The explanatory power of evolution.

[kallipolis]

While pondering the apple tree I recalled it makes the very best firewood.

The apple tree feeds me, and keeps me warm...even, providing shade for me from the blistering Summer sun....purposefully,so.

 

[kallipolis]

Wow. I think you'd better bow out of this, and any other discussion involving science, because it's evident you can't abandon your mysticism -- indeed, yourself-centered mysticism, which is of the very sort that led churchmen in the past to conclude that the sun had to go around the earth: an argument based on "purpose".

Yes, sir, of course, sir...that you say so, sir....

 

[kallipolis]

Personally I'm pretty damn sure it's just a process with no premeditation

Your certainty is noted.....

 

[kallipolis]

To recapitulate my thoughts....my observations of the natural world have convinced me that it is organised toward a final end... ...thus, all natural life not only demonstrates form, and matter but also serves a specific purpose. I appreciate that my belief contrasts sharply with some (as demonstrated in a few posts on this thread) contemporary conceptions of science, which explicitly avoids identifying purpose in the processes it observes. Here I acknowledge that my understandings of order in nature derives from my personal understandings of biological organisms, that are patently complex and highly efficient....leading me to believe that such natural organisms are not the result of randomness....rather, evidence they are designed to serve a specific role, and that their function serves purpose.

I reject randomness, or chance as the explanation for the complex organisms that are found in nature, for the notion that chance constitues the cause, and the result stretches my understandings of credulity.

We typically speak about chance in reference to coincidences, when two separate events having their own causes, coincide in a way that is not explained by either set of causes. One instance, when two people might both have their own reasons for being in a certain place at a certain time, but neither of these sets of reasons explains the coincidence of both people being there at the same time....here we move into the theories of Carl Jung, and synchronicity a topic that might well be discussed in a new thread.

 

[TX-Beau]

Your certainty is noted.....

FANTABULOUS!!! You haven't "noted" me in ages. Let me return the compliment.

Your noting of me has been noted.....

To recapitulate my thoughts....my observations of the natural world have convinced me that it is organised toward a final end... ...thus, all natural life not only demonstrates form, and matter but also serves a specific purpose. I appreciate that my belief contrasts sharply with some (as demonstrated in a few posts on this thread) contemporary conceptions of science, which explicitly avoids identifying purpose in the processes it observes. Here I acknowledge that my understandings of order in nature derives from my personal understandings of biological organisms, that are patently complex and highly efficient....leading me to believe that such natural organisms are not the result of randomness....rather, evidence they are designed to serve a specific role, and that their function serves purpose.

I reject randomness, or chance as the explanation for the complex organisms that are found in nature, for the notion that chance constitues the cause, and the result stretches my understandings of credulity.

We typically speak about chance in reference to coincidences, when two separate events having their own causes, coincide in a way that is not explained by either set of causes. One instance, when two people might both have their own reasons for being in a certain place at a certain time, but neither of these sets of reasons explains the coincidence of both people being there at the same time....here we move into the theories of Carl Jung, and synchronicity a topic that might well be discussed in a new thread.

No no, there isn't anyone in here who misunderstood. You operate from conclusion backward, regard:

"...there is a god who created the universe, therefore all must have premeditation and "purpose"..."

Your religious pals may find your wandering and somewhat disjointed maundering on the divine purpose of breakfast convincing, but anyone who's taken even high school science classes knows you proceed from data to conclusion, not the other way 'round.

Which is why it's strange you cling to this so, because it's perfectly possible to believe in your god and not sacrifice your intellectual credibility. We might argue, but if you simply said that God set the universe in motion and all processes are his processes, well, lots of philosophy ensues and no one need be "noted" for anything!

Perhaps you have mistaken science, it is not the goal of "science" to describe the divine, it is the goal of "science" to describe the universe.

Yeah and that whole coincidence thing, that I'll give you is impenetrable and bizarre, but unfortunately that has nothing to do with Jung.

 

[bankside]

When I bite into an apple (as I did at breakfast, this morning) - after eating a bowl of porridge, garnished with a banana - I knew instinctively that the apple's appetising, and nutricious content serves my need to maintain my good health whereas, a rat will eat simply to fill its stomach...quite a difference in understanding between a rat, and a human being....in this respect the apple tree's purpose is by design...

...whilst also appreciating that there are human beings who can be as big a rat, as the common rodent...

You misunderstand the rat; unfortunate. But you misunderstand yourself; tragic!

Clearly the purpose of that little hollow in the ground is to neatly hold that puddle contained within it. The puddle is exactly the same shape as the hollow. It is no coincidence.

If an apple tastes good to you it is because after 3 billion years of evolution your taste buds exist to differentiate between an apple and something indigestible. Be thankful you're not a dung beetle! The rodent prefers apples to styrofoam chips for the same reason you do.

 

[Kulindahr]

That you say, so....

Einstein was not telling God how to do his work....merely, observing that God does not play dice....

And Bohr and everyone else told him he was wrong.

BTW, I used to have a T-shirt that said "God does not play dice with the universe -- He plays Dungeons and Dragons".

 

[Kulindahr]

Your certainty is noted.....

Well, the evidence is on his side.

 

[opinterph]

A fruit tree provides fruit, that I eat....evidencing purpose....to feed me.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

 

[Kulindahr]

To recapitulate my thoughts....my observations of the natural world have convinced me that it is organised toward a final end... ...thus, all natural life not only demonstrates form, and matter but also serves a specific purpose. I appreciate that my belief contrasts sharply with some (as demonstrated in a few posts on this thread) contemporary conceptions of science, which explicitly avoids identifying purpose in the processes it observes. Here I acknowledge that my understandings of order in nature derives from my personal understandings of biological organisms, that are patently complex and highly efficient....leading me to believe that such natural organisms are not the result of randomness....rather, evidence they are designed to serve a specific role, and that their function serves purpose.

