Darwin Was Full Of Crap

[Carl-Richard]

12 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

I still don't know what you're doing here.

I'm saying that you, along with OP, is trying to use metaphysics to discard science, because just like physicalists, you're conflating the two. You're both saying something along the lines of "all of reality, including rocks, fundamentally consists of consciousness, therefore rocks do not undergo erosion". The first part of the sentence is a metaphysical claim, and the second part is a scientific claim. OP is saying "all of nature is infinite intelligence, therefore mutations are not random", and you're saying "we can't encapsulate the infinity of nature as a whole, therefore we can't encapsulate the behavior of parts of nature".

[Devin]

1 hour ago, JoeVolcano said:

I agree you don't know anything until you know everything. And this is the point. My main problem with all this is that all our scientific theories are full of holes and contradictions and ludicrous patches, that aren't being acknowledged and can never be reconciled. And in the larger metaphysical picture this makes perfect sense because there is no alternative. But people don't want to revisit these things and take a fresh honest look at them, actually question them, actually see if they can undermine them, to see if things stand on their own without us ceaselessly buttressing them or standing them back up and keeping them together with rubber bands and paperclips.

But you will never realize this unless you are willing to take infinite regress seriously and actually dive into it and see what it has to show you. Why do you think Leo talks about strange loops. Unless you disagree with him that reality is a strange loop, we've already established that infinite regress is a serious and inescapable issue that pops up everywhere and throws a wrench into everything.

All we're interested in is stacking unexamined assumptions upon unexamined assumptions, clutching at our glass houses, never starting from anything solid and irrefutable, and this is exactly the reason why truth remains undiscovered forever. This very thing we're doing here, this very habit of denial, IS what keeps humanity asleep. Except for those few who actually DO go in the opposite direction. And those people have existed for thousands of years, there is nothing new about any of this, it's just that the vast majority of people will never accept it. And this to me makes them the most incredible, unforgivable hypocrites the universe has ever seen.

You don't have to be an expert in evolution to question these things, you just have to be willing to go where no one else is willing to go and, perhaps more importantly, stop assuming that mankind knows what they're doing. Anywhere you look in the world, at any place and any time, you will find plenty of evidence to the contrary. But people don't like the idea of going there, for fear of what they might be forced to conclude about themselves if they do. Fear, denial, and vanity. That's what rules the roost. That's the apologetics that you're seeing in this thread. Nothing more.

To me, abiogenesis seems as good a backstory as any, but only because I know this is the dream of a perfect intelligence that actively moves things in a very specific direction. In a blind, mechanical, objective universe, abiogenisis makes zero sense to me. Not just because it has never been observed, anywhere, ever. But because it goes against entropy. I don't know if you've ever played with artificial life simulations, but in my observation they inevitably fall flat, unless you bake a certain impetus into the cake for them to "get out of bed in the morning" as it were. Without that, even if you start with life instead of with dead building blocks, all life goes extinct within a matter of a few generations.

Now does this mean I'm right about this particular thing? No of course not. Not necessarily. I know the entropy argument isn't resolved either. I also agree that the theory of evolution makes a lot of good and seemingly undeniable observations. But to me this is details, the exact workings of any particular theory aren't relevant to me. It doesn't address the larger, inescapable issue of self-deception in which mankind routinely engages, and which is the hill they will die on just to avoid facing reality. This here is just me poking at one of the countless holes that almost nobody is willing to poke at. Because to me that is the only sensible thing to do.

Cheers

I don't see anyone saying they shouldn't be questioned except you by saying they can't be true, they're theories of course they shouldn't be accepted as fact.

Science is not about beliefs, it's about asking why. Infinite regress is a belief based on a belief, that's anti science, science doesn't give answers, it asks questions.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Devin

[Devin]

5 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

I get what you're saying, but theory and air castle are two very different things. You can't posit any kind of coherent theory or reach any kind of coherent conclusion, when you're missing half the pieces of the puzzle and are confabulating the other half.

Cheers

We're not missing half the pieces of the puzzle, we don't know ANYTHING, and we know we don't know anything. A theory is more a question than a fact.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Devin

[Devin]

1 minute ago, JoeVolcano said:

So then what if the answer is "no".

Cheers

We'd never know it

[Devin]

2 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

Bingo.

