Evolution & God

[THX_1138]

1. Nothing in evolution states about how exactly conciousness develops.2. How do you judge the intelligence of a dead creature ?? Evolution tries a lot of absurdity like measuring its cranial size' date=' etc. but its already well known in TODAY's world that brain-mass does not correlate to intelligence.[/color']3. Evolution relies a lot on taxonomy...which in itself is a vague categorization of species, with taxonomies changing all the time and not having anything concrete to go by.

Pseudoscience from the google ninja... Which would explain your limited intelligence inspite of a 1000cc brain... brain size does not correlate to intelligence eh? good one... where is that from? the rear end or the front end? Evolution relies on taxonomy? fool its the otherway around. Evolution eventually determines the taxonomy. Evolution's evidence is rooted in the following fields: Embryology; Paelentology; Biodiversity; Genetics and Physiology. here is the thing, there has not been one, i repeat for it might take some time to sink in, not one evidence found that suggests that the postulates of evolution are incorrect. Now i know that none of this made any difference since you are one of the more thicker skinned individuals and well, debating with you is a bit like debating with a 16 year old, achne infested, antisocial teen... useless, and even when you win, the reward of victory is minimal to none.

[THX_1138]

Done any statistical mechanics? It could be interesting to you since you're into that side more. Anyhow' date=' better not get off topic too much. Do give Godel a read though...his work and those that built upon it puts the overall effort of formally encapsulating all of physical reality by logic into perspective.[/quote'] actually no... in the quantum mechanics course, they skipped that since i was amonst the only two guys in there with junior level probability and statistics... so they glossed over the whole bit about boltzman's derivation of relationship between energy and temperature...

[CC1981]

Pseudoscience from the google ninja...

Nothing psuedoscientific about it. It is a FACT that theory of evolution has absolutely no clue on the development/evolution of conciousness or the states of mind. And by the way, the comment about the conciousness was not mine alone- i can easily quote you the name of the scientist (when i get home) who made this comment- who happened to be a physicist of some repute, who you are most certainly not qualified to impose authority on what is science or not science. Again, try to be a little less dogmatic when discussing science to me...you are comming across as the science version of our fellow Islamic buddy mhr123....equally convinced about the perfection of your dogma.

Which would explain your limited intelligence inspite of a 1000cc brain... brain size does not correlate to intelligence eh? good one... where is that from? the rear end or the front end?

I suggest you ask instead of claiming $hit you do not know/understand- just like the whole 'universe' debate earlier on this thread, where you refused to acknowledge the lack of scientific process in your comments- something i successfully highlighted earlier as the dogma of science/science fanatics and you only demonstrated my point. As for brain size not deterministic of intelligence- that is a FACT that every single biologist will tell you of. For example, humankind does NOT posess the largest brain- elephants have brains that are more massive than the humans and so do pilot whales. Here is a to-scale image comparison of the brain sizes of humans, pilot whales and elephants. What you are ALSO unaware of, is that intelligence is seen to be a function of brain foldings, not brain size. Ie, the more contours and folds there are in the brain, the more neural connections there are between neurons and that is one of the hypothesis of intelligence. Now, kindly tell us, how you will infer the extent of brain-folding of a dead fossilized creature from its crainial cavity remains. Here is a suggestion: Google ninja or not, try to be a little less combative with your proclamations, especially when they are contested or when you yourself clearly do not have much of an authority in the topic. All you are doing here, is exposing that you are equally dogmatic as the religious folks you are decrying- the difference being is that your dogma is science, while their's is religion. And kindly read up on Neitzche or several other philosophers, who have successfully shown the limitations of scientific thought. It will enlighten you, improve your understanding of sciences, instead of holding on to a false beleif that scientific process is the end-all-be-all in its logical discourse.

Evolution relies on taxonomy? fool its the otherway around. Evolution eventually determines the taxonomy. Evolution's evidence is rooted in the following fields: Embryology; Paelentology; Biodiversity; Genetics and Physiology.

Quite incorrect. Taxonomy is present before evolution and evolution fundamentally relies on taxonomic definitions of species/phylum etc. to slot in its 'findings'. Obviously evolution theory has caused taxonomy to alter its parameters, but its still a fact that evolution is dependent on taxonomical methods for classification of a species.

here is the thing, there has not been one, i repeat for it might take some time to sink in, not one evidence found that suggests that the postulates of evolution are incorrect.

