The Darwin Spin Off

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

You said our creator was created. That implies a second level of creation, regardless of any other principles that might differ. So those different principles actually make no... difference?

No, that is an incorrect understanding of my point of view.  It doesn't mean that they aren't aware of their creator or any other realms of existence which is why I said no.

I don't know why you want to grill me over this, just let it go and respect my beliefs just as I respect yours and don't try to discredit it just because they are different.  It's starting to sound kinda rabid.  I came and gave an opinion, it doesn't mean I want to be cross-examined over every nuance about it.

Unless you have absolute proofs of your position, your beliefs are just that regardless of what you believe them to be.  Your beliefs also require extraordinary proofs, not just mine which as far as I can see have never been established as proven.  I don't care to argue over something that most likely will never be proven one way or another during the rapidly dwindling prospective longevity of our species.

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Gabriele Graves

[Love Zhaoying]

35 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   I'm pretty sure the cat is a dog.

That's hot, and probably illegal.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

You think as I do on this point.

Yes, everything that exists within space-time is considered natural and falls in the realm of some natural science. That is a base definition, axiomatic. I agree this is the stuff we can know and learn about.

Supernatural is defined as anything else, all the stuff not natural. I agree. This is the stuff we have no way to get a handle on, study or measure. Ghost Busters and psychics excluded… This is the stuff of opinion.

The logic is that whatever created space-time and matter had to be made of something outside of space-time and not made of matter since they didn’t exist before they were created. Now that they do, where would such a creator reside?

There is nothing that says such a being can’t be inside and/or outside the space-time universe now. Nothing requires such a creator to be ONLY in one or the other. But how would we know?

 

 

 

If it's possible for a creator or a something to exist, then it is also just as possible that there never was a very beginning to everything and that there never actually was a true nothing..

It's possible that all the mixings for this universe came from a singularity and that singularity from something else.

Also that there may have been more than just one..

I'm not trying to prove you wrong or say you are wrong or anything like that.. I'm just showing the way I'm leaning towards nowadays compared to where I used to lean.

I'm nobody to try and tell someone else how they should lean.. Whatever works with someone to get them through it all, more power to them.. hehehe

Nowadays,  I don't believe in a God, A creator, ghosts, demons and pretty much anything super natural..

It's a slim to none chance I ever will again unless something pretty solid showed up to prove otherwise..

I'm just being honest and hope i'm not coming off as wanting to argue..

 

I still study on the book of books from time to time because I enjoy it and it can be relaxing for me..

I actually like studying on a few religions.. I think my favorite one to study on is Buddhism..

I'm just not much of a follower I guess, but I sure love the stories and digging around those..

 

Sorry for rambling on.. I just woke up and having a nice relaxing cup of tea, enjoying the mellow quiet since everyone else is out doing something else..

It's so peaceful in my house right now.. hehehehe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

No, that is an incorrect understanding of my point of view.  It doesn't mean that they aren't aware of their creator or any other realms of existence which is why I said no.

I don't know why you want to grill me over this, just let it go and respect my beliefs just as I respect yours and don't try to discredit it just because they are different.  It's starting to sound kinda rabid.  I came and gave an opinion, it doesn't mean I want to be cross-examined over every nuance about it.

Unless you have absolute proofs of your position, your beliefs are just that regardless of what you believe them to be.  Your beliefs also require extraordinary proofs, not just mine which as far as I can see have never been established as proven.  I don't care to argue over something that most likely will never be proven one way or another during the rapidly dwindling prospective longevity of our species.

It's not my intention to grill you, Gabrielle. I apologize if that's what it's feeling like.

With respect to my beliefs in this area, I'm not sure I have any, and so I don't look for proof. If there is something beyond our horizon and comprehension then we're free to imagine it to be anything we wish. There are those who suspect we're part of a simulation being run by superior beings. That makes me wonder if those beings suspect they're part of a simulation, putting us back to turtles all the way down. Though I joke about that analogy, some of the quantum multi-verse theories I've heard about come pretty close.

I've imagined a popular vote across all the sentient beings in all the universes, with the top pick being a single, 6000 year old universe, built in six days by a vengeful omnipotent omnipresent creator. I'm amused by the thought of an infinite number of universes converging on the wrong answer.

So, I can imagine scenarios that produce endless turtles, one turtle, or none... and can do so simultaneously. I was curious whether you envisioned endless turtles or a finite number, or perhaps a mix ;-).

I don't yet share your pessimism about the longevity of our species, and really only push back on belief systems when I they refute things we do know, to the potential detriment of others.

Again, my apology if you felt I was grilling you. I'm just multi-curious.

