Innovation (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, May 18, 2013, 07:17 (4208 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: I can only look at the record we see. We do not know how speciation occurs. We just know that it is abrupt and very new complete organisms appear. How much control the genome, itself, has in specialtion is simply a very open question.
> 
>DHW: If it is a very open question, there is no way that you can state so emphatically that genetics does not provide speciation. Clunk!
> -Err We know that speciation occurs? How? We have never observed it? Like God it requires faith to believe in what you have not seen. What you see in the record is that different species existed. That is vastly different that observing one species developing from another. I am not saying that it didn't happen, only that one does not equate with the other.-
>DHW: We cannot know, and science cannot tell us, if there is a God at all, let alone whether/how he dabbles, whether/how much he has preprogrammed, whether innovations are random or created by an intelligent genome. All such theories are speculation, and so none of us can go any further. However, not believing in chance is not a reason for believing in God, any more than not believing in God is a reason for believing in chance. There is a comfy cushion awaiting you right next to me on my fence.-Unfortunately, your fence is an illusion. If you do not believe in a God, you believe in chance, even if it was only the chance that energy became matter that became intelligent with everything after being the product of design, you are still counting on chance.-I would even be willing to go so far as to say that even IF you believe in God, you still believe in chance, because otherwise you get into the sticky questions about the origin of God that are no different in kind than the origin of DHW's panpsychism. However, from my own rocking chair(which is much more comfortable to me than that darned imaginary fence), I find that using Occam's Razor and applying it to pansychism (energy > matter > multiple intelligence > harmonious design) brings me back to God(energy>singular intelligence>design) as it would have a much higher probability of actually occurring. That is not WHY I believe, but it definitely makes my rocker more comfortable. -
>DHW: It is not the prolific ability to adapt that advances evolution ... it is the prolific ability to INNOVATE. This inventiveness would still apply whichever of the above scenarios you believed in. The bushiness of the bush therefore proves nothing, though I'd say the fact that it heads off in so many different directions suggests the absence of any single purpose, apart perhaps from bushiness.-That is like judging a puzzle by pouring the box out on the table and saying, "Look, it's a pile of pieces that make no sense." A closer examination shows that in fact the pile of pieces only exists because you haven't taken the time to sort them out and put them in the proper order, because if you had, you would not see a pile, you would see a mosaic of tightly interlocking pieces that form a cohesive image. -You see a bushy bush because you have been trained to see a bushy bush. You have been trained by Darwin's Monkey Men to see exactly what they have told you that you should see. You see a bush because they have told you that it all grew up in a hodge-podge willy nilly fashion, with no rhyme or reason to it. You don't look for purpose because you have been told all your life that there is no purpose. You've been told that creatures evolved from other creatures, and without observing, or seeing records of it being observed, you believe it. Why? Because you have been told you should! It has been preached by the scientific clergy as if it were gospel with every bit as much(if not more) faith and vigor than any religious priest has ever shown from the pulpit, and with equal amounts of guilt, bigotry, and intolerance. (Not from you, from the scientific community)-The worst part, the absolute worst part, to me is that you can ignore your own observations because of the words of others. Even when their words are contradictory! You live in a finely tuned universe, on a finely tuned planet, in a finely tuned ecosystem, and have a finely tuned body. You see creatures of every type that are functionally PERFECT. You see entire biospheres that work in a symbiotic fashion, each piece playing its part in the cycle, and you still call it a Higgly-piggly BUSH!!-The bush ONLY exists because WE created it. It is a broken model that has about as much merit as a classification system as does a puzzle dumped in a pile on your kitchen table.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.