Balance of nature illustrated (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 12, 2015, 00:50 (3572 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Natural selection only tells us why some organisms survive and others don't. If, as below, foxes kill off native species, natural selection will result in more foxes and fewer native species - i.e. a change of balance.-I don't disagree with you. The Australian balance was changed but there is still balance. Currently they are unhappy about the human-induced change. But there is still a balance.-
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> That is not the point at issue, since we both believe evolution happened. You keep saying God's evolutionary method was preprogramming and/or direct dabbling,... I thought your dilemma lay between preprogramming and dabbling, but if you're merely saying "God did it and you don't know how", you're in the same boat as the atheist, who doesn't know how chance did it. -I'm not in that boat. Chance explains nothing, because chance can't possibly work.
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> DAVID: You don't accept chance either, so we can't be that far apart.
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> dhw: I don't accept chance, and I don't accept God, and I don't accept my panpsychist alternative, but I don't reject any of them. That's why I am an agnostic.-It seems to my you reject all of them.
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> dhw: All of the above are directly linked to the three alternatives I have listed. Other factors that play a role in my open-mindedness on the subject of God's existence are connected with psychic phenomena and the mysteries associated with consciousness - emotions, aesthetics, reason, memory etc. With the possible exception of aesthetics, all of these are common to our fellow animals, though to a vastly smaller degree.-The 'mysteriousness of consciousness' should act to convince you that something beyond naturalism is happening. You are obviously aware of all the things I present. Your decision not to reach a conclusion I can understand as a very personal approach by you. Something innate.