I never said its incorrect. I said that there are lots of big gaping holes in theory of evolution- something i don't think a dogmatic believer in science like yourself appreciates. Some of the evolutionary models have changed in the past precisely because dogmatists like yourself made claims they wern't qualified to or understood well enough to make. Evolution, as i said earlier, is in its general form, probably correct. But if you get down to the nitty gritty of evolution, there is a LOT OF ROOM for debate for the precise nature of evolution, what the chain of development of species is, etc. And that is precisely what i meant when i said that evolution as it stands today is a crude, leaky boat. But my preference for it is simply because it is more logical than religion, but by no means is evolution empirically watertight or completely accurate in its field.

Now i know that none of this made any difference since you are one of the more thicker skinned individuals and well, debating with you is a bit like debating with a 16 year old, achne infested, antisocial teen... useless, and even when you win, the reward of victory is minimal to none

Yaaawn...look, keep these personal jabs out- i have not made any towards you- i have only debated the topic with you, highlighted or demonstrated your shortcommings in understanding of the topic we are discussing and the places you are false in your claim ( such as the brain-size thing, which you most clearly did NOT know of). And that you engage in debate with the objective of winning itself underscores your petty nature- for whether you have won or lost the debate should not be your focus- the discussion fo the topic at hand and your contributions to it are the only focus- and leave the pettyness of verdicts-such as winning or losing- to the audience.

[CC1981]

logical contradiction. you cant know that you know nothing...

Nothing illogical about it. To say 'i know i know nothing' is admission of one's ignorance- which is quite accurate, since an infinite universe has infinite information to it and in comparison to the infinite, any finite amount (if knowledge could be quantified) is, essentially, 'nothing'. Ie, scale and relativity is everything here. PS: The statement ' i know i know nothing' is not in violation of the principles of Logos....kindly look it up, logic isnt exactly what you are alluding it to be.

[CC1981]

Brother the Question is why do we tend to sleep, imagine if we r sitting completely idle on our sofa set virtually doing nothing everything is served to us by the servant , after a while u would start Dozing and virtually go to sleep. Still is unanswered by any scientist few have tried but still they are also unsure ''It may be the biggest open question in biology,'' said Dr. Allan Rechtschaffen, a sleep expert and a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. Scientists' ignorance about one of life's most basic activities is not for lack of trying.

Bro, i honestly don't know what you are on about - i asked this question to my brother, a 3rd year student in Biochemistry and he produced answers voluminous and chock-filled with technical terms to put me to sleep. I honestly don't think there are biologists to whom sleep is a mystery. Atleast, not in the most basic sense. We need sleep because our brain has to rest itself and commit memories to long term neural circuitry. What you are not accounting for is the incredible energy requriements for the brain. Even when you are NOT actively engaging your brain in learning something or focussing on a job, your brain is still using up enough energy to compare with most household microwaves in its power output. Now, considering how much energy you get out of your standard 3 meals a day diet, its not surprising that the brain goes into 'standy mode' (which is what your dozing/feeling sleepy etc. is) whenever it is given a chance, even when you are not physically exhausting yourself.

Each cell's lifespan is programmed a little differently according to its purpose. Some cells in your immune system last only two or three days. Your body is constantly making more of them. Not only are cells programmed to die, but their death is sometimes necessary for plants and animals to grow and develop. For example, the cells at the base of leaves on deciduous trees are programmed to die each fall. The cells die, the leaves fall, and the tree grows new leaves the next spring.

All true, but i think you are presuming about it being programmed rather than an evolutionary response at a very early stage of evolution. Ie, you are alluding that this programming is artificial/put in place by someone/something.....which is a total assumption, really.

[CC1981]

Every religion offers philosphy on existence of "God". In Sanatan Hindu dharam there is the concept of Atman(or Atma) where God essentially resides within the soul of every man. You dont have to chase him to find him, just reach within yourself and you will find him. In Budhism there is the concept of the wise/knowledgable person becoming Buddha(the enlightened one). Again no need to chase/find God. CC can throw more light on this, specially Buddhism, personally I am not much of a theologist.