That doesn't mean you can say it can't be true, that'd be you doing the same thing you're accusing them of.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Devin

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm saying that you, along with OP, is trying to use metaphysics to discard science, because just like physicalists, you're conflating the two. You're both saying something along the lines of "all of reality, including rocks, fundamentally consists of consciousness, therefore rocks do not undergo erosion". The first part of the sentence is a metaphysical claim, and the second part is a scientific claim. OP is saying "all of nature is infinite intelligence, therefore mutations are not random", and you're saying "we can't encapsulate the infinity of nature as a whole, therefore we can't encapsulate the behavior of parts of nature".

I think the argument is that evolution cannot be explained through random mutation. I haven't really read about the topic yet, but I know Leo recommends the books "Evolution 2.0" by Perry Marshall, aswell as "Undeniable" by Douglas Axe. I usually hear the argument, from Christians mainly, that darwinism, and specifically the claim that evolution is explained by random mutation, has not even been proven yet and that it faces challenges that it is struggling to solve.

What would be your response to such claims?

[JuliusCaesar]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

You think humans evolved from chimpanzees? ?

What I think isn't being evaluated by me here. I'm merely trying to acquire your position on this subject. Because I don't know how to articulate the logic behind my previous conclusion unless I know exactly what it is I'm putting to the test(in my own mind, I've entertained many possible answers, and none of them seem to change my original position, though the exact way the scenario plays out changes based on different answers).

 

Since you seem so interested however in my point of view. I don't really have a bias in either direction of the creationism vs evolutionism debate, because I recognize problems with both worldviews. But I nonetheless have listened to both factions, and have heard from both sides arguments that are highly dubious, as well as others that are logically unassailable.

 

If you want to reduce my views on this subject to the most simplex essence. It would be that I think evolution is essentially much like Schrodinger's cat. Until we go back in time and observe what's occurred in Earth's history, we'll likely never know concretely what the real truth is about what occurred. And the only way it's possible for ordinary mortals to opine on this subject is by making unverified assumptions. This problem exists in all perspectives I've heard being proposed.

 

Or to bottom line it, I consider the evolutionary theory taught today to be simultaneously true and false. Much the same way, if you keep a cat in a box for a few weeks, it can be considered both alive and dead until you open the box. Or if you want the really nerdy version, I think of the unobserved past as being subject to quantum superposition. Which makes my views dramatically more complicated and yet also more simple than any you've heard before.

 

 

 

 

 

[AtheisticNonduality]

@JuliusCaesar You see, I don't know if you know this, but all those interstitials are fucking dead; therefore, their non-appearance is because of their fucking death and not their nonexistence in the first place. And what's the alternative you propose to macroevolution---spontaneous emergence, God-creation, panspermia? Also, we did not evolve from any "monkey" species that are alive today: we only share a common ancestor, which is very dead. But that doesn't matter much, since we are humans as only humans; our origins don't affect our identity (we should have long ago gotten away from the concept of a mythical creator deity, though we are always constantly created by the real God in the present moment). So, the reason we should care about evolutionary patterns is understanding how forms change, from simplicities to complexities as the upward movement courses.

@JoeVolcano Abiogenesis is something deducible from what we know about reality, that is, the illusory Maya "lie" reality of relatives and objects that you cry about. Cheers.

[Carl-Richard]

On 7.7.2022 at 4:20 PM, Scholar said:

I think the argument is that evolution cannot be explained through random mutation. I haven't really read about the topic yet, but I know Leo recommends the books "Evolution 2.0" by Perry Marshall, aswell as "Undeniable" by Douglas Axe. I usually hear the argument, from Christians mainly, that darwinism, and specifically the claim that evolution is explained by random mutation, has not even been proven yet and that it faces challenges that it is struggling to solve.

What would be your response to such claims?

It's true that there have been developments in the study of mutations that indicates that they're in fact not random. That is of course a scientific question. What I'm pointing out is that invoking metaphysical matters like "what nature is at a fundamental level is infinite consciousness" is irrelevant, because we're talking about the behavior of nature. You settle scientific questions by doing science. You don't settle it through metaphysical speculation.

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

@Carl-Richard For one thing I never used "infinite consciousness" as an argument, although it wouldn't have been out of place. My argument has been against make-believe masquerading as "relative knowledge". When in fact, as has only just been admitted on the previous page, we would never even know it if our "theories" are false. So how on non-metaphysical planet earth does it even make sense to call that any kind of knowledge.

P.S. if the fundamental nature of nature isn't relevant to its behavior then I don't know what is.

