Conquer Club

notyou2 wrote:

tzor wrote:The following is not evidence for God

But it sure is cool looking.

This proves Sauron exists and he is still trying to get the ring back

Seconded

NotAConservative wrote:I will be very surprised if anyone can come up with genuine evidence that a God exists other then their own convictions and the fact that no one will ever entirely disprove God...Until we die

I believe you are correct in this.

As for the other... it is equally improbable that nothing would arise from nothing purely by chance. Likely there is another possibility of which we just cannot even concieve right now, much like many early humans civilizations could not concieve of a round earth.

NotAConservative wrote:I am Atheist. I base this assumption on the fact that everything must have a start and an end. If there was a God, this would be impossible; if God created everything, who created God?

I will be very surprised if anyone can come up with genuine evidence that a God exists other then their own convictions and the fact that no one will ever entirely disprove God...Until we die

I like a guy who makes his political position clear from the start. It reduces confusion and makes labeling a whole lot easier. Cheers!

[bigimg]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/811/kfclogohighquality.jpg[/bigimg]

GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLAYER57832 wrote:

AAFitz wrote:

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:Secondly, you claim that natural selection is a process with a direction, that it will lead to a particular goal. This is bullshit of the highest degree, with one ounce of this dung you could fertilize enough land to bring an end to starvation all over the world.

So you're saying natural selection is random? It's not. It tends to select for the fittest. Otherwise it would be pointless. There is a direction.

You are still missing the point. It is random.

No, and that is the biggest point.

Almost nothing in nature is truly random in the mathematical sense. I am not sure anything in science is truly random, but no doubt someone will find something somewhere that is.

"Random" in this context simply means "too many factors for humans to really analyze" . Or, "ways we cannot predict, any pattern is beyond our current ability to truly comprehend and analyze".

mathematical randomness is used in sampling, but even that is not TRUE randomness.

Ok, it is not truly random with no pattern whatsoever, however what is meant by random here, is that there is no underlying force, though you may perceive one. In other words, the situation that created a need for an evolutionary trait, is most definitely random, or close enough to it, to create something that is or was only needed for a particular situation. It only makes that animal more fit, for the specific situation, and its clear that the animal itself has no real power over it, it is random as random gets. Absolutely there are powers that change and shape it, but from the point of view of the animal adapting, its as random as random gets.

PLAYER57832 wrote:The problem with saying its beneficial is that the converse is not true. In truth ALL societies, failures and successes, have religious beliefs.

In truth, it is likely there is something fundamental to humanity that need religion, just as we seem to need government.

Within religions, what you say is somewhat true.

To say we need religion, simply because we have religion, is like saying Russia needed communism, or Germany needed Hitler simply because they had them. Need often has little to do with what one has, it is far more often determined by what they can get, which is almost always determined, by some sort of power.

Without a doubt some underlying beliefs are fundamentally necessary, one comes to assume the sun will come up tomorrow, but again, that does not mean it will... but there is no doubt that they need not be based on an omnipotent leader to be successful. Many were based on different religions and functioned well enough. Simply because one has won out in popularity does not mean it is needed, because it was more of a power struggle of men, which created this situation, and it is easily possible, that an entire other belief system would reign, given a slight change in history. The many wildly different religions prove this emphatically, and show man is capable of making up a God, a complicated set of rules, and since some are easily mutually exclusive, its safe to say all are suspect.

In the hypothetical case that god has created man to destroy a failed work (being man part of it) , nobody can accuse him of negligence (to the man, of course).

ur maw

john, which part of "one coherent text" did you not understand, because what you provided me with was very clearly not one coherent text so much as it is your previous tripe minus the colors plus a minimum of structure.
Still, I suppose this is the best I can expect from you and your mental capacities, so let's see if any sense can be made of this.

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:It's 306 words, without the first and the last line that are obviously not part of the main text. The quantity is there, but the quality is so lacking that I hardly know where to begin.

I'll make a list of the main points and then go into the details as necessary.

Firstly, you do not understand the meaning of "possible", particularly "logically possible". A concept is logically possible if it contains no internal contradictions. Just for the sake of completeness: The other important category is "naturally possible", a concept is naturally possible if it does not contradict the natural laws of our world.

Ok, but anything naturally possible is also logically possible, right? IDK where you're going here but I'll wait...