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

If it's possible for a creator or a something to exist, then it is also just as possible that there never was a very beginning to everything and that there never actually was a true nothing..

It's possible that all the mixings for this universe came from a singularity and that singularity from something else.

Also that there may have been more than just one..

I'm not trying to prove you wrong or say you are wrong or anything like that.. I'm just showing the way I'm leaning towards nowadays compared to where I used to lean.

I'm nobody to try and tell someone else how they should lean.. Whatever works with someone to get them through it all, more power to them.. hehehe

Nowadays,  I don't believe in a God, A creator, ghosts, demons and pretty much anything super natural..

It's a slim to none chance I ever will again unless something pretty solid showed up to prove otherwise..

I'm just being honest and hope i'm not coming off as wanting to argue..

 

I still study on the book of books from time to time because I enjoy it and it can be relaxing for me..

I actually like studying on a few religions.. I think my favorite one to study on is Buddhism..

I'm just not much of a follower I guess, but I sure love the stories and digging around those..

 

Sorry for rambling on.. I just woke up and having a nice relaxing cup of tea, enjoying the mellow quiet since everyone else is out doing something else..

It's so peaceful in my house right now.. hehehehe

I'm pretty much in agreement with you Ceka.

As an engineer, I concern myself primarily with the practical aspects of things. If our genesis is ultimately unknowable, we've got quite a bit of latitude to imagine it.

I told Gabrielle I don't know if I have a creation belief. Over the years, I've watched you describe learning of many things that have interested me as well, like Spaghettification. I don't know enough to gauge the veracity of various creation theories directly, but I am impressed when a theory makes a prediction that is subsequently verified.

One prediction, though a soft one, is there are ways of thinking that can help us cope with adversity. That's a compelling explanation for belief systems.

So, maybe I do have one creation belief. I believe your statement...

"Whatever works with someone to get them through it all"

...explains creation beliefs, including mine.

;-).

Edited March 13, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Mollymews]

10 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

While it might seem obvious to you that there's a design we don't comprehend, it seems more plausible to me that we see patterns and causality (design) where none exists (there is ample evidence of that throughout human history) and that we must be careful not to be fooled by that "obviousness".

The implication of a designer is that there's intent in the design. That's an extraordinary implication that wants extraordinary evidence. "It is intuitively obvious to the casual observer that..." just doesn't cut it.

 

a interesting thing about seeing patterns in random (random meaning a unbiased uniform distribution within some physical bounds) is that we can know exactly what the patterns are when there is an extinction event

example. random(4), where 0 is the death/extinction event

when we run this for 4 steps then there are 256 patterns some of which are duplicates. 175 of which end in extinction. 81 survive

run for 5 steps then 781 extinctions and 243 survivals

6 steps is 2267 extinctions. 729 survivals

100 steps is 1.61E+60 extinctions. 5.15E+47 survivals

and so on

a cool thing is that 3 patterns occupy infinite space. They will never end. A true random universe is infinite in space-time

the only way it can not be infinite is when it is not truly random. Is pseudorandom. For those three chains to extinct then there was no 3 in 4 chance that they would survive. There would be zero chance. To have a zero chance then something outside of the universe/system killed them

[Akane Nacht]

On 3/11/2021 at 10:54 AM, Lindal Kidd said:

You can join any one of three camps:

1. Darwin IS right! So there!
2. Darwin is wrong, and here's the new secular theory of How We Got Here
3. Religionists

4. 👽

[Love Zhaoying]

12 hours ago, Rat Luv said:

Don't have a scooby what this thread's about but luv that song and album 

I've been listening to the open/close song "It's No Game (pts. 1 and 2)". It is amazingly appropriate for this thread too! "I am bored from the event. I really don't understand the situation.", "documentaries on refugees, couples against the target. Throw a rock against the road and it breaks into pieces."

[Drayke Newall]

20 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I've never understood how people who follow the bible religiously (pun intended) can just disregard all other religions since the dawn of man as being wrong.  Were the ancient Greeks and Romans wrong in their beliefs?  The Egyptians?  The Celts?  

It's because they fail to understand that the bible was created by and for a singular 'tribe' of humans and was oral tradition for centuries. I believe from memory the modern/classical held belief is that the Torah (Genesis, etc) was forbidden to be written down and was only eventually written down around 100-200CE/AD. This means that it was oral tradition.

As far as the whole evolution/creation argument goes.

An argument can be put forward that such oral tradition (Torah) followed the commonly used principles of passing on that 'law/tradition' by adapting those to memorable stories that are not necessarily literal but held truths to them when reading between the lines. As others in this thread have mentioned this means they can co-exist with modern scientific belief that a form of evolution is there within the stories, scripture etc.

