Only insofar as they serve the purposes of evolutionary theory, which is to survive and reproduce, and no further. — Wayfarer
But, prior to our development of design, and the coining of the word ‘design’, there were no instances of design in the cosmos, right? — Wayfarer
Once minds such as ours originate, they themselves become the possibility of memetic and technological evolution, till all three work together toward an exponential increase in human knowledge power. — plaque flag
God or the demiurge was a designer, right? — plaque flag
Yes. Those on the Dawkins forum - the very first forum I joined - constantly used this defence against his many howlers, notwithstanding that his books are in the ‘Religion’ section of shops all over the world. — Wayfarer
If the apparent design in nature is only apparent, and not actual, that must be the implication, mustn’t it? — Wayfarer
...now it's his fault that some bookshops put his work in the 'Religion' section. — Tom Storm
Can you demonstrate that there is design in nature? — Tom Storm
Can you demonstrate that there is design in nature?
— Tom Storm
I myself don't think it needs to be demonstrated, but that if I need to demonstrate it, then probably nothing I could say would be effective. — Wayfarer
I myself don't think it needs to be demonstrated, but that if I need to demonstrate it, then probably nothing I could say would be effective. — Wayfarer
You seem to have argued essentially that you don't like Darwinism — Tom Storm
What reasons do you have for concluding that evolution has a goal or a designer, if this is what you are suggesting? — Tom Storm
It's only that design in nature seems obvious to me, but obviously there are those who don't agree, and I can't think of a way to make the case. — Wayfarer
I guess so. Can you demonstrate that there is design in nature and by extension a designer? — Tom Storm
Thanks for expanding, but I'm still not quite clear on your position. Is experience material in your view ? Why is the subject familiar with experience as opposed to simply familiar with the world ? I guess I'm a direct realist in some kind of postHegelian sense. So for me there's no image between us and the world. — plaque flag
It's only that... — Wayfarer
Design Intent is not an object to be demonstrated empirically. But the designer's unique signature patterns (e.g. characteristic brush strokes by Michelangelo) can be recognized intuitively or implicitly by those who look for them. In physical Nature, some call those consistent patterns : "Laws". Einstein was indeed an "outlier" in his sense of design in nature, where other physicists saw only complexity & randomness. :smile:Can you demonstrate that there is design in nature?
— Tom Storm
I myself don't think it needs to be demonstrated, but that if I need to demonstrate it, then probably nothing I could say would be effective. — Wayfarer
Ok. That's surely an outlier position, but let's get back to this later. — Tom Storm
Evolution is one of those marvellously flexible words that can be applied to almost any sense of things improving or changing for the better. — Wayfarer
My philosophy, as I’ve explained at length elsewhere, is that in sentient rational beings, the Universe comes to know itself. — Wayfarer
the kind of atheist polemics that are the speciality of Dawkins. — Wayfarer
Everything we are familiar or acquainted with is through experience, this is an "idealist" claim. The metaphysical side is that everything is physical stuff. — Manuel
I have no insight about Life but I am satisfied that human lives are random events, with no capital 'm' meaning, only more modest meanings we inherit though culture and/or make for ourselves. — Tom Storm
Yes, I think the case is that we know discover the world through experience, I literally can't think of another way, it all leads back to experience and how we interpret data. — Manuel
But I wouldn't go as far as to say that an object, say, a planet, is literally made up of ideas. — Manuel
Seems appropriate. But at some point experience becomes language and visa versa. Experience ends up being understood through language and I struggle to understand to what extent I 'process' through language. — Tom Storm
But hypothetically without preconceptions, ideas or language, what exactly is a planet? It seems to me to be an act of constructionism, not merely raw experience. There are understandings, if you like and then we seem to order, contextualize, name. — Tom Storm
But based on what I do have, it seems more reasonable to me to say that a planet is made of non-conscious matter, than to say it is made of ideas, which requires a subject. When things become this abstract, one is poking in the dark. — Manuel
I just want to avoid the po-mo orientation in which everything is language and nothing is ever complete. — Manuel
I hear you. It's a wicked problem. Even the notion of consciousness is something I'm pretty sure we couldn't conceive of without language. — Tom Storm
It struck me listening to Chomsky recently, in his lambasting of postmodern relativism, that he seems to invoke a structural version of Platonism as a foundational grounding to avoid relativism. In other words, humans seem to have innate limitations or capacities inherent in our cognitive apparatus (is this neo-Kantian?). Not everything is possible or endlessly open if we have such limitations. I wonder also if this is an analogue for some kind of notion of human nature. Thoughts? — Tom Storm
he seems to invoke a structural version of Platonism as a foundational grounding to avoid relativism. — Tom Storm
It seems to me to be an act of constructionism, not merely raw experience. — Tom Storm
I'd even claim that the concept of raw experience is itself a philosophical construction — plaque flag
You could put it in your manner and he might agree, though he would put less emphasis on Plato per se. I think he'd simply say that, we are biological creatures like any other - albeit with unique properties (like language). For us to be able to have any nature, we have to be constrained to give shape to our experience — Manuel
Difference among these two being, Cudworth give a much richer account of innate ideas, Kant seems to deny them, arguing that we have certain "filters" that are innate, but not ideas per se. — Manuel
What Newton got rid of was the machine. The ghost remained, and is still here. — Manuel
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