Theory of Evolution Should have never been a part (Civ3)! Part 2

[Draco aka Se7eN]

Loinburger, i dont know why i even bother responding to your idiotic posts.

Can't you tell I was being sarcastic? This really calls your ability to comprehend simple matters into question.

Actually Dip****e i did assume you were being sarcastic. I just thought it was a retarded attepmt at being sarcastic about something that was sarcastic.

Ethelred has been saying for months how Creationists resort to putting their own words in the mouths of evolutionists as a last resort. All you've done is prove him right

Number one im not resorting to anything. You believe that all that i have said is false. I am showing you that I believe that everything, well just about, your saying is false. Im not going to waste my time prooving anything to you. It is futal for one creationist to try to proove anything to a mob of evolutionists just as it is futal for an evolutionist to proove anything to a mob of creationists. The majority of your debunking of what i said is quite idiotic hence my sarcasm in another post which was responded to with sarcasm.


You claim to be a veteran of this type of dicussion, but it's obvious that you are not. Have you never even visited www.talkorigins.org ? So far, every single "fact" you have posted on this thread is false!

Before you go any further, I suggest you read "How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?". Read ALL of it, slowly and carefully. And then read every article in the "FAQ section".

The problem you face is threefold:

Firstly, in the century and a half since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, not a single shred of genuine scientific evidence that contradicts the Theory of Evolution has ever been discovered. Yes, I'll say that again, just to make sure it sinks in: In the century and a half since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, not a single shred of genuine scientific evidence that contradicts the Theory of Evolution has ever been discovered. All creationist claims to the contrary have been investigated and shown to be false.

Secondly, Biblical creationism cannot be true. There is no creationist explanation for the sequence of the fossil record (all creationist attempts, such as "Flood sorting", have failed). Similarly, the worldwide "Great Flood" wasn't even noticed by many ancient civilizations supposedly destroyed by it. And so on...

Thirdly, there is no such thing as "creation science". Many creationists use invented qualifications (e.g. "Doctor" Kent Hovind, and various "Professors of Christian Apologetics"). A handful have genuine degrees in unrelated fields such as electrical engineering. A very few have successfully gained degrees in biology or geology, but all these people were already religious fundamentalists and creationists, none were subsequently "convinced by the evidence". I have found only one with a PhD in paleontology, and none so far with any sort of qualification in Evolutionary Biology, the science of evolution itself.

Creationism consists of ignorance, deceit and propaganda. And nothing more.

Not bad, ill look up on it.

[Ethelred]

(1.) you cannot have free-will by definition. Everything you do is determined by the workings of the physical laws in your brain.

Well that is according to your definition though. It doesn't fit mine. Everything we do is based on real physical laws as far as I can see anyway. I see no need to hypothesis a set of prinicapals that are not related to the Universe around us.

Even the randomness introduced by QM does not alter this, because it must randomly pick one of its eigenfunctions. The word 'randomly' in the previous sentence then precludes 'free-will'.

This is does not negate my point though. My idea and I think the general christian idea is that our actions are due to decisions we make whatever the physical basis of it. As opposed to our actions being set at creation by a god. It may be random but it isn't predictable by a god if uncertaintity is a property of the Universe. Frankly I see this as a good thing for christians that want to claim that men are evil (the Bible clearly says this although it does not justify the assertion) but that god did not cause us to be evil.

If all our action are predictable at the moment of creation then it follows that we cannot do evil except as an inherent result of how we were created. Unpredictabilty decouples us from creation as the total cause of our actions.

Thus either we or the hypothetical soul must have a degree of unpredictability in order to be evil or good through our own doings.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Ethelred
This is does not negate my point though. My idea and I think the general christian idea is that our actions are due to decisions we make whatever the physical basis of it. As opposed to our actions being set at creation by a god. It may be random but it isn't predictable by a god if uncertaintity is a property of the Universe.

OK, I disagree with this on a scientific level, rather than a spiritual one.

The problem is really in the definition of 'non-deterministic'. In QM, a measurement can have several outcomes, each with a predefined probability. Thus answer A might come 50% of the time, answer B 30% and answer C 20% of the time for example. So one connot predict what the outcome of a measurement is, but one can list the possible outcomes. Therfore, at the beginning of time, if you had a big enough computer (unrealistic since it would have to be bigger than the universe...) you could list all the possible configurations of the universe 14 billion years later (ie now), but you could not say which one actually will happen.