For example, most if not all cultures have a creation story that follows roughly along the same lines as each other - Nothing to Something. Most cultures also have a evolution story of sorts within them, be this the reduction of lifespan, Gaining of 'awareness', woman being made from man, even down to the evolution of languages - one to many.

Take the Australian Aboriginals, the oldest continuous living culture who still practice oral tradition and have done for over 40,000 years. They have stories that tell of sea levels rising 7000 years ago, floods, volcanic eruptions, asteroids, extinct animals, solar eclipses, etc. Those stories are not to be taken literally but are there to remember events, how things happened, what to do in such events, what is dangerous, when to do things, remember beliefs etc.

As an example, the most recent volcanic eruption was Mount Shank/blue lake etc in South Australia about 5000 years ago. Whilst they didn't say the volcano erupted or when or how, they passed down the story and effects of that eruption orally (to remember what happened so in the future they knew what it was) by telling the story of a giant that was looking for a place for his family to live. While camping they were chased away by a moaning bird spirit and left their camp ovens on. Over time these ovens filled with water that put them out and the moaning bird spirit left. Considering science now can date volcanic eruptions they have proven that this story of the giants was from that long ago and is now the blue lake and mount shank and bought insight into the eruptions for the scientists.

As far as creation stories goes for Aboriginals, it varies here and there however, here are two links where it describes very similar to Genesis 1 stories with one even mentioning that animals can become humans by being rewarded (survival of the fittest so to speak) along with a similar rainbow story.

The Rainbow Serpent (dreamtime.net.au) 

The Creation Story (dreamtime.net.au)

Taking something literal like biblical stories, In my opinion is silly as there are to many other religions that counter them such as the above Aboriginal ones (remember oldest oral culture in world) or even the Sumerians. The stories are there for a reason and taking them literally isn't one of them. Jesus used parables for the same reason. When read as such they can perfectly align with science.

As someone once told me, BIBLE is an acronym and stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. That is what it is - how to live life peacefully and coexisting with your fellow man in the best possible way so you have no regrets when you die and can die with the knowledge of that and that you are going to a better place whatever that may be. The sooner people realise that the better for the world as religious fanatics and literalists are what make religions get a bad name due to their ignorance.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Drayke Newall

[FairreLilette]

8 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

There are those who suspect we're part of a simulation being run by superior beings. That makes me wonder if those beings suspect they're part of a simulation, putting us back to turtles all the way down.

Why does those who suspect we are living in a simulation mean the ones doing the simulation should also "suspect" they are living in a simulation?

Edited March 13, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Nalates Urriah]

On 3/11/2021 at 7:33 AM, Theresa Tennyson said:

You're the one who's making the claim that God doesn't exist. This means, according to your rules, you need to provide the evidence. You still haven't told us what the God that doesn't exist would be either.

Orwar did make the statement the burden of proof is on the claimant. Also, he made a declarative statement there is no god.

I would agree he would have a burden of proof, even by his own words but… we generally do not require a proof of the negative, only the positive. While he could achieve an answer for you by saying evolution negates the need for a god and thus the simpler explanation wins… I am only are arguing the current theories are problematic. But, that doesn’t prove any exists or doesn’t claims for god.

You're running off topic.

An example for why the negative proof thing is the way it is. To prove there is no such animal as a purple fox with magenta spots, leather wings and foot long fangs… one would need to be everywhere in the universe at the same time. Otherwise, I could claim there is one on a far far away planet in a distant galaxy. While an extreme example I think you'll see the problem of a negative proof.

There are some lame arguments that a negative can be proven, but those are usually from people that have lost their argument trying to prove a positive and go for the spin.

Our point here was much easier. Did the RS give up on Darwin’s theory and go to a newer version, and another newer version, and another…

On 3/11/2021 at 7:42 AM, FairreLilette said:

Yes, I agree with that but on a deeper level where it enters into hypocrisy - the you're the sinner, I'm not.  I think religions are arguing and defending their own beliefs.  Cave men nor people before organized religion were any better at brotherly/sisterly love of whom they considered foreigners.  

The point about brotherly love… According to the Christian religion murder got an early start with a brother. Not much seems to have changed. Secular history shows the same thing but without emphasis and drama on the brotherly part.

Orwar seems like many to think most wars were religious or fought at the behest of a church or religion. Nope. People are really good at going to war for a much larger set of reasons with religion a minor part of the game. Rabbi Alan Lurie writes a short article summarizing numbers in the book Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod.