In Buddhism, the question of God is answered in several different ways. The Gods of the ancient world, such as the Hindu or Greek or Egyptian pantheons, are basically alluded to as 'superior beings', aka, beings more evolved and far more knowing/capable than ourselves. But it is also stressed that these beings are not infinite and they too are subject to the law of entropy- ie, nothing lasts forever. The monotheist Gods, of which Judaism was the first major proponent was known in Buddha's times in the subcontinent and Buddha's perspective on that was two-fold: One, such a being, the all-powerful, creator God, cannot be eternal- for one of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism is that nothing is permanent/impermanence of being in things. Anything composite *MUST* one day perish and this thought i find is remarkable, for this essentially anticipates some fundamental tenets of thermodynamics and quantum physics by almost 2500 years !! The second part is, to Buddha, such a God, if present, is irrelevant to our existence. He took great care in not saying anything explicitly about whether such a God (the God of Jews/Christians/Muslims) exists or not- what he said is that such a God is irrelevant, for the objective of all living things is happiness- the happiness which (according to Buddha) requires finding Nirvana,which in turn, requires understanding of this universe and causality- not following arbitary diktats from Allah or Jehovah or some other God. Buddhism, due to Buddha's vagueness in response to the ultimate God (which he refused to deny or confirm), has a very long history of metaphysically dealing with the case of the 'all powerful, creator God'. There were sophisticated arguments made, but more or less, the general argument shows that the concept of God that Abrahamic folks espouse is fairly ridiculous a concept of God.( the argument of how can the omnipotent change and if not, how can the omnipotent interact, for interaction by fundamental requires change for all the interacting parties, the argument of how the creator God is a logical inconsistency for it is invoked due to causality but when it comes to explaining the creator God, causality is abandoned) Buddhist philosophy is remarkably void of beleifs but one of the few beleifs it has, is of 'Buddha nature'. In a nutshell, 'Buddha nature' is the primal/premordial state of mind- the mind of a child before the child is significantly affected by society or the mind of a Buddha- basically, the unfrettered mind, which, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity or creed, has the same basic properties : the properties of inquisitiveness, concern for self and dear ones, the basic aversion to violence or the nefarious and the ability to perceive the self in every living being more or less equally. This Buddha nature, is essentially believed in Buddhism to be the 'fundamental mental state' of all creatures, atleast at birth. However, this nature gets overwhelmed due to ignorance and misconceptions/warped versions of our interactions with nature, its creatures and ourselves. The closest Buddhism has come to 'God' is essentially this concept of Buddha nature, common to all sentience in its premordial form, common not only to our planet but 10,000 world systems ( Buddhism, you will find, has implicitly believed in thousands of 'different world systems' than ours, ie, essentially aliens) being the primordial mind of the universe. This is where Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism tend to converge metaphysically, for this is the nexus- what Buddhists call 'Buddha nature' is the same 'Ishwara awareness/Krishna conciousness' of Hinduism and i am fairly positive that this also has its analog in Jainism.

[triam]

CC, Define consciousness, are you using consciousness in place of intelligence? just wanted to know before I can really understand your POV.

[triam]

Nothing illogical about it. To say 'i know i know nothing' is admission of one's ignorance- which is quite accurate, since an infinite universe has infinite information to it and in comparison to the infinite, any finite amount (if knowledge could be quantified) is, essentially, 'nothing'. Ie, scale and relativity is everything here. PS: The statement ' i know i know nothing' is not in violation of the principles of Logos....kindly look it up, logic isnt exactly what you are alluding it to be.

As an individual when I say " I know I know nothing" I assume there are things that are there out there which I dont know about, which basically invalidates my earlier statement " I know I know nothing". your point of reference as a person who is evaluating the statement from me " I know I know nothing", you may very well know that the infinite universe has infinite knowledge and even if i do know something about something, it is infinitesimally small when compared to what is out there maybe a logical stance from your point of view but from my point of view it is logically invalid. Point of view is more important here rather than scale and relativity.

