Darwin's theory

cdoherty86

folan wrote: »

yes, thats kinda the gist of it.

I read that Elephants will be extinct by 2020 due to humans.
What do humans depend on Elephants for?

African Elephants May Be Extinct By 2020 Because People Keep Eating With Ivory Chopsticks

I believe some things are interdependent, I just don't see how humans or elephants are critical to survival of our planet.
What do humans do that the earthworm depends on except dying? Earthworm can still survive without us.

If humans go extinct like Elephants, the world will still continue and the earthworm will still keep composting long after we're gone.

Certain organisms do behave freely, others don't ...making them completely irrelevant.

endacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And I am willing to consider any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning you have to substantiate this claim/belief, if you deign to attempt to offer it.

I offer for your consideration, the humble banana. Made to fit in the human hand, and each comes individually wrapped for convenience and freshness.

That kinda thing?

catallus

And peanuts.

Peanuts are definitely designed.

cdoherty86

catallus wrote: »

And peanuts.

Peanuts are definitely designed.

The earth would continue without humans, so what's our purpose here?

At least the Earthworm has a purpose, humans don't.

gladrags

According to dieticians, there is a gene for sweet and sour(salty) tastes, this is why people become addicted to chocolates and put salt on so much food.

Nothing to do with nutritional value.

Akrasia

paddy1990 wrote: »

OK, first off, Can we agree that we are by Darwins definition, physical material and our emotions are just biochemical pathways that happened to evolve that way by chance?

Our emotional and cognitive faculties evolved using the same principles of natural selection as everything else. Our perception of the world has to be reliable enough that it allows us to survive long enough to successfully reproduce. Our emotional faculties have to work in such a way as to provide survival advantages over the alternative and competing possible emotional states we could have developed.


I always find it curious when people who don't accept evolution say 'without god, how can you rely on your perceptions' when in reality, without god, our perceptions have to be reliable by virtue of our own existence (because there is no supernatural entity looking out for us and protecting us) while those who believe in god could never discount the possibility that their entire perception of the universe is just an illusion fed into their brain by their deity.

endacl

cdoherty86 wrote: »

The earth would continue without humans, so what's our purpose here?

At least the Earthworm has a purpose, humans don't.

The earthworm doesn't have a purpose. It has a niche.

paddy1990

Since we agree that emotions are just the activations of certain biochemical pathways, which arbitrarily formed due to being adaptive to generations of ancestors, then no matter what emotions you feel, there is an objective view of your subjective experience.

The Darwinist seems to AVOID integrating this objective Darwinian view of materialism into the centre of subjective consciousness.

If you accept what I've said about emotions and what they are and why we have them, which every Darwinian should, then why take them seriously? Why not reinterpret them as simply physical material that arbitrarily formed during the evolutionary process and not right or wrong in themselves? Why have strong opinions about anything?

If you interpret happiness, joy etc as simply physical material, the product of a physical process that just happened to create that particualr pathway for their activation, then, knowing how weak the basis and how false they are, why not strive to overcome them? Why does the Darwinist not strive to overcome their biasing influence, since it's objectively meaningless from a Darwinian point of view. This is where the delusion comes in. The Darwinist seems to actively buy into these biochemical based illusions, and live their lives accordingly.

PopePalpatine

Didn't you get temp-banned for trolling?

cdoherty86

endacl wrote: »

The earthworm doesn't have a purpose. It has a niche.

Niche? I didn't think an earthworm would discriminate when it came to what organic matter it would ingest and spit out.

If we are truly interdependent, what's the purpose of humanity?

What's the purpose of the Elephant except making chopsticks for humans?

Is that the best we can do?

paddy1990

Akrasia wrote: »

Our emotional and cognitive faculties evolved using the same principles of natural selection as everything else. Our perception of the world has to be reliable enough that it allows us to survive long enough to successfully reproduce. Our emotional faculties have to work in such a way as to provide survival advantages over the alternative and competing possible emotional states we could have developed.

.

I should have pointed oout that I'm not arguing for god or religious in any way.

And to answer the above post, yes I understand all of that. My points go deeper

Knasher

paddy1990 wrote: »

If you accept what I've said about emotions and what they are and why we have them, which every Darwinian should, then why take them seriously? Why not reinterpret them as simply physical material that arbitrarily formed during the evolutionary process and not right or wrong in themselves? Why have strong opinions about anything?

If you interpret happiness, joy etc as simply physical material, the product of a physical process that just happened to create that particualr pathway for their activation, then, knowing how weak the basis and how false they are, why not strive to overcome them? Why does the Darwinist not strive to overcome their biasing influence, since it's objectively meaningless from a Darwinian point of view. This is where the delusion comes in. The Darwinist seems to actively buy into these biochemical based illusions, and live their lives accordingly.

