Posted on 05/29/2002 8:32:25 AM PDT by cornelis
It's not a summary, it's a crooked little strawman that falls over by itself before you can knock it down. Counsellor Johnson is just doing his courtroom shtick for the yokels.
You know not whereof you speak concerning EsotericLucidity. His post #174, addressed to me, was a vitriolic, ad hominem attack on people of faith, revealing what I could only describe as a pathological hatred for the Judeo-Christian religions. Most of his previous posts presented with some skill the usual scientific arguments for the Darwinist position, but late in the discussion he began to veer off into assertions about religion and religious figures. I dunno. Guess he just lost it.
I have no problem with post 174 being pulled. But do you think EL deserved to get banned because of it? If so, should the poster who posted this ad hominem screed be banned as well?
Evolutionists--particularly atheist evolutionists--have an enormous personal investment in their materialist prejudices. They stand to lose in an extraordinarily huge way--often in lifestyle choices--if they are wrong. They will admit no light that might disclose their error. Their most terrible fear is to discover that God--not they--owns their lives and bodies and will hold them accountable.
The science itself is strictly secondary.
I'm asking because I'm wondering if I should hit the Abuse button on this post later on this evening. If I do I'll insist that the Moderator treat the poster equally as he did EL.
Hey...I was jihadded to the lower max today---all my gibber was jabbered on the christines thread.
#174 was hard core blasphemy...a real evo classic!
I like the napalm and gully washers too...the crybabies get the grease!
I got the spam warning!
194 posted on 5/29/02 7:36 PM Pacific by f.Christian
I got the spam-nuke warning!
Oh, my. This tells me that my citation was right on the mark. Thank you.
Evidently, you haven't had many of your posts or others to you pulled. Deleted posts stay in your reply queue.
Fair enough Tortoise. But a few comments. First, he is an indisputably brilliant man, and a very talented mathematician (his work in twistor theory is now being adopted by many in string theory, and may be a precursor and foundational building block to string theory). I have read his two books (the second of which was written to refute his critics) on this topic, and found his arguments (though I am NOT an expert in the field) to be compelling. I know that he has been attacked incessantly by those in the artificial intelligence field, because there it is politically incorrect to assert that computers won't lead to consciousness. So, I'm left with what I do know about Penrose vs. what you tell me you know. If you have good cites relating to refutations of his work in this area(and even better, to unbiased and professional syntheses of pro and con), please Freep-mail them to me. I'd be interested in reading them. You say "he was writing stuff.. that had already been rigously refuted by the experts in his field..." Well, a prior refutation of the argument that algorithmic calculation cannot be foundational for consciousness would be something like a proof that it can be. To my knowledge, such does not exist. Lastly, though this is not my area, I freely acknowledge, I have personally always been skeptical of the idea that computational algorithms can give rise to consciousness - and like Penrose, I do believe that there will be a quantum mechanical component involved (for reasons outside of what Penrose was talking about). Notably, I have read of many AI people over the years who claim that we just need bigger computing machines, better algorithms and more complex neural networks before consciousness spontaneously arises in machines. I personally think this is hogwash, and note that now that we have those powerful machines, nothing of the sort has happened. One of us is wrong about Penrose's assertion. Time will tell who is right!
My favorite part was where he deferred to 'parsimony' in explaining how the universe got started. - And I don't think Mr. Colorado Tanker deserved what he got from EL.
How about he apologize, agree to abide by the rules, and be let back on?
The post you found offensive is not in the same league as EL's. Since I don't know what thread and what context that post was in, I really can't respond to your question. My preference, however, is for freewheeling discussion as a remedy for posts with which I disagree.
I do wish, however, that these threads would be more civil and not descend so quickly into evo-creo name-calling. Personally, I think some of what Darwin said has been proven true, some shown to be false, and there isn't enough evidence to judge some of it. There are nuances on the evo side; I know many evo's are people of faith who believe God is the Creator of the Big Bang. The nuances on both sides tend not to penetrate the noise. The culture wars rage on even here on FR, eh?
Hear, hear...
I don't recall that CT got attacked. He probably considerd the post blasphemy, but EL clearly doesn't go to CT's church. What EL actually said--"goatherders" was part of it--has been commented upon before by others without expulsion. Perhaps his effrontery lay in doing it while still dripping wet newbie.
At any rate, it's obvious why he was nuked and not warned. He was too good for the jihadists, and they have a Moderator, at least some nights.
In this case that is true but you always have to keep in mind that the death of an individual is more an exception than the rule while helping an other individual in a dangerous situation. If it were otherwise then this trait would disappear rather quickly (on the geological timescale).
But so this trait is beneficial to your group and gives it an advantage over those that don't help each other (and therefore it should be obvious that this behaviour is only existent in gregarious animals).
Granted that most people don't die in these situations - but it is extremely common behavior to put oneself at risk of serious disability and/or pain and discomfort in such situations (witness the firemen in 9/11 - all of whom rushed up those fated stairs...). And the same behavior occurs frequently with total strangers (people who are not part of a 'group' (other than happening to be of the same species). And then there are those who risk themselves helping hurt animals... What I'm getting at is that such people have a strong sense of what is right that causes them to forego the (admittedly strong) self-preservation instinct that one would expect from evolutionary theory.
Oh? Do random objects just suddenly appear with no cause in the parallel universe that you inhabit?
Look, the bone of your contention with P1 is that "No one has ever observed anything "begin to exist" and never will." Incorrect. You seem to think that the whole universe is a gaseous haze where nothing has identity. Is a nebula a star? Not at all, but with itself and some other pre-existant conditions in place it might become a star. At the point of nuclear fusion, we would say that the star came to be. No one would argue that the star already was simply because the necessary components (read: causes) were already there.
So let's follow that chain backwards: Where did the nebula come from? The destruction of another star. Where did they come from? Another nebula. Skip a few genearations and ask, where did the original hydrogen and other matter come from? From the Big Bang, says modern cosmology. Okay, fine, but what was the cause of the Big Bang?
"Oh, but that's creation ex nihilo. We don't need a cause for that."
Say what? Isn't that what we call the logical fallacy of special pleading?
Let's say that in some form, space/matter/energy always existed, they were just squeezed down a whole lot by gravity. You still need a seed cause that would make that state of infinite entropy to suddenly expand and become ordered, just like you need a seed cause to explain how a pre-existant stand of trees became a house.
Many cosmologists suggest that the seed cause was a prior universe that suffered a "big crunch" and so on back through eternity. This brings us back to the problem of an infinite regress of causes, but there's a bigger problem: This universe seems to be a single-shot universe. It lacks the mass for a recolapse. Moreover, our latest observations suggest that it is accellerating, not slowing down. So the hope of an infinite regress that way dies.
So then, if the universe always was, how did it reach its present state from one of infinite entropy? What changed and what caused the change?
Which brings us back to our conclusion, the universe had a cause, whether that cause created it ex nihilo (as I hold) or simply created the present universe from a prior state of infinite entropy, we need a cause outside of the universe to get it where it is today.
Yours in Truth,
Yes, this is interesting, isn't it?
And the same behavior occurs frequently with total strangers (people who are not part of a 'group' (other than happening to be of the same species).
Well, that's true but it is only a recent phenomenon. Originally the groups we lived in were very small and you knew every of it's members so you had strong personal bonds to them. Over time these groups became bigger and it could happen that you didn't know everyone from your tribe. So this behaviour was extended to people we knew less or who were absolute strangers (but I'm sure you also acknowledge the fact that urge to help someone in a dangerous situation is stronger if you know that person (your child/parent, aclose friend) than if it were a complete stranger).
A stronger reason why we sometimes risk our life to help a stranger is the fact that we are self aware and so we can imagine ourselves in his position and so, in a sense we suffer with this person.
What I'm getting at is that such people have a strong sense of what is right that causes them to forego the (admittedly strong) self-preservation instinct that one would expect from evolutionary theory.
As I already said, altruistic behaviour is absolutely compatible with the theory of evolution. So from an evolutionary perspective it is right to sometimes forego your self-preservation instinct.
I'm sure that those firemen who ran into the WTC and were killed as the buildings collapsed did so because they didn't expect the building to collapse that soon. They wouldn't have entered the building if they considered the probability that the WTC collapses as very high. I mean even some experts were quite surprised that the two towers collapsed. They thought that they would withstand such an attack.
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