I reject randomness, or chance as the explanation for the complex organisms that are found in nature, for the notion that chance constitutes the cause, and the result stretches my understandings of credulity.

We typically speak about chance in reference to coincidences, when two separate events having their own causes, coincide in a way that is not explained by either set of causes. One instance, when two people might both have their own reasons for being in a certain place at a certain time, but neither of these sets of reasons explains the coincidence of both people being there at the same time....here we move into the theories of Carl Jung, and synchronicity a topic that might well be discussed in a new thread.

The problem with your view is that for any given organism selected from nature, everything about it can be fully explained without any reference to purpose. Nothing yet in the fossil record or recorded observation gives any hint that all life hasn't arisen and developed into what we see by the operation of random mutations followed by natural selection. Fruit tree, platypus, walrus, sea anemone; none of them show any trace of evidence that anything besides the universal pattern of random mutation made them what they are.

Where something greater enters in is that all this randomness obeys rules. It isn't a matter of trillions of possible combinations occurring all on their own and presenting us with so many different forms, it's a matter of just a few basic parts which when they happen to come together invariably obey a few basic rules, which produce forms in particular ways and no others. The suggestion of purpose cannot arise rationally from observing the individual end products of the process, but from the fact that the process yields such elegant results. To use a figure from my honors class in form and function, we don't look to the river for the reason water flows in such a unified fashion, rather we look to the channel. In this case the channel comes down to the behavior of atoms, which reduces to the behavior of particles, which at root reduces to the universal constants. At that point, we're left with two possibilities: the observer-centered notion that all possible values of those constants have occurred in all possible patterns, and we see the ones we do because only that particular set would produce something like us to observe them, or that those constants were selected in order to make the one universe produce all the patterns we in fact see, and ultimately to make the universe produce something like us.

That many people find the latter more reasonable is why we had a Creationist club at OSU, a batch of people who on the basis of science concluded that "It's all a little too orderly to be an accident!", as Milo in the old Bloom County comic strip put it, and thus came to believe that There Is Someone Behind It All.

But even then, one cannot work backwards to say that a fruit tree has purpose, at least not in any specific sense; the most we can say is that its purpose is the same as that of all the other elements of Creation, namely to express the possibilities inherent in those universal constants, in ways arrived at by random occurrences. Note that here the concept of "chance" has lost its broad meaning, because it is constrained by the "channel" provided by the universal constants -- for example, chance couldn't give us a helium atom with three protons, or a meteor zipping through the solar system at 1.1c, or a star that burns iron for fuel and doesn't collapse; chance can only give us the combinations provided for by the universal constants. At this point it can be suggested that the purpose of the universe is to spin out all the different possibilities tied up in our set of universal constants, but that still leads to concluding that There Is Someone Behind It All.

So the fruit tree is the result of random operations flowing, if you will, down a channel. Whether there was a plan to have just that sort of tree and that it would feed just the sort of creatures as us is a matter of conjecture -- though OTOH, given the universal constants it was inevitable that organisms would arise and other organisms would feed off them, all along the way to giving rise to creatures like us (which is to say, self-aware and reasoning), so in a very broad and ephemeral sort of way one could say the purpose of the fruit tree is to fill a niche in a system that eventually leads to intelligence -- but that's a bit of a nebulous sort of "purpose".

 

[Kulindahr]

No no, there isn't anyone in here who misunderstood. You operate from conclusion backward, regard:

"...there is a god who created the universe, therefore all must have premeditation and "purpose"..."

Not necessarily; it's just that starting with observations of a fruit tree it's a very, very long path to reach the point of concluding there is a Creator.

Though as I've noted, even once one concludes there's a Creator, it does not logically follow that the fruit tree has a purpose.

 

[Kulindahr]

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

If a fruit tree falls in the forest and no one is around, is the fruit still edible?

 

[palbert]

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

Depends on whether or not it purposed to make a sound.

Curious: why is this faking tree always in a forest? Why not any tree?

 

[TX-Beau]

Depends on whether or not it purposed to make a sound.

Curious: why is this faking tree always in a forest? Why not any tree?

Obviously if the tree is not in natural Nature, it is a silent devil tree.

 

[bankside]

Evidently what a fruit tree really provides is miscomprehension.

 

[bankside]

The only kind of creator (lacking further evidence) that I could logically parse, would be Bankside's hands free creator who kicked things off and has been absent or observing since, and therefore absent from the equation.

What what?

Do you mean something from months and months ago? The God Who Blew Up in the Big Bang™?

Though if God was a vindictive Shriner, that could explain a lot.

Hah!

 

[bankside]

If a fruit tree falls in the forest and no one is around, is the fruit still edible?

Depends if that dung beetle from my explanation to kallipolis is hanging around the very spot where the fruit happened to fall.

 

[bankside]

Not necessarily; it's just that starting with observations of a fruit tree it's a very, very long path to reach the point of concluding there is a Creator.

Though as I've noted, even once one concludes there's a Creator, it does not logically follow that the fruit tree has a purpose.

Have you not explained before, to at least your own satisfaction, why one could not "conclude" there would be a creator? Something that boiled down to, essentially, that doctrine of non-overlapping magisteria.

 

[kallipolis]

Evidently what a fruit tree really provides is miscomprehension.

For those who lack comprehension...for sure.

 

[kallipolis]

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

When a tree makes a sound when it falls, then the matter of some one hearing it fall, or not is of no consequence.