However, this is not free will, since the probability that you pick a specific option is already fixed by the laws of QM. Therfore you would be making your decisions based apon a (hypothetical) die roll. I don't think this is free-will.

Frankly I see this as a good thing for christians that want to claim that men are evil (the Bible clearly says this although it does not justify the assertion) but that god did not cause us to be evil.

If all our action are predictable at the moment of creation then it follows that we cannot do evil except as an inherent result of how we were created. Unpredictabilty decouples us from creation as the total cause of our actions.

One cannot say that someone is 'evil' because of a bad die roll either. Therfore, no-one is good or eveil with option (1.).

Thus either we or the hypothetical soul must have a degree of unpredictability in order to be evil or good through our own doings.

Not only unpredictability though. A QM brain is perfectly unpredictable - even if there are only two possibly final states we cannot say which one it will take. It actually requires some form of 'unphysical' law, or in otherwords not be governed by physical laws as we know them.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Rogan:

That is not quite what I was getting at with (2.). I agree with you that if the 'X factor' can be described by physical laws in our 'traditional' sense then it is also specific, and therefore not free. Somehow it needs to be something which is not governed in this way. That is why I was asking what it could be. The only explanation or possibility that I could come up with was God. Number (2.) then was supposed to be some non-God interaction wich somehow contains the properties to allow such a non-programed interaction. (Although then one wonders if this property would not fit the definitions of 'God' anyway.)

But the "X-factor", regardless of how it operates, produces results which are either relevant to the individual's circumstances or not. For instance, a "generous" person might give money to the poor, or he might give it to trees, rocks, parked cars and patches of thin air (a random, context-free impulse). We seem to agree that this sort of randomness isn't what is normally meant by "free" will, but then what exactly IS "free" will?

In the former case, the generous person is apparently responding to an environmental trigger, a visual image which triggers the "give to the poor" reflex. If this is explicable purely in terms of known physical laws, this is a Case 1 response. If it isn't, the effect is nevertheless a Case 2 response which mimics a Case 1 response: it is functionally equivalent, except for the lack of an identifiable physical mechanism. A puppet with invisible strings is still a puppet.

Furthermore, mind-altering drugs and physical brain damage can cause not just dysfunction, but personality alteration: our mysterious "X-factor" mimics the effect of physical laws so precisely that "brain damage" apparently causes "soul damage". It's as if breaking some of a puppet's invisible strings doesn't just cause the puppet's right arm to hang limp, it can also cause the puppet to pursue and batter other puppets with the left arm: it somehow damages the mind of the puppeteer.

If soul and brain are so intimately linked, it's reasonable to conclude that the soul is a property of the brain. To argue otherwise is rather like arguing that snowflakes ARE sculpted by fairies, but the fairies are constrained by strange "laws of fairy behavior" which dictate that the patterns they sculpt must be consistent with the crystalline structure of ice.

So, does "free will" mean "technically free from physical causality, but choosing to obey the constraints of physical causality regardless"?

[loinburger]

Rogan: If it were proven to you that there were no God, would you still behave morally? Why/why not?

[Jack the Bodiless]

Originally posted by loinburger
Rogan: If it were proven to you that there were no God, would you still behave morally? Why/why not?

That reminds me of a similar question I've seen directed at theists: "If it were proved to you that there is no God, which atrocity would you commit first, and why?"

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
In the former case, the generous person is apparently responding to an environmental trigger, a visual image which triggers the "give to the poor" reflex. If this is explicable purely in terms of known physical laws, this is a Case 1 response. If it isn't, the effect is nevertheless a Case 2 response which mimics a Case 1 response: it is functionally equivalent, except for the lack of an identifiable physical mechanism. A puppet with invisible strings is still a puppet.

Yes I agree. It does mimic case 1, since we have no physical evidence to distinguish between the options.

If soul and brain are so intimately linked, it's reasonable to conclude that the soul is a property of the brain. To argue otherwise is rather like arguing that snowflakes ARE sculpted by fairies, but the fairies are constrained by strange "laws of fairy behavior" which dictate that the patterns they sculpt must be consistent with the crystalline structure of ice.

I don't think that is so clear. If the break the part of the brain with which the 'soul' (for want of a better word) is communicating, you could have alteration of way in which the QM propabilities are skewed in the brain, which could conceivably manifest itself as personality alteration. However, I would say that in this model, it seems reasonable to suppose that a large part of the personality would come from the physical brain, or in other words the way in which the 'soul' is manifest throught the brain. This would then explain inherited genetic personality traits, among other things.
[/QUOTE]

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by loinburger
Rogan: If it were proven to you that there were no God, would you still behave morally? Why/why not?

