Jay Ray
Posts: 92 Joined: Feb. 2006
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Quote | My take is exceedingly taoist. Oh, good. |
Note, any relation to Taoism in my approach to life is reality based, not mystical. Some of those Taoists "back in the day" took a wrong turn, I understand. No, my view is more world-as-integrated, self organized system, and not necessarily self aware or "thinking" in any sense of the word.
Quote | If the Tao is so infinite that it cannot even be called one, how is it to make plans? The Tao is the void of Buddhism. To become one, requires some self-consciousness. Now you have two. The duality of two and nonduality make three. Anyway, I'd like to see a good explanation of that passage. From a great power station, you need stepdown units to get structured work done. In the Christian trinity, you have the Source, the Uncreated Energies, and the Organizing Force, which is supposed to be the real creator of this world. I like my names better, don't you? |
Its been awhile since I've browsed the Tao Te Ching. I'll have to look into this before I make any meaningful comment. My reading of the Tao Te Ching always took notions of intention as allegorical and anthropomorphic, if not outright bad translation. I will say, without looking, that if Lao Tzu's early, pre-scientific intuitions about the workings of nature were mostly pretty good, I think he crosses the line by attributing self-conciousness.
Quote | Jehovah is a misanthropic doody head. And an imposter. I don't care who hears me say it. |
Quote | There's more analysis than that. I hope you'll look through my previous post to Chris; I excerpted some of the better and more interesting parts of a very detailed set of 5 essays on the evolution of the flagellum.
Oh, and just because it looks designed doesn't mean it wasn't, either. |
Behe on the stand in Dover, repeated this phrase like a mantra: "The purposeful arrangement of parts..." All the rest is just an elaboration of this phrase. Over and over we hear from IDers that, "The laws of physics are suspiciously well-suited to support life. Given all the possibilities, it's unlikely to happen that way by chance. Ergo, design." The purposeful arrangment of the universe. On smaller scales, that same perception is given equal attention. I know the ID camp likes to look close. Some also like to peel back and conceptualize the universe as a whole. At any scale, the IDer perceives that probabilty can't account for the object under scrutiny, thus that "the purposeful arrangement of parts" is the only conclusion. So the point isn't so much one of focus, but of perception. Like my creative friend, the thought of being alone in the vast universe and ultimately responsible for ourselves scares most of them. So whenever they perceive something, its through a lens of a (supposedly wiser) external guidance. I say the ID perception is clouded by emotion.
Quote | Well, they are Christians. Are you saying that they think method is off-limits? |
Yes. But not only Christians. No IDer has laid out an explanatory sequence of steps which shows a design event, and it never will. They can't. ID only points and says "it looks designed, so it must be." They never say how this supposed design was turned into mechanism, an actual thing that we can observe. The oily truth of the matter is that ID can't do that, because that would require us to first know the mind and methods of god. Which is obviously not anything any science can get a grip on. ID has built in limits, which keep it squarely out of science and in the realm of religion.
Evolution, on the other hand, provides a sensible process. The universe is a process, and integral to any explanation of aspects of the universe will be process. That's the whole point of addition to the card analogy I made: sticky laws inform the process. Without them, you just have labels.
Quote | Plenty of people have and have had trouble with Darwin's theory without being YECs! I could go through my books, and I should, to present some of them, or perhaps I can just look around and lift some things from the net. But I can't do it now, cause I spent so much time already. |
All of these people have one thing in common: they use weak, incomplete and logically unsound arguments based on processless probability to justify their emotional attachment to an external, eternal creative conciousness. "Poppa, please turn on the light! Its scary in the dark!"
Quote | I really didn't mean to quantify how much was left to chance as I don't know. I can't form an opinion about the quantum reality as I don't understand it very well and I think some false claims have been made about particles arising without cause. |
I admit the quantum world is strange. As has been said, if you think you understand quantum behavior, you don't understand quantum behavior. I think phrasing it in that way is a bit of an intentional exaggeration with the express intent to highlight the strangeness of things at that level. It reminds us that the ways in which our notions of reality have been shaped by our common sense experience at the macro-scale do not necessarily always apply. QED is one of the most accurate and mathematecally rigorous scientific discliplines we've ever put our minds to. IDers will have a tough time working this into any description of a design event. Not without a generous dollop of "poof!". But of course, we won't see a description like that, for reasons already mentioned.
Quote | And philosopically, the question of freedom versus determinism is a very difficult one. I suspect both operate but I can't begin to defend that. And how does the randomness of quantum particles affect evolution theory? |
Two huge ideas probably best served by threads of their own. I guess the short answer to the link between quantum mechanics and evolution is the same link as chemistry, just at a lower level. It could be fun exploring in more detail.
Quote | Well no, I don't define the unfolding too tightly. A general plan, yes. The laws of quantum physics, I suspect, work the way they do because reality requires it. Sub-planck length reality, I think, is already another dimension. My little thought. Has anyone else thought about this? |
One of the basic points of science is to define things more tightly and tightly with careful study. Maybe we never quite define things "perfectly", but science is the search for ever more accurate descriptions. Intuition and creativity can provide powerful guidance about what to look for and where we might find it, but its not enough to just say "it feels like this" and leave it at that. Science takes the next step and says, "Well, let's see if I'm right!"