On 3/11/2021 at 9:36 AM, Madelaine McMasters said:

Through the various editions of "Origin of Species", Darwin became less certain of everything evolving from a single starting point. The theory itself is more about looking backwards from a descendant to a common ancestor. Darwin thought there might have been lots of starting points, only a few of which ultimately produced life as we currently know it. Darwin's theory is less about starting points and survival of the fittest than of tracing backwards through ancestry to determine starting points.

We have new hypotheses, lots of them. They're falling into three camps these days. Replication, metabolism and compartmentalism. The answer might be that all three happened at once.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We might need a new hypotheses, that's what science is all about. But, the new hypothesis we need might be about the initial conditions, not evolution. The Miller-Urey experiments of 1953 got the primorial composition of Earth's atmosphere wrong. They were never gonna bake a cake with their ingredients. Watson and Crick revealed DNA the same year, adding unforeseen complexity to the recipe, RNA.

We've been reworking theories of those starting conditions, non-stop, since Darwin. That's how science works. So far, so good.

The No-hiding theorem says you are wrong. If you believe quantum theory (no other theory has withstood so much experimentation), information can neither be created nor destroyed. If one thing you know is wrong, might more things you know be wrong?

 

The march towards the discovery of life's first step reminds me of the evolution of our understanding of planetary motion. Until Newton's law of gravitation, that motion was modeled by ever increasingly complex models of shapes within shapes, and it seemed unlikely we'd ever figure it out. Then Newton laid out the mathematics of it all and humanity collectively slapped its forehead.

I suspect it'll be like that for the discovery of life's first step. Modern science has only been around for a few hundred years, life has been around about 3.7 billion years. We've got some catchup work to do. I'm optimistic.

You seem to be mixing the quantum and classic ideas of information. Don’t conflate the two. They are different things. The article you link to makes it clear classical information can be created and destroyed at will. And in the first paragraph.

Classic information is, as an example, a book. Someone thinks it up and writes it. That is the creation of classic information that never before existed. The book can be burned and the classic information is destroyed.

As Hawking points out in one of his books, at the quantum level all the original molecules and atoms of the book which got burned still exist. The quantum information at that level was not destroyed only transformed. That point was controversial because of black holes. Hawking had the math to back his thinking.

Information Science is about both classic information that can be created, deleted, organized, stored, and categorized and quantum information that cannot be created or destroyed. So you can’t accurately say that science makes me wrong.

DNA fits the definition of classic information in that it is ‘about’ how to build proteins. It is a set of blue prints. When humans mate a new DNA string is made creating new classic information. Classic information never spontaneously creates itself. It is always created by a thinking entity. In other words, books do not grow on trees.

The human unions making new DNA fit the definition because it is a chemical process rearranging DNA. So, while wind could blow the pages of a manuscript off a desk and rearrange then to a new order the wind did not create the manuscript. So the RSoL's challenge is in where the original manuscript/DNA came from.

This “information thing” is one of the big problems the RS is struggling with in their new modified hypothesis of how we got here.

Newton laid out the math and all the opinions of how a static Earth didn’t moved were wiped out. That would really have messed up John Calvin (1509-1564). Laying out the math relating to evolution pretty much wipes out all the current evolution hypotheses or at least pushes them into the realm of unreasonable. Thus, the RS’ dilemmas and need for a better hypothesis.

You could be right about eventually discovering the first steps of life and being able to explain how that worked and get it to fit into the available time frame. But, the extent of the fossil record we have now, the complexity of the micro biology, the exploration into protein development, and… I’ll stop here… are building a mountain of evidence against the current Darwinian style evolution hypotheses, which I doubt will ever be overcome. But that is my opinion. They might pull it off.

[FairreLilette]

5 hours ago, Akane Nacht said:

4. 👽

4b.  Aliens and guinea pigs.  

[Rowan Amore]

Still waiting on a response to these

On 3/11/2021 at 7:03 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

@Nalates Urriah In the opening post of this thread you use the quote from the Richard Nelson's article titled Royal Society as a base for your argument :

 

The article is about 16 scientists getting together to talk about the latest evolutionary theories.

A quote from the article :

" The conference summit, dubbed The Altenberg-16, met locked in secrecy behind-closed-doors barred from any news media coverage. Eventually, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published an essay from each attendee in the book Evolution, the Extended Synthesis (2010) "

 

A summary of the book, Elements of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis  by Pigliucci and Müller can be found here  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerd-Mueller-4/publication/258235989_Elements_of_an_Extended_Evolutionary_Synthesis/links/0f31753a54d20a66c4000000/Elements-of-an-Extended-Evolutionary-Synthesis.pdf

They are not challenging Darwinism.  They are adding to and filling in details !

