Human evolution: we are entirely improbable (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, January 23, 2021, 19:23 (1398 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Let's look at a philosophic view just published about our improbability:
https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/is-life-special-just-because-its-rare-rp?mc_cid=d526f...

dhw: There is nothing in this article that we haven’t discussed before, though it’s very nicely written. The conclusion is extraordinarily woolly:
"We cannot imagine a universe without meaning. We are not talking necessarily about some grand cosmic meaning, or a divine meaning bestowed by God, or even a lasting, eternal meaning…."
Good to hear, but here is the grand finale:
“And given our existence, our universe must have meaning, big and small meanings. I have not met any of the life forms living out there in the vast cosmos beyond Earth. But I would be astonished if some of them were not intelligent. And I would be further astonished if those intelligences were not, like us, making science and art and attempting to take stock and record this cosmic panorama of existence. We share with those other beings not the mysterious, transcendent essence of vitalism, but the highly improbable fact of being alive.”

dhw: No faith in a God, but pretty solid faith in the existence of ETs who are just like us! I'm a bit surprised by your lack of comment on this.

DAVID: Why? We don't know if any others are there. SETI looks without answers. I assume possible.

dhw: I thought all our discussions revolved round the existence and purposefulness of your God. Our philosopher deliberately brushes that aside and focuses on ETs in his grand conclusion. I was merely expressing surprise that you accepted this point of focus as the grand climax.

God is purposeful, ant the author didn't completely deny Him.

DAVID: How do you explain our existence? My answer is not by chance!

dhw: That is not an explanation. That is the dismissal of an explanation. Just as others would “explain” existence as being “not by an unknown, unknowable, eternally conscious, immaterial mind without a source but with infinite powers of psychokinesis.”

DAVID: The evidence of complex designs requires a designing mind. A tornado in a junk yard never makes a 747. For me appealing to chance is totally illogical.

dhw: I am happy to agree with you and Hoyle that chance is illogical. Now look at your explanation: only a living, conscious mind can design life and consciousness, and therefore our life and consciousness were designed by a living, conscious mind which was not designed by anything at all. Logical?

You deny a first cause, which is not logical.