Sneers

Infinite, irreducible consciousness is what you levy against relative knowledge in order to dismiss it. Again, we've already established this: you're the ultimate skeptic. Your definition of knowledge is 100% certainty, and it needs to explain everything. Very few things are certain, and very few things can explain everything, but we can expand the definition of knowledge to include more things. That is how we operate in our daily lives and in science. Calling it "make-believe" sounds like you're dismissing it wholesale. "Relative knowledge" admits that while it's not 100% certain and that it's possible to revise one's position, it can still tell you something about the world.

[Scholar]

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Infinite, irreducible consciousness is what you levy against relative knowledge in order to dismiss it. Again, we've already established this: you're the ultimate skeptic. Your definition of knowledge is 100% certainty, and it needs to explain everything. Very few things are certain, and very few things can explain everything, but we can expand the definition of knowledge to include more things. That is how we operate in our daily lives and in science. Calling it "make-believe" sounds like you're dismissing it wholesale. "Relative knowledge" admits that while it's not 100% certain and that it's possible to revise one's position, it can still tell you something about the world.

You two will be talking past each other, I am not sure if Joe is aware that you are making philosophical arguments and trying to establish a theory of truth or knowledge.

 

He would probably reject the idea that knowledge is an idea about reality that you cannot be certain is true, but that is true nonetheless. Though I am not sure if that's the theory you are positing. Maybe you are just an instrumentalist/scientific anti-realist, and he is not aware of what that is?

Edited July 7, 2022 by Scholar

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

Yeah you can expand it to include whatever you want, but that doesn't make it knowledge.

This is again an issue of framing. I just think it's a clumsy way to treat the concept of knowledge like it's this narrow, inflexible and absolute thing that you should never invoke when talking about things that are not 100% comprehensive or certain. We need at least some concept to refer to those things. So I'll ask you, the enlightened protagonist, which concept would you use to describe what science does, or what is achieved through learning, or why a good guess can make a huge difference?

[Scholar]

8 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

This is again an issue of framing. I just think it's a clumsy way to treat the concept of knowledge like it's this narrow, inflexible and absolute thing that you should never invoke when talking about things that are not 100% comprehensive or certain. We need at least some concept to refer to those things. So I'll ask you, the enlightened protagonist, which concept would you use to describe what science does, or what is achieved through learning, or why a good guess can make a huge difference?

He will call it survival. But he can turn it around and ask you the same. What is knowledge, why can a good guess make a huge difference, what is achieved through learning?

He will of course criticize you for merely pointing at things that you call knowledge, but what is the nature of knowledge then? Is it truth, and then, what is truth? How can an idea about reality predict reality itself? What is even the nature of prediction or correlation?

[JuliusCaesar]

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

You see, I don't know if you know this, but all those interstitials are fucking dead; therefore, their non-appearance is because of their fucking death and not their nonexistence in the first place

Of course, the original interstitials would be dead, this doesn't change the fact that there should be living interstitials present today in abundance if the hypothesis were true. Unless you're telling me the evolutionary process stopped in the past.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

(we should have long ago gotten away from the concept of a mythical creator deity, though we are always constantly created by the real God in the present moment)

You're not aware clearly, that evolutionary theory today is much the same as traditional religions' delusional manmade version of God. In both instances you have humans making unverified assumptions and engaging in tautology. And all to reinforce some silly notion that reality should make sense to the human mind.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

So, the reason we should care about evolutionary patterns is understanding how forms change, from simplicities to complexities as the upward movement courses.

If you were being intellectually honest, you'd admit that you can't be certain such changes have occurred as they've never been directly or even indirectly observed in any capacity.

 

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

But you don't get there by planting a stake in your edifice. You only get there by burning it to the ground, which you haven't. And you don't want that.

Ah, another guru game. I see. I'm sorry, master. I should work on deconstructing my belief system by meditating 1000 hours and having daily experiences of no-mind ?

 

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

@Carl-Richard Fantastic

Cheers

Hey, master. I'm back. My opinion is still the same.

[AtheisticNonduality]

25 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

Of course, the original interstitials would be dead, this doesn't change the fact that there should be living interstitials present today in abundance if the hypothesis were true. Unless you're telling me the evolutionary process stopped in the past.

No, I'm telling you the evolutionary process is a pyramid based on death.

26 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

You're not aware clearly, that evolutionary theory today is much the same as traditional religions' delusional manmade version of God. In both instances you have humans making unverified assumptions and engaging in tautology. And all to reinforce some silly notion that reality should make sense to the human mind.