The Illustration below, is from Elements of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by  Pigliucci and Müller, (page 11) clearly shows Darwins theory is still at the core of evolutionary science.

Red text added by me :

 

 

 

 

On 3/12/2021 at 2:45 AM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

This is a good example of the many 'arguments' that are put forward by the OP: to spout their unprofessional opinions by misrepresenting scientific data to fit their own claims. But it's really a waste of energy to call them out on these missteps on each specific point, because while you waste your time on debunking them, they've moved on to the next level of BS.

It's really no point arguing with someone who will just Google for their next misinterpreted counter-argument.

 

[FairreLilette]

23 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

4b.  Aliens and guinea pigs.  

There is 5 too and is what many "hippies" believed we were living in.  It was called The Endless Enigma.

So, 5.  The Endless Enigma

[Madelaine McMasters]

30 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

Why does those who suspect we are living in a simulation mean the ones doing the simulation should also "suspect" they are living in a simulation?

I didn't say they should. I said I wonder.

It seems reasonable that any creature(s) capable of simulating us might harbor some curiosity about whether a creature was simulating them. If we ever discover sentient life arising from our own simulations, do you think we'll be more or less likely to wonder if we're simulations ourselves?

It might also be that those creatures who're simulating us are certain they're the ultimate creators, via knowledge we'll never acquire.

That's two scenarios out of a potential infinity.

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

40 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

You're running off topic.

Of course we're off course, it's the SL forums, right?

If god had meant us to keep to the topic he wouldn't have given us curiosity.

[Talligurl]

1 hour ago, Drayke Newall said:

It's because they fail to understand that the bible was created by and for a singular 'tribe' of humans and was oral tradition for centuries.

This fact in no way proves that it was not divinely inspired. the deity very well could have used that oral tradition to bring the Bible to mankind. People are always trying to point to the history of the text to somehow prove it is just another human writing, but nothing in the history actually proves this. It only tells us the mechanism that the deity used to bring it into being if in fact it is inspired.

[Theresa Tennyson]

50 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

DNA fits the definition of classic information in that it is ‘about’ how to build proteins. It is a set of blue prints. When humans mate a new DNA string is made creating new classic information. Classic information never spontaneously creates itself. It is always created by a thinking entity. In other words, books do not grow on trees

 

DNA can, and does, build proteins - but is that what it's about?

Sodium and chlorine atoms combine to produce table salt - does that make them "classic information" about the creation of salt? What thinking entity created it?

Or, if you don't consider there to be "information" involved because the sodium and chlorine atoms don't affect anything outside themselves, what about a chemical catalyst, which changes the reaction between other chemicals?

Edited March 13, 2021 by Theresa Tennyson

[Theresa Tennyson]

Double post by mistake.

Edited March 13, 2021 by Theresa Tennyson

[Theresa Tennyson]

7 minutes ago, Talligurl said:

This fact in no way proves that it was not divinely inspired. the deity very well could have used that oral tradition to bring the Bible to mankind. People are always trying to point to the history of the text to somehow prove it is just another human writing, but nothing in the history actually proves this. It only tells us the mechanism that the deity used to bring it into being if in fact it is inspired.

Couldn't all human creation, including this post, be considered divinely inspired then?

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Couldn't all human creation, including this post, be considered divinely inspired then?

Yes, it's all just God muttering to themselves. Quite a divine comedy.

[Rowan Amore]

16 minutes ago, Talligurl said:

This fact in no way proves that it was not divinely inspired. the deity very well could have used that oral tradition to bring the Bible to mankind. People are always trying to point to the history of the text to somehow prove it is just another human writing, but nothing in the history actually proves this. It only tells us the mechanism that the deity used to bring it into being if in fact it is inspired.

It's a collection of stories by many authors passed down over the years.  What about ancient Egyptian text which are older than the bible?  Weren't those writers also divinely inspired?  Who's to say one is the truth and one isn't?  

[Madelaine McMasters]

On 3/12/2021 at 1:45 AM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

It's really no point arguing with someone who will just Google for their next misinterpreted counter-argument.

Hey, since losing the first of countless arguments with my father, I've come to understand that it's highly likely my counter-arguments are misinformed. If Google can take some of the effort out of that, why shouldn't I use it?!

I am proof that curiosity and laziness can happily cohabitate.

[Talligurl]

6 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Couldn't all human creation, including this post, be considered divinely inspired then?

It could, most deists however would draw a distinction between Inspired texts for the express purpose of communicating the deity's will to mankind, and other writings that have other purposes even though the deity may well be in control of the content as well as evrything els ein Creation.

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Who's to say one is the truth and one isn't?  

Meeeeeeeeee!!!