Elf

Elf: I agree that the "anthropic" argument does not force us to deduce the existence of God. I also admit that taken with punctuated equalibrium, there is still insufficient evidence to force the deduction of a God or Gods. These arguments didn't convince me either. Yet I believe in the existence in not only a G-d, but a personal G-d. To discuss this further I really do need a consensus about the questions posed above.

I offer some observations about human intelligence and observation which may help agreement.

1. There is sufficient evidence to support the concept that humans are an intelligent species of mammal that have used their 'Special' observational, and reasoning abilities to have a greater impact upon the planet of their origen, than any other species that we know of.

2. These abilities use pattern identification, which allowed the development of representative language, and projected outcomes. Our writing here, dealing with deep questions of origen and meaning of existence would be impossible without this 'specialized' ability.

I now pose two questions for consideration; Is there any meaning to our conscious life? Are we merely the random dance of quarks, doomed by our very intelligence to poison our world beyond our ability to live in it, as posed by Kurt Vonnegut, in both "Cat's Cradle and "Galapagos"? Or do we exist as a conscious expression of a purposeful conscious universe?

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,'
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings,
as something separated from the rest
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires and
to affection for a few persons nearest us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circles of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. "
Albert Einstein

Elf: Personally, I agree with Albert.

Wiploc

This is what I call the Refrigerator Argument. Imagine mold growing in your refrigerator; if it argues that the refrigerator was made for mold, then the mold's argument is exactly as strong as this design argument.

In fact we don't normally take mold growing where mold is suited to grow as evidence of miracle. Suppose mold grew where it cannot grow (the heart of the sun, for instance) then you'd have evidence of miracle.
crc

Elf

From Dr. Retards list of problems:
(1) What's so special about physical life? Really improbable results should pique our interest, only if there's something really striking and special about them. We don't care about mundane improbable results (lottery winners, random number generators) and we shouldn't care; we (should) just say 'so what?' I don't care how improbable physical life is, not until someone shows me why it's special.

(5) We know that physical life did result, so its probability is 1. So we shouldn't be surprised, and we shouldn't seek an explanation.

Clutch to xeren:
From what you've said, no completed event should ever strike us as improbable. I can't see that you've supported any such conclusion, though.

Elf: What are these 'shoulds' we are bandying about? Should we ever should? Why shouldn't we should?

I hold the belief that we SHOULD use retrospective improbability to observe the 'Special' quality of our conscious intelligence and its effect upon the biome we inhabit, so that we may become appreciative of the fragile nature of our circumstances and the relative importance of restoring balance to an already suffering environment. Because this will be of lasting importance to the continuation of our species, which seems to be the only source of self-conscious intelligence that we have been able to identify, capable of creating symbolic language, reason, science & philosophy.

Or maybe we shouldn't consider any event that regularly takes place as special, including the urge to take another breath.

Should we consider the ratio of the Golden mean as worthy of our cynical or jaded intellectual interest? IMHO, luckily the artist scientists of old did, and made the statement 25 centuries ago -"Man is the measure of all things" Protagoras. We find Phi the golden ratio in ourselves and in many varied aspects of nature. Should we note that we find an aesthetic quality to this ratio that appeals to our sense of beauty, why might that be? Could this contribute to the concept that Truth is beautiful - Beauty is Truth?
Da Vinci explored this with his art. Fibonacci numbers and series seem to have a 'special' quality. SHOULD we consider these patterns 'special', or just say"So what"? Here is a URL to help you consider the significance of these patterns. http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal.../fibInArt.html

Please apply these concepts to Einsteins statement above. Regards, ~Elf~

Wiploc

An argument so bad it makes me want to say, "Stay off my side."
crc

Elf

The quote above was originally posted by Dr. Retard. I shouldn't like to take credit for the quote or the poster's chosen name.
Regards, ~Elf~

Wiploc

An argument so bad it makes me want to say, "Stay off my side, Dr. Retard."
crc

Clutch

elf, wiploc,

Having resorted to the extreme measure of reading the posts, I've been able to confirm that Dr Retard argued carefully and repeatedly against the lousy fallacy you've both taken to quoting. He gives the lousy argument for reductio purposes, going on to argue:
Moving on, then. elf, was there a reason behind your posts above? I tried that reading thing on them again, but, unlike Dr Retard's posts, yours did not reward the effort with anything much resembling a point. The defect could be mine, of course.

Dr. Retard

Yeah, the amount of people unable to read or apprehend explicit, obvious claims about where I do and do not stand is just mindboggling. I'm tempted to ask: what are the odds that so many people would exhibit the same improbable brain-eye disease in one thread?

Wiploc

Dr. Retard, I owe you an apology. Mea Culpa (Latin for, "My bad.")
crc

Dr. Retard

wiploc:

You're a sweetheart!