Consider now how human intelligence is beginning to manipulate genetic information. This ability affords us the possibility to move into a new kind of evolution that is more efficient, and purposeful, and also signifies to me the coming of age of our species. Any species that takes control of its own evolution becomes in my view an "adult" or mature species in the universe. — punos
The main idea is that it's not just chemistry but there is another aspect apart from pure genetics and chemistry that is responsible for morphology. Genetics just produces the parts and the bio-electric activity determines how the parts organize themselves. At any level there are two aspects: stuff (atoms, cells, people), and then the forces that organizes the stuff (fundamental forces, bio-electricity, and culture respectively). If that doesn't make sense to you then just disregard it (no big deal), but i find that it gives me insight. — punos
Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things, veritas aeterna, and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which alone causality is. It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility—that is knowledge—which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we would suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we would all at once become aware that its final result—knowledge, which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere matter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it. — Arthur Schopenhauer, World as Will and Representation
I feel you, i'm not afraid of death but the only reason a really want to live forever is to see it all happen before my eyes, to be a part of it through the whole ride. — punos
the universe comes into being through the conscious experience of agents. That is why we are designated 'beings'. Time and space themselves are functions of the mind of observing agents, they have no intrinsic existence outside that. Yet we consistently and mistakenly project reality onto the so-called external world because we lack insight into the way in which the mind constructs reality. — Wayfarer
The important principle is that phenomena at one level of organization and complexity are influenced by phenomena at both lower and higher levels and are not derivable from the principles of lower levels. — T Clark
Would you prefer to go backwards and follow your lineage right back to the very begining, or go foward to see where it goes. — Bradskii
As we're into video show-and-tell, here's a presentation by Robert Lanza on 'biocentrism'. I'm not sure how he is regarded in the mainstream - I suspect not highly - but I find his attitude philosophically superior to your common or garden varieties of materialism. — Wayfarer
i don't see how it precludes derivability. — punos
…the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist" one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.
The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y… — P.W Anderson -
And what were the chances of some specific guy being born in 17th century England and writing out a play called Hamlet? — Bradskii
And time only exists because we exist? — Bradskii
The problem with your view is how much it ascribes to chance. Ultimately, you say, stuff just happens, but that is actually not an argument or an explanation. — Wayfarer
The existence of time requires the establishment of duration between points in time. That is what is supplied by the mind. You're neglecting or overlooking the way in which your mind is actually involved in constructing what you call 'the objective universe', by imagining it as if you can see it from no point of view whatever. — Wayfarer
The chances of those monkeys typing 'usbn3$*: dki8$ dh' are exactly the same as typing 'My name is Ishmail'. — Bradskii
There are physical laws that dictate the number of ways a system can evolve. — Bradskii
There's an objective universe. It exists and operates whether we are here or not. Rocks will still roll down hills at a constant rate. Galaxies and stars and planets will form. And then there's our perception of it all. — Bradskii
That's only because you've stipulated the first set of characters, so it's no longer random. — Wayfarer
One version of this argument is The Evolutionary Argument against Reality, by Donald Hoffman - particularly apt because it is (purportedly) based on evolutionary theory. It actually ties in with some of what Robert Lanza says (although they're very different theorists.) — Wayfarer
But the entire philosophical question is about whether everything is determined by physical laws, or is not. That is the question at issue, so your response begs the question - it assumes the point at issue. — Wayfarer
There's a wooden Buddhah on my desk. Your mental representation of it will be exactly the same as as mine. And it has no impact on any action I am going to to make — Bradskii
On the contrary, it might have huge impact. If you’re Buddhist, then it affects your conduct and your view of life, and if you’re not, then you might suffer for want of those same principles. — Wayfarer
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