If you could somehow prove that there is no 'factor X' then yes - there would be no morality. Then, no matter how I behaved, I would have no free-will, so I would be guilt free in any wrong-doing (whatever that would mean). I probably would feel genetically compelled to continue to behave morally though.

Note that 'Factor X' would not have to be God for me to believe I had free-will and act accordingly.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
"If it were proved to you that there is no God, which atrocity would you commit first, and why?"

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
If you could somehow prove that there is no 'factor X' then yes - there would be no morality. Then, no matter how I behaved, I would have no free-will, so I would be guilt free in any wrong-doing (whatever that would mean). I probably would feel genetically compelled to continue to behave morally though.

Well, that settles that matter. Thank you for being honest.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by loinburger
Well, that settles that matter. Thank you for being honest.

erm... you are welcome.

I do always try to be honest! (honestly!)

[Lung]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
However, this is not free will, since the probability that you pick a specific option is already fixed by the laws of QM. Therfore you would be making your decisions based apon a (hypothetical) die roll. I don't think this is free-will.

So what you're saying is that because a coin has an equal probability of landing on heads or tails, ny "choice" is not really a choice because the choices are determined by the laws of the universe?

In that case, i don't want to gamble on the coin and i walk away. VOILA!! Instant free will

[Lung]

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
I am showing you that I believe that everything, well just about, your saying is false. Im not going to waste my time prooving anything to you.

How convenient

You can't proove (sic) anything, so you tell us that you aren't going to "waste your time" proving anything to us!

As they say in journalism, never let facts get in the way of a good story

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
You believe that all that i have said is false. I am showing you that I believe that everything, well just about, your saying is false.

There is a difference: we have evidence and argument on our side. What do you have?

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
Im not going to waste my time prooving anything to you.

I don't expect you to, just like I don't expect any Flat Earthers attempting to prove his case.

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
It is futal for one creationist to try to proove anything to a mob of evolutionists just as it is futal for an evolutionist to proove anything to a mob of creationists.

There is a difference. Creationists have no evidence, they "prove" by bald assertions, misquotes, and plain lies.

The way Creationists close their eyes to evidence is like a ostrich sticking its head in sand.

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
The majority of your debunking of what i said is quite idiotic hence my sarcasm in another post which was responded to with sarcasm.

How believable is the judgement of a person who asserted to know a lot yet turned out to be typically ignorant?

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
You claim to be a veteran of this type of dicussion, but it's obvious that you are not. Have you never even visited www.talkorigins.org ? So far, every single "fact" you have posted on this thread is false!

Examples?

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
Before you go any further, I suggest you read "How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?". Read ALL of it, slowly and carefully. And then read every article in the "FAQ section".

I did. Did you? I can summarise the it for you: YEC arguments suck eggs.

The problem you face is threefold:

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
Firstly, in the century and a half since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, not a single shred of genuine scientific evidence that contradicts the Theory of Evolution has ever been discovered. Yes, I'll say that again, just to make sure it sinks in: In the century and a half since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, not a single shred of genuine scientific evidence that contradicts the Theory of Evolution has ever been discovered. All creationist claims to the contrary have been investigated and shown to be false.

That's correct. Did you have a change of heart?

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
Secondly, Biblical creationism cannot be true. There is no creationist explanation for the sequence of the fossil record (all creationist attempts, such as "Flood sorting", have failed). Similarly, the worldwide "Great Flood" wasn't even noticed by many ancient civilizations supposedly destroyed by it. And so on...

That's true too.

Originally posted by Draco aka Se7eN
Thirdly, there is no such thing as "creation science". Many creationists use invented qualifications (e.g. "Doctor" Kent Hovind, and various "Professors of Christian Apologetics"). A handful have genuine degrees in unrelated fields such as electrical engineering. A very few have successfully gained degrees in biology or geology, but all these people were already religious fundamentalists and creationists, none were subsequently "convinced by the evidence". I have found only one with a PhD in paleontology, and none so far with any sort of qualification in Evolutionary Biology, the science of evolution itself.

That's precisely the way it is.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

That reminds me of a similar question I've seen directed at theists: "If it were proved to you that there is no God, which atrocity would you commit first, and why?"

That's very quotable