Nihilism and Relatvism

[Yukon Cornelius]

[Yukon Cornelius]

The best example of the belief in BOTH the process and the context is belief that evolution without any outside causes is the only "scientific" belief. Or proper, or warranted, or cogent.

Why? Because nothing exists except energy and matter. And any other process of knowing is unscientific. Why? Because the universe is exhaustively knowable to an extent that we can prove it (that nothing exists but matter and energy) scientifically -- i.e. with our senses and logical processes. Round and round it goes...

[Caskhades]

[Yukon Cornelius]

No, that's sleight of hand to go to the "Well God just did it" stick. Mendel (and many others) didn't seem hindered -- deists, too.

It's just a question of presuppositions. And really, if we are all honest about our beliefs about the universe -- science as nut-and-bolts exploration doesn't need anyone's defense.

[I am ST]

Yukon,

Sorry to jump in and interrupt the fascinating mouse head thread with my nonsense, but let me add this. In Romanian, we have an expression "Pana ajungi la Dumnezeu, te mananca sfintii." (Until you get to God, you get eaten alive by the Saints). Originally, it illustrates the silly Eastern belief in the earthly Good Ruler whose rule is mired by corrupt bureaucrats ("If only father Stalin knew", right?). In the context of this discussion, I would suggest reinterpreting it to mean that although one may or may not hold the belief that ultimately God did it, that is no reason to stop the "dialectic process" as you call it: there's plenty to chew on (or: on you) before you get There.

The dialectic can go on regardless of whether one expects to find God at the Omega point, or, like me, the bones and feathers of a big red parrot.

In other words, the Ultimate Cause is irellevant to a dialectic concerned with an infinite series of proximal causes.

[Caskhades]

^
What he said.

(repeated annoying clappy hands emoticon)

[Yukon Cornelius]

[Caskhades]

Yukie,

If ID would be able to provide something resembling proximate explanations, nobody would have a problem with it. It does not.

It's basically "Enough with the merry-go-round, already. I'm getting sick just looking at you guys." I.e. not even trying.

[CgDs]

[Yukon Cornelius]

[Caskhades]

[Yukon Cornelius]

[~]

.

[Simple Minded]

[~]

.

[Colonel Sun]

[Yukon Cornelius]

[Colonel Sun]

[Yukon Cornelius]

No, CS, you have a basic belief (traditional Evolution MUST be true), and faith in a scientific process that you believe will eventually give you the fundamental answers about existence that we all have to satisfy.

There is absolutely no scientific evidence to demonstrate how so much as a single-celled organism evolve into another by small, stepwise changes. With or without direction. You only have appeals to similarity, the fossil record, etc. No one, and I mean no one has the faintest idea how to demonsrate the evolution of mitosis or meiosis, for instance.

Yes, you reply: "but we're getting there, we're [The Process is] just around the corner from proving X. All other fundamental beliefs are not cogent or proper, [scientific] since they are not governed by my process."


And here's the point: even if you could model how a one-celled organism evolved into another by evolution -- you would take that and speak for everything, everywhere, for all of history. Every single plant and animal -- all biological systems of immunity, reproduction, metabolism, vision, memory, consciousness -- for everything that has ever existed on Earth you claim to be under your system of traditional evolution. You would do this (as you do now) without any direct evidence. Why? Because all that exists is matter and energy, and we have the mental resources to [eventually] dialectically parse this universe out to the point where that belief can be eventually established with mathematical certainty.

And you are doing this now without so much as understanding the fundamentals of life, or being able to specifically model the evolution of the most primitive steps of life (mitosis, etc.)


You've got a belief, and a process -- welcome to the club.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Which you can see over the last 150ish years since TOOS. No matter how much many orders of magnitude of complexity are introduced to our study of life over the decades -- no matter -- The Process will eventually establish all in the end.

"It just will."

[Rhapsody]

Yuc, do you distinguish at all between various forms of "faith"? Or is faith... just...faith.

Anyways, we observe as a matter of fact that all things, as we find them, have evolved over time via processes that are traced, tracked and understood in higher and higher detail. This at least strongly suggests we came here as part of those same processes. Of course you can have fantasies about other reasons and causes for why we are here... despite these strong suggestions. When most evidence however points to suspect E) but you still rather believe suspect G) did it, even though no facts directly point to even the existence of G)...

[Yukon Cornelius]

[Rhapsody]

[Torchwood]

[Yukon Cornelius]