In regards to "Planck length reality", any response would be based upon how you define dimension.
Quote | Because, by golly, it would be a sad place without our intelligence to understand and admire it all. We may not be the end-product, either. But we're getting close. In my opinion, it's all about consciousness, so far as any goal type of thing. |
Do you see the tautology in this idea?
Why is conciousness necessary? Because without it, the universe would suck. Why would it suck? Because there is no conciousness.
You're right about one thing, though. Humanity is not the end "product". There is more to come.
Quote | Not sure where the love without care came from. Because I said the love was impersonal? |
I may have read something into your original phrase which was unintended. You said The question, does God care about us, is another nonquestion because there is no need to ask it, and ... God's love is universal and impersonal.
Talking about emotions is the ultimate in subjectivity, so clearly we may have different opinions of the emotion of love. I personally think that love necessarily implies caring. Care, or passion for the object of one's love (however vaguely or broadly you define "object") can no more be absent from that love than blue can be absent from purple. But that's about the emotion of love itself, not whether the universe feels loves or care or any emotion whatsoever. I guess I'm just a stickler for consistancy.
Quote | I'm saying that a life force and love energy are just the state of its being. |
Totally unsupported. Love energy? Is that what a mood ring measures?
Quote | Why thanks, but I am not a scientist and i cannot do it. Anyway, the banned JAD at least gave it a shot. |
It does help if the data supports the conclusion. ID goes so far beyond the data its impossible to distinguish it from religion or philosophy.
Quote | But what I was specifically alluding to was that pure material reductionism is an inadequate explanation of the cosmos. |
This may turn out to be accurate. But to date, nobody has demonstrated a replacement. There is plenty of speculation, however. I'm afraid that 'love energy' or universal, eternal designing conciousness as a sort of emotional concious correllary to the cosmic background radiation just doesn't wash.
Quote | Well, I mentioned complexity, and you answer that nature just does what it does. That sounds like not wanting to look to close, being easily satisfied with surface explanations. |
Explanation, take three. My point is that attributing meaning or plan to nature's course is premature. These feelings or intuitions about nature are human imprints. Which is not to say that this paints them as bad. Just that its helpful to recognize that they are based upon human emotions and desires, rather than anything inherent in nature itself. How this is evidence that I do not look close, I don't know. If anything, I'd say that its evidence that I know at least one limit to my knowledge.
Quote | You seemed to think that I was disparaging nature because it doesn't compose symphonies (it does, through us) and I explained that I was not and you even posted my explanation, yet still seem to think I was. The passivity of matter is its perfection. |
For the record, I don't think you're disparaging nature. Quite the contrary. I think you respect nature, even love it. See the first four sentences in my previous paragraph for what I'm trying to say here.
Quote | Abiogenesis is not the place to start. Abiogenesis really hasn't got off the ground. Better to stick to problems with homology and the fossil record and that sort of thing. |
I think there are enough practicing scientists in the world to justify basic research into abiogenesis. Why not? Would it disappoint you if science proved a definative, mechanistic, non-concious origin of life?
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The god-verse is not a supervisor, because if he was, he could also act directly. The Tao JUST IS. |
My view of the Tao is that it is a poetic, artful, pre-scientific explanation regarding the flow of energy, shaping interactions of matter to produce complexity. Lao Tzu recognized that we interfere with this flow at our peril.
Quote | I suppose my views might be somewhat Hindu. Mostly from hinduism I take advaita. But they do have some notions of advanced states of being in which there is only a very subtle separation left between them and God. Everyone and everything has always existed, in one form or another. I don't know why I should know how they were created but they ought to exist. It doesn't make sense to have such a gap between our type of being and god. |
One of my favorite things about Hinduism is the doctrine of maya, which states that the universe that we perceive is confusing and largely illusory. Thus, we have issues. The solution they propose is to gradually peel away the filters until you see the universe for what it really is. Only then does one recognize that there is no difference between one's self and "god". But here is my favorite part. One of the filters that will be peeled away during this process is Hinduism itself. The idea of god is part of the illusion. Its like Buddhism in this regard, except with a lot of fanciful creatures and dressing. But if you follow the path set out by either technique, one of the things you realize is that the dressing up, the tales and parables, the myths around which the religion is built, and even the technique toward enlightenment itself, are all illusions. Universe as game. I get a kick out of that.
Quote | Oh, yeah, I missed that. Of course they exist. I wasn't sure what i said to bring that on...we were discussing sticky laws, and we agreed there might be more we don't know about to add to the ones we have. |
Phew. For a minute there I thought you went totally off the deep end. Sorry about the confusion. But I have to ask... what did you mean by this:
--As for creationists refusing to acknowledge sticky laws, first, we haven't really found them yet (but we might).--
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