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12-28-2001, 09:50 PM | #121 | |
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12-28-2001, 09:53 PM | #122 | |
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12-28-2001, 09:58 PM | #123 |
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Ed:
Personal is not SUPPOSED to be anything, it is what it is. LP: Doesn't really say anything. Ed: Because morality cannot come from amorality. LP: Check out research into the evolution of cooperation. Such cooperation does produce something like "morality". Bees in a hive don't sting each other (queens do sting rival queens, but that's the only exception), and wolves in a pack don't try to have each other for dinner. Could their behavior represent a sort of "morality"? No, these behaviors are instinctive there was no decision made. Bees don't decide whether to sting or not to sting each other. Wolves don't decide whether to eat each other. Morality requires free agency. LP: How does one identify "free agency"? Furthermore, these are examples of what are commonly considered morality; I doubt that Ed likes to stick his friends with poisoned spears or tries to have them for dinner. lp:Also, put some liquid water into your refrigerator's freezer. Check again a day later -- it will have become ice. Now if solidness can only come from solidness, how could this have happened??? Ed: No, the cause of ice is water and low temperatures, that is what it takes to cause solidness of water. So the law of sufficient cause is not violated by your example. LP: I still don't see how there is supposed to be a "law of sufficient cause". From your statements, it seemed to state that if an entity has property P, then it can only be produced by other entities with property P. But we have here the solidity of ice, which was nowhere evident in liquid water or its lowering temperature. |
12-29-2001, 08:19 AM | #124 | |
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You have obviously missed both the point and nature of artificial life on computers. Of course they were developed to produce digital life forms, that does not mean that intentionality is required for life, in fact it demonstrates the opposite. It shows that there is no magical ingredient required. As Daniel Dennett points out, the truly brilliant thing about computers is that there is nothing up thier sleves. No hidden tricks, no magic, no soul, just plain old fashioned push-pull causation. Artificial life shows conclusively that simple agorithmic processes such as differential selection can produce and optimize organized complexity. Certainly the programmers provide an environment in which differential reproductive success can occur but that condition exists in nature. You know, I have difficulty wrapping my mind around why people still try to defend vitalism even when it comes to computer simulations of life. |
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12-29-2001, 08:33 AM | #125 | ||||
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12-29-2001, 09:13 AM | #126 |
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LP earlier:
Actually, he didn't kill Polyphemus, that Cyclops who had captured him and his men; Rim: Yes, I know, but brevity is the soul of wit. "Slayer of the Cyclops" sounds better than "Eye-Gouger of the Cyclops," right? LP: "Odysseus, Defeater of the Cyclops" LP earlier: There is some interesting "historical" support Rim: Oh, sure, the Cyclops could have been an etiological construct, but again, we don't have to accept their interpretation. That was the point: just because some parts are historical, we have no need to accept the whole thing. LP: Exactly. Consider some of the "evidence" offered for the literal historicity of the Gospels -- all the people and places those documents mention. And here's another interesting historical curiosity in the Odyssey: the land of the Laestrygonians -- it is a long bay with steep cliffs around it with days that are nearly 24 hours long. This looks a lot like a Scandinavian fjord in the summertime, the most likely time for visits. [The original human language:] LP: Actually, that's something that the more reputable linguists prefer to avoid speculating about, at least in public Rim: Huh. Well, that's something I didn't know. I did a small amount of research into language history, and the sources I read from all supported the root language theory. LP: Be careful. There are two questions: did such a language exist, and can any of such a language be reconstructed? The first one will be considered much more likely than the second. |
12-29-2001, 08:44 PM | #127 | |||||
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This is the end of part II of my response. [ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: Ed ]</p> |
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12-29-2001, 10:52 PM | #128 |
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LP:
Also, if Jesus Christ had been as famous as the Gospels describe him as having been, then it's a miracle that no outside historian had discussed him detail. Such historians only start learning about him in detail several decades afterwards. Ed: Famous? The gospels hardly describe him as famous outside of a tiny province on the fringe of the Roman Empire and even there he was hardly known outside of Jerusalem. LP: He was described as someone who was followed by big crowds, and his trial and execution in Jerusalem had also attracted a big crowd. Which makes one wonder why Paul had said next to nothing about JC's earthly career, and which makes one wonder why no outside historian had recorded the career of someone who had attracted so much attention. Josephus, for example, had described in detail several self-styled prophets who had had sizable followings, but his only descriptions of JC are a few controversal paragraphs. LP: And which errors does the Bible have? Ed: Just minor copying errors of no significance to its teachings. LP: The next question arises: how does one tell whether something is or is not a copying error? And you may want to visit these pages on Biblical errancy: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/errancy.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/errancy.html</a> Though the Bible does contain some legitimate history, the same can also be said of a variety of works that feature deities that Ed refuses to worship. Ed: No, as I stated to Rim, most other religions teach that there was either a prior existing space time continuum or that the universe is eternal. See above about errors in Genesis. LP: Read Genesis 1 again. There is nothing in it that states that space and time had been created -- just that the heaven and the earth had been created. It does not even state that the heaven and the earth had been created from nothing -- they could have been created from formless matter. Something like that possibility is featured in Genesis 2, where God creates Adam from some dirt and Eve from one of Adam's ribs. [Ed on Caiaphas's tomb...] LP: I note that we haven't discovered Caiaphas's or Pontius Pilate's memoirs; though both individuals had existed, it would be exceedingly interesting to find out if they had ever had to handle cases of self-styled prophets. LP: So what? Getting background details correct says absolutely zero about the Gospels' central character. A historical novelist will always try to get background details straight; what would one say about a historical novelist who pictured Julius Caesar as directing airstrikes against the Gauls? Ed: Historical novels were not invented until the 18th century so your analogy fails. Airstrikes are an anachronism, there are no such thing in the gospels. LP: Says who? I was using historical novel-writing as an example of how background details can be correct but foreground ones entirely fictional. And I used airstrikes as an example of how one would recognize bogosity -- aerial warfare would not be invented until just about 2000 years after Julius Caesar's battles. lp:Also, the discovery of Troy in NW Turkey might be interpreted as confirmation of the Iliad, and therefore of the existence of the deities of Mt. Olympus. So shall we sacrifice an ox to Zeus? ED: See above and also the literary characteristics of the gospels are totally unlike mythology. LP: And what leads you to that conclusion? Both are full of miracles and divine interventions. |
12-29-2001, 11:19 PM | #129 | |
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Ipetrich, good stuff, but I'd like to say that your posting style is a bit confusing. It would be a lot easier to read if you used the UBB [code]
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Moderator here: I agree LP, to learn the code quickly just click on the Edit Post Icon of one of Ed's post to see how it is written and laid out.EZ [ December 30, 2001: Message edited by: critical thinking made ez ]</p> |
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12-30-2001, 09:07 PM | #130 | |||||||||||||
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