There is no reason to believe in a mythical God. There is reason to believe in the cosmos morphing into higher forms, which does occur. What epistemically separates them is that one is more based in foundational principles of reality's patterns that we have access to, whereas the former is just a superstition. If we admit the existence of time (and don't insist on its illusion) then it is sensible for more complex forms (life and especially higher life) to have been put together by lower constituents (the realm of matter, which over vast timescales can do much more than what we can observe, so of course this is all deduction until "the interstitials are found" since it is not "in our direct experience". But the faculty of reason is suitable for this.)

34 minutes ago, JuliusCaesar said:

If you were being intellectually honest, you'd admit that you can't be certain such changes have occurred as they've never been directly or even indirectly observed in any capacity.

Or we could point out the absurdity of a place and entities that come fully-formed with no history whatsoever, because the world we're in is made of time.

[AtheisticNonduality]

33 minutes ago, JoeVolcano said:

Yeah please don't insist on anything that's actually true, it's such a drag 

Cheers

A. Did you post that 33 minutes ago? Or is that just an illusion? B. Please consult the Solipsism Masturbatorium, which disproves your entire worldview.

[JuliusCaesar]

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

No, I'm telling you the evolutionary process is a pyramid based on death.

I understand that, but I fail to see how that's relevant to anything I've said.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

There is no reason to believe in a mythical God.

This is a philosophical postulate that's simultaneously valid and invalid. It's invalid in that, in order for the the physical universe to operate under nonmaterial laws(like noncontradiction, universal gravitation etc etc) it's neccesary that there be some kind of conscious lawmaker and giver. Just as you can't have the US constitution without the founding fathers, so you can't have for instance laws of logic without some kind of God to dictate/enforce it.

 

At the same time, the proposed deities we're talking about don't exist in anyone's direct experience. So while God exists(it turns out, we are God) and therefore the religionists have a notion that points to the truth. In itself, it's a delusion and of course, you and I can reach consensus on that fact.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

There is reason to believe in the cosmos morphing into higher forms, which does occur. What epistemically separates them is that one is more based in foundational principles of reality's patterns that we have access to

Haven't I stated before that I think there's some model of evolution which is actually true? What you've said here has no impact on whether or not neo-Darwinian molecules to man evolution is scientifically valid or not(which is what I've been trying to discuss). And just as a side note, I believe you once said that not everything is reducible to consciousness because for example, a rock isn't conscious. The problem with arguing this is that you can become a rock and you'd be conscious of yourself as that rock while doing it. And you would also remember the experience upon returning to your human form.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

so of course this is all deduction until "the interstitials are found" since it is not "in our direct experience". But the faculty of reason is suitable for this.

The problem is that the logic being used requires observable facts to be other than they are in reality(I'm speaking specifically relative to current neo-Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis). Not so much that the deductions in of themselves are flawed on their own irrespective of the facts.

 

1 hour ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

Or we could point out the absurdity of a place and entities that come fully-formed with no history whatsoever, because the world we're in is made of time.

I'd say the mistake you've made here is in assuming that those two are the only possibilities. Only under that assumption does this logic of well the only other alternative is absurd makes sense. And furthermore, just because a thing seems absurd doesn't necessarily make it false.

 

57 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

A. Did you post that 33 minutes ago? Or is that just an illusion? B. Please consult the Solipsism Masturbatorium, which disproves your entire worldview.

lol, well you won't have that issue with me. Because while I recognize that the spacetime continuum is effectively a mental illusion(as is all of reality) we experience it as something real so it is real even if it's also illusory. It's real illusory or illusionarily real, however, you want to think of it.

 

1 hour ago, JoeVolcano said:

Yeah please don't insist on anything that's actually true, it's such a drag 

Cheers

Don't you think that raising philosophical truths which are obtained from the next octave of experience where we're discussing scientific theory obtained within ordinary human limitations is unwarranted? Or maybe it's me that's out of place looking for debate over scientific issues here.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, JoeVolcano said:

Sure there is a place for debating scientific issues at their own level, if you want to grant some measure of reality to the illusion. And maybe this thread is such a place. I would say there are already plenty of places for that, whereas there are essentially none for serious truth talk. All the more considering that serious truth talk is dismissed as casually as you've witnessed in this thread. But maybe it's me that's out of place looking for that here.

The irony is that the serious talk you're referring to is actually anti-talk. You can't talk about infinity or God. It's the first lesson of mysticism. It's really only used to shut down talk. What do you want to talk about?