard to prove isn't it?
With science it isn't all that hard to imagine a world without death. They're researching ways that might make it possible for our bodies to theoretically live forever (by blocking the 'aging' process). Of course, that doesn't rule out murder, and disease. But the fact of the matter is that it is scientifically possible to imagine a world closer to what is described in Genesis.
Oh yeah, I made a mistake in saying that God never created anything after the original creation. After humans sinned, the bible does say that he created 'weeds'...Unfortunately I don't have access to the original hebrew writing so I'm not sure what word is used in place of weeds and thusly its exact meaning. But whatever.
I have one question that I'd like to know an evolutionist's opinion on. Ok, the most primitive form of life is a single cell. Multi-cellular creatures have cells the specialize in different ways and as a whole act as one large creature. So basically we're made out of billions of lifeforms. Why do we have a cingular consciousness? I know, the brain. But my question is, why does one know they exist? How come when I look at my computer screen I'm consciously aware of the image I'm seeing, why does this image exist at all (even if it is just in my head, per se)? Its one thing for a human to be able to do what a human does, but to be conscious while doing it? In fact, I'd go as far as to say that even with the same brain, humans wouldn't behave exactly the same way without a consciousness. But who knows.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#68955
04/21/06 23:37
04/21/06 23:37
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236 San Diego, CA
Marco_Grubert
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Quote:
Creationists don't believe that aging and disease necessarily went hand in hand with creation.
I know you don't like to talk about creationism, but if aging, diseases, etc. was not originally encoded in the DNA, then how did these massive mutations (that kept everything else about humans intact, nonetheless) come about within a single generation ? I think the only answer would be some sort of "recall action" by god. Thus in the end it comes out the same way, whether god created humans faulty or made them faulty later on.
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I have one question that I'd like to know an evolutionist's opinion on. (..)Why do we have a cingular consciousness?
Trust me, you don't want to go there. Whereas evolution is straight-forward and for the most part understood, consciousness is a whole other thing with lots of competing theories none of which satisfying.
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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#68958
04/22/06 09:23
04/22/06 09:23
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,987 Frankfurt
jcl
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Quote:
I have one question that I'd like to know an evolutionist's opinion on. Ok, the most primitive form of life is a single cell. Multi-cellular creatures have cells the specialize in different ways and as a whole act as one large creature. So basically we're made out of billions of lifeforms. Why do we have a cingular consciousness? I know, the brain. But my question is, why does one know they exist? How come when I look at my computer screen I'm consciously aware of the image I'm seeing, why does this image exist at all (even if it is just in my head, per se)? Its one thing for a human to be able to do what a human does, but to be conscious while doing it? In fact, I'd go as far as to say that even with the same brain, humans wouldn't behave exactly the same way without a consciousness. But who knows.
This question goes far beyond evolution and I think it's one of the 10 greatest questions of mankind today.
The behaviorist point of view: Consciousness is an illusion. Our brain produces a model of the outside world, and produces an image of ourselves within this model. This model is required to survive in the jungle, and gives us the illusion of a consciousness.
The materialist point of view: Consciousness (or "the soul") exists. It is a new quality that automatically comes into existence in a complex enough brain able to reflect on itself.
There are other opinions about consciousness, but no particular "evolutionist" opinion as to my knowledge. At the moment all points of view about consciousness are not falsifiable, i.e. they are not scientific. This might change when we have computers complex enough to pass the Turing Test. Then we'll be able to experiment with consciousness and maybe come close to an answer.
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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: jcl]
#68959
04/23/06 02:33
04/23/06 02:33
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Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 4,427 Japan
A.Russell
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Language and the mind presents other theories of conciuousness. For example, does being able to express thoughts through language gives rise to self awareness? The current Turing test is a test of how well you can trick people into thinking the computer is intelligent. The leading algorithm, A.L.I.C.E, works on the principle that although you can make an infinite number of utterances with a language, in fact people mostly just say the same things over and over. Through stimulus and response, A.L.I.C.E has over 60,000 replies. So long as you don't repeat the same question several times or ask silly questions like "do zebras wear socks?" you will usually get a natural sounding answer out of her. The current Turing test has disallowed using such tricks. In other words, we are not even on the right track to creating an artificial consciousness. Have a talk with ALICE: http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1
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Re: Science and Creation
[Re: A.Russell]
#68960
04/23/06 03:37
04/23/06 03:37
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718 Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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I didn't bring up consciousness in the context of a debate on evolution. I just wanted to know your guys' opinions on the topic. Quote:
I know you don't like to talk about creationism, but if aging, diseases, etc. was not originally encoded in the DNA, then how did these massive mutations (that kept everything else about humans intact, nonetheless) come about within a single generation ? I think the only answer would be some sort of "recall action" by god. Thus in the end it comes out the same way, whether god created humans faulty or made them faulty later on.
You mean, it would still be God's fault, or am I not getting what you're saying? God said, "If you eat that fruit, you can be sure you will die." It doesn't get much more clear than that. Adam ate the fruit, so he brought it on himself. Doesn't mean that God is heartless, it was 'our' choice.
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I sure hope we dont have a Cingular consciouness.. i use Verizon.
Oops.
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Our brain produces a model of the outside world, and produces an image of ourselves within this model. This model is required to survive in the jungle, and gives us the illusion of a consciousness.
Sounds like a copout to me. I mean, imagine molecules (what we are) being able to consciously comprehend and understand the world. Sounds rather curious to me.
What is the illusion being provided to? This sounds more like a way to just explain consciousness away as an 'illusion' which I don't think it is.
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The materialist point of view: Consciousness (or "the soul") exists. It is a new quality that automatically comes into existence in a complex enough brain able to reflect on itself.
A much more reasonable explanation. Not really one that quite fits my way of looking at consciousness. I don't know. There's so many ways to go with this, its hard to really even comprehend what consciousness is. I mean, how do I describe my consciousness? I think that, say, a fish can see its predator, but I don't think it 'sees' it the same way we do. Certain visual stimulations can cause the fish to behave differently.
Another interesting question is, since I don't remember anything from early life, was I even conscious within the first few years?
I'd also like to be able to turn off whatever part of my brain tells me to recognize people as people (maybe that's just a consequence of experience) and see what people look like then. That would be interesting.
Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 04/23/06 04:15.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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