[cochise]

Hi guys, The reason I chose the statement "I know that I know nothing" was by design. It is self referential and it is in self-reference, that paradoxes tend to emerge. It may or may not be logical....but logic is overrated. Here is a simple example of Godel's work: http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html

The proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is so simple, and so sneaky, that it is almost embarassing to relate. His basic procedure is as follows: Someone introduces Gödel to a UTM, a machine that is supposed to be a Universal Truth Machine, capable of correctly answering any question at all. Gödel asks for the program and the circuit design of the UTM. The program may be complicated, but it can only be finitely long. Call the program P(UTM) for Program of the Universal Truth Machine. Smiling a little, Gödel writes out the following sentence: "The machine constructed on the basis of the program P(UTM) will never say that this sentence is true." Call this sentence G for Gödel. Note that G is equivalent to: "UTM will never say G is true." Now Gödel laughs his high laugh and asks UTM whether G is true or not. If UTM says G is true, then "UTM will never say G is true" is false. If "UTM will never say G is true" is false, then G is false (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). So if UTM says G is true, then G is in fact false, and UTM has made a false statement. So UTM will never say that G is true, since UTM makes only true statements. We have established that UTM will never say G is true. So "UTM will never say G is true" is in fact a true statement. So G is true (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). "I know a truth that UTM can never utter," Gödel says. "I know that G is true. UTM is not truly universal." Think about it - it grows on you ...

[THX_1138]

Hi guys, The reason I chose the statement "I know that I know nothing" was by design. It is self referential and it is in self-reference, that paradoxes tend to emerge. It may or may not be logical....but logic is overrated. Here is a simple example of Godel's work: http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html

thats quite ingenius... but i think i have seen something like this before. A: Not(A). thus, if A is true, then that suggests that Not(A) is true, something that is not possible, and if A is not true, then Not(A) is not true, i.e. Not(A) is false, hence, A is true...

[cochise]

That is exactly undecidability. The implications of which is this: Nothing ABSOLUTE can be stated by logic. It is very limited. Why exhaust oneself? Do it. Learn it. To the core. Take it to it's limits. The mind must be satisfied.

[Fontaine]

I don't believe in Religion because it's a man made paradigm and hence fallible. I believe in God because, among other things, because it is not. Also, proof of God's existence is not a significant question as we are an experience driven species as opposed to a proof driven.

[Kumar]

I believe that having a religion can be very useful and is very good to have in life. It teaches alot of unique things as well as history which is interesting. Religion can ultimately make you a different person and that can affect the way people look at you. Faith is what counts, and faith is what got us through rough times in the past. Besides if we werent created by god where did our emotions come through? These days I am seein more people becoming less responsible and active in their religions which is quite sad as I am seeing christains drinking booze, hindus eatin beef and sikhs not paying attention to some of the 5 ks. I hope their attitude changes as religion can help, as I have said it has so many positives and one big one which I have realised is it brings family alot closer together. WAHEGURU WAHEGURU WAHEGURU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cowboysfan]

I know evolution is real.I dont know if God is real but I choose to believe in a higher power because there is more to the universe than this insignificant earth.what is the purpose of the universe?.why was there a big bang?what was there before the big bang?.are there more than one universe?.nobody can disprove to me that god doesnt exist.

[triam]

cbf you cant prove a negative, so your statement nobody can disprove to me that god doesnt exist is not a valid statement. for example can you disprove that there is no santa claus? or that if i say sun is just a big bigg torch light can you disprove that?

[dial_100]

First we need to decide what we are capable of? What is our qualification? Those of us who have never felt their hearts and what resides in there, can not really talk about anything. But they only want to question. Besides, we are only taught to read the highlighted portion of these scriptures and religious books. We are not taught to read between the lines. Besides, books only give us knowledge at the mental level. It does not and can not give us the real knowledge/experience that we need to able to understand the real meaning of our evolution. It has nothing to do with these modern religions Hinduism and Buddhism or Islam.

[cowboysfan]

cbf you cant prove a negative, so your statement nobody can disprove to me that god doesnt exist is not a valid statement. for example can you disprove that there is no santa claus? or that if i say sun is just a big bigg torch light can you disprove that?

lol-ur right but I hope you understood what I was implying.

[triam]

I understood what you were saying, Im an atheist though so I would not agree with you, but diff thing for a diff day. :)

[sgusa]

cbf you cant prove a negative, so your statement nobody can disprove to me that god doesnt exist is not a valid statement. for example can you disprove that there is no santa claus? or that if i say sun is just a big bigg torch light can you disprove that?

At some point in the future I can arrange to have you tossed into that big torch light and you can find out for yourself :D

[fineleg]

At some point in the future I can arrange to have you tossed into that big torch light and you can find out for yourself :D

Just toss him into CV - and he'll see not just the sun, but the sun, the moon and the stars all at once :haha: