Posted by John Tchoe on August 01, 19101 at 16:15:36:

In Reply to: What makes the parts go vroom? posted by Karma Police on July 28, 19101 at 23:22:31:

I think I finally see what Noct meant with his erfly ogy. I was thinking that he was speaking generally about patterns in the universe, but the ogy could be applied more specifically to neurons in the brain.

If this is so, then there is a problem with the ogy in that brains are not brought together randomly out of thin air. They are developed according to the DNA code and its responses to the environment.

Humanocentric intelligent design, i.e., "God," is only a semivalid theory if one looks at the fact of human existence outside the context of the history of the universe. I.e., the universe has been around for 12 billion years or so (I think the number's actually greater), the solar system for so many billion years, and life on earth began 3 billion yeasr ago, and has been evolving since.

Life cannot exist without evolution. We're coming in at the tail end and some of us are ignoring that fact.

Evolution does not require a spiritual plane to explain the physical universe, which ultimately is what we are trying to do here. You claim that the physical universe cannot be explained without the benefit of a spiritual universe. I say it can.

I'd like at this point to ask each of you to clarify whether we're talking about intelligent design, the etherealness of consciousness, or both. One does not necessarily suggest the other.

My thesis, simply put, is that there is no other plane of existence besides the material one. This in no way implies determinism, and I am rather confused as to how you arrive at this conclusion. Free will is an undeniable given, as far as I am concerned.

I have two problems with the thesis that there is a soul or consciousness separate and independent from a material body or brain:

1) It does not logically and necessarily follow from observable facts.
2) If we take it as a given, there's no way for us to delimit what does and doesn't follow. What IF we had immortal, ethereal souls, then what? What do we necessarily know or are able to know based on this claim?
In other words, if we're not bound by what we can observe through our senses and deduce through our reasoning, then anything goes. There's no way to disprove anything.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Ah. Noct 12:49:46 8/03/101 (3)
  • A boatload of nonsense. John Tchoe 17:28:15 8/04/101 (2)
    • Re: A boatload of nonsense. Noct 11:04:17 8/06/101 (1)
      • Does one need to be a mechanic to be a good driver? John Tchoe 17:18:36 8/15/101 (0)

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