I do strive to overcome the negative emotions I feel. And I strive to experience the positive emotions, because even if they are subjective illusions, so is my perception and I happen to enjoy the subjective illusion that is happiness, so why wouldn't I strive for it.

Akrasia

cdoherty86 wrote: »

The earth would continue without humans, so what's our purpose here?

At least the Earthworm has a purpose, humans don't.

What are you talking about?

The biosphere evolved over billions of years. All of life on earth evolved together into a complex interdependent biological system. Some species are more integral to the biosphere than others, but if earthworms were all disappeared from the planet in the morning, something else would take their place (after a suitable period of upheaval)

Fuzzytrooper

catallus wrote: »

And peanuts.

Peanuts are definitely designed.

By Satan, for use in his butter

cdoherty86

Knasher wrote: »

I do strive to overcome the negative emotions I feel. And I strive to experience the positive emotions, because even if they are subjective illusions, so is my perception and I happen to enjoy the subjective illusion that is happiness, so why wouldn't I strive for it.

Because you might have offspring that can't enjoy the same perceptions of reality?

catallus

Fuzzytrooper wrote: »

By Satan, for use in his butter

? Peanut butter is the work of the devil now?

But it tastes so nice

Hoop66

That's how they get ya...

Knasher

cdoherty86 wrote: »

what's the purpose of humanity?

The purpose of humanity, like the purpose of all living things, is to survive. How we go about that is really up to us.

cdoherty86 wrote: »

What's the purpose of the Elephant except making chopsticks for humans?

No purpose beyond survival. Though there are other species that are dependant on elephants. There are trees that depend on them for procreation for example.

cdoherty86

Akrasia wrote: »

What are you talking about?

The biosphere evolved over billions of years. All of life on earth evolved together into a complex interdependent biological system. Some species are more integral to the biosphere than others, but if earthworms were all disappeared from the planet in the morning, something else would take their place (after a suitable period of upheaval)

Earthworms don't depend on humans for survival so your belief we're interdependent isn't entirely accurate, is it?

cdoherty86

Knasher wrote: »

The purpose of humanity, like the purpose of all living things, is to survive. How we go about that is really up to us.

No purpose beyond survival. Though there are other species that are dependant on elephants. There are trees that depend on them for procreation for example.

Do Earthworms decide how they live their lives? No, they don't.
Humans have limited free will but that doesn't mean every other organism does.

Hoop66

catallus wrote: »

? Peanut butter is the work of the devil now?

But it tastes so nice

That's how they get ya...

I can't help but notice that Paddy1990 keeps using the term, beloved of creationists, "Darwinist" or "Darwinism".

paddy1990 wrote: »

...Darwinian logic.......Darwinists...pure Darwinism...

The main problem with this term is that science is about evidence and not personality cults, so naming a branch of science directly after its inventor or discoverer is a dubious practice at best. While great contributors to a field of study are respected, they are not worshiped and revered like gurus. It is interesting to note how this mentality of describing Darwin as the supposed "worshiped father of evolution" reflects the creationists' need for a worshiped father figure to be the head of everything.

It is like calling any one who accepts gravity exists "Newtonists" or those who accept relativity "Einsteinians" or "Galileans" as if the way that the universe works is a world view, passed down and declared from on high. Although Charles Darwin is a seminal figure in the modern theory of evolution, and his contribution is certainly recognized, there have been over 150 years of advancements since his initial publication of The Origin of Species - the study of evolution has expanded well beyond Darwin's original works and the ideas he outlined, namely that evolution can now be described in terms of DNA, something that Darwin was unaware of.

While it is certainly true that the "ism's" which are based on people's names (such as Thatcherism, Marxism, and Confucianism) obviously base their thoughts largely or entirely on the writings or thoughts of those individuals, the same cannot be said of "Darwinism". Therefore to think that a modern evolutionary biologist would hang on every word Darwin said as unchangeable gospel is certainly a parody of science that has no basis in reality.

Akrasia

cdoherty86 wrote: »

Niche? I didn't think an earthworm would discriminate when it came to what organic matter it would ingest and spit out.

If we are truly interdependent, what's the purpose of humanity?

What's the purpose of the Elephant except making chopsticks for humans?

Is that the best we can do?

There is no purpose.

Humans rely on the biosphere, and we also shape the biosphere. Humans have drastically reduced the populations of many many different species, but we have also massively increased the populations of others and fundamentally changed the ways many of them they look and behave through domestication.

All lifeforms act and react to the environment they find themselves in. There is no purpose behind any of it except that the powerful force of natural selection leads to the genes that are best suited to surviving and re-producing end up colonising the earth.

paddy1990

Knasher wrote: »

I do strive to overcome the negative emotions I feel. And I strive to experience the positive emotions, because even if they are subjective illusions, so is my perception and I happen to enjoy the subjective illusion that is happiness, so why wouldn't I strive for it.

Good. You are striving for an illusion. I still don't think you quite understand the implications of the meaningless and arbitrary nature of how that illusion formed and became hard wired into you.

For example, if generations of your ancestors went around killing and eating other people, so much so that this behavior was hard wired into them to produce happiness and joy, then your biochemical pathways for happiness, satisfaction, joy etc would be activated when you kill a person and eat them. Since your ancestors for generations upon generations did this. This is one example and what im trying to say here is that the actual biochemical pathway that gets activated (which in itself formed arbitrarily) is completely meaningless.

Emotions and beliefs are myths, in Darwinian logic. The only reason we have them is that they serve in the propagation of genes.

I believe that Darwinists refuse or cannot live their lives according to pure Darwinism because life would simply be completely meaningless. So they have to buy into this delusion.

I'm really trying to articulate the absolute meaningless of life in Darwinian terms.

cdoherty86

Akrasia wrote: »

There is no purpose.

Humans rely on the biosphere, and we also shape the biosphere. Humans have drastically reduced the populations of many many different species, but we have also massively increased the populations of others and fundamentally changed the ways many of them they look and behave through domestication.

So the purpose of humanity is to reduce other species to the point of extinction? Maybe you're right. Maybe the only point of humanity is to extinguish every other species before extinguishing ourselves.

However, the Earthworm, that tough guy that's existed for billions of years and something we depend on, but it doesn't depend on us, will still be around.

Unless of course you're suggesting we turn Earth into another piece of rock floating around in space to project our superiority.

cdoherty86

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

Who said we have a purpose?

What's the purpose of the Earthworm?

Knasher

paddy1990 wrote: »

Good. You are striving for an illusion. I still don't think you quite understand the implications of the meaningless and arbitrary nature of how that illusion formed and became hard wired into you.

For example, if generations of your ancestors went around killing and eating other people, so much so that this behavior was hard wired into them to produce happiness and joy, then your biochemical pathways for happiness, satisfaction, joy etc would be activated when you kill a person and eat them. Since your ancestors for generations upon generations did this. This is one example and what im trying to say here is that the actual biochemical pathway that gets activated (which in itself formed arbitrarily) is completely meaningless.

Yeah, I'm perfectly okay with all that. In fact there are species that carry on exactly like that, spiders, for example that eat their mates after sex. I'm certainly glad that I'm not part of a species that does that, though I say that subjectively as a human. I'd imagine if I was a spider I mightn't mind that much...

When do you get to the part that is meant to cause this big extensional crisis in me?

Akrasia

cdoherty86 wrote: »

Earthworms don't depend on humans for survival so your belief we're interdependent isn't entirely accurate, is it?

We rely on earthworms to compost plant matter, earthworms rely on plants for food, plants rely on water, humans irrigate the soil/divert water via dams/affect the climate.....

Panrich

paddy1990 wrote: »

Good. You are striving for an illusion. I still don't think you quite understand the implications of the meaningless and arbitrary nature of how that illusion formed and became hard wired into you.

For example, if generations of your ancestors went around killing and eating other people, so much so that this behavior was hard wired into them to produce happiness and joy, then your biochemical pathways for happiness, satisfaction, joy etc would be activated when you kill a person and eat them. Since your ancestors for generations upon generations did this. This is one example and what im trying to say here is that the actual biochemical pathway that gets activated (which in itself formed arbitrarily) is completely meaningless.

Emotions and beliefs are myths, in Darwinian logic. The only reason we have them is that they serve in the propagation of genes.

I believe that Darwinists refuse or cannot live their lives according to pure Darwinism because life would simply be completely meaningless. So they have to buy into this delusion.

I'm really trying to articulate the absolute meaningless of life in Darwinian terms.

You probably would not be a fan of Dawkins but he explains it well in his book 'The selfish gene'. We are all just here to pass on our genetic material and then wither and die like the flowers and every other living thing. Our emotions and feelings are part of the software that helps us achieve those goals.

catallus

""In the beginning was the WORD".....here I am stuck already." Goethe.

Akrasia

cdoherty86 wrote: »

So the purpose of humanity is to reduce other species to the point of extinction? Maybe you're right. Maybe the only point of humanity is to extinguish every other species before extinguishing ourselves.

I said 'there is no purpose' and your immediate reply is 'So the purpose of humanity is to reduce other species to the point of extinction'

Riiight

However, the Earthworm, that tough guy that's existed for billions of years and something we depend on, but it doesn't depend on us, will still be around.

so what.

Unless of course you're suggesting we turn Earth into another piece of rock floating around in space to project our superiority.

You've gone off the rails.