Yes, anything that is naturally possible is also logically possible. But do pay attention, will you? I clearly wrote "for the sake of completeness", I'm not "going anywhere", I'm just giving you information for its own sake. You were supposed to pay attention to logical possibility and what that means.

MeDeFe wrote:Secondly, you claim that natural selection is a process with a direction, that it will lead to a particular goal. This is bullshit of the highest degree, with one ounce of this dung you could fertilize enough land to bring an end to starvation all over the world.

So you're saying natural selection is random? It's not. It tends to select for the fittest. Otherwise it would be pointless. There is a direction.

I never wrote the word "random". I never thought the word "random". The word "random" only exists in your mind here. Now go take your burning strawman somewhere else and come back without it, the smoke's getting in your eyes and preventing you from reading and thinking at the same time.

MeDeFe wrote:Thirdly, you fail to understand that even if it is in any way possible to apply natural selection to things like religion, you cannot deduce that religion must be good for society in order to perpetuate itself.

Yeah I can't. I'm not trying to deduce though, it's inductive. If a religion shows itself to be good for many societies in the past, it will likely (not certainly) be good for society in the future.

And when did it show itself to be good? You said it has shown that it must be good because it is dominant. You're deducing one property from one that is completely unrelated. If you're then inducing from that one, so much the worse.

MeDeFe wrote:Fourthly, you seem to think that natural selection is a philosophical or moral position, in this regard you're simply wrong. Natural selection is a concept that originated in biology strictly to explain biological phenomena through a natural process, while it may be possible to describe phenomena outside of biology with this process, it has no moral, ethical or philosophical contents whatsoever.

Yeah, I'm not trying to discover ultimate truth/morality using natural selection, just explaining how our current system of morals came to be. Societies with morals that didn't work died, ones with working morals survived, and passed on their system of morality. That's why natural selection applies, and how it helps determine the morals that are best for society as a whole.

So the only way for morals to change is for a society to die out? You're either fucking kidding me or you're a fucking idiot. Just when did the societies in Europe from 1000 years ago die out and become replaced by other societies with different morals?

MeDeFe wrote:1. Possibility
"A world better than the one in which we live." I see no contradictions in such a sentence but, admittedly, it lacks contents and the question "Better how?" is reasonable to ask, so let's say "a world in which noone starves". Arguably starvation is a bad thing and a world in which noone starves would be better than the current world in which some people starve. I can easily imagine a world in which noone starves that is otherwise identical to ours in all relevant aspects. I see no contradictions in the term "a world with no starvation". Unless you can show me how the term itself if meaningless we must conclude that such a world is logically possible.
If a better world is logically possible, Leibniz and Pangloss can suck my dick.

Ultimately it is very hard to tell whether starvation is good or bad. What if I told you that the smarter someone is, the less likely they will starve, so starvation tends to kill off less intelligent people, making our species smarter, and leading to more progress and prosperity for thousands of generations into the future? It's how the rest of the animals on Earth work. That's why I bring up natural selection so much, because it accounts for this, and helps explain why some suffering might ultimately be good.

I'm beginning to agree with Sultan's estimate of your status as a moral being. Here's an idea: you stop eating for a week and only get one glass (0.2l) of water each day, then you come back and tell us just how good starvation is.
If this is logic to you, you should, following its application, have died before seeing your first birthday. You entirely miss my point and reply with something completely unrelated that makes the character of Hans Landa seem like a really nice guy.
But even assuming you are correct and people starving to death is a good thing because it leads to smarter people surviving, then I imagine a world in which people are smart enough that death by starvation is unnecessary to make them even smarter. Don't even bother telling me why that's supposedly bad, because then you'd be missing the point so much you'd need divine help to find it again.
The point in its concise form: A better world without internal contradictions can be imagined, this means we do not live in the best possible world. No need for you to join Pangloss and Leibniz, they're doing a good job so far.

MeDeFe wrote:2. The non-directedness of natural selection
Natural selection posits that the fittest individuals of a given population are more likely to pass on their traits to a larger number of offspring than the average. "Fittest" can be defined as "best adapted to the given environment". This means, however, that "fitness" is not something absolute but relative to an overall situation, if the environment changes, the traits that used to be contributive to fitness may turn out to be a disadvantage.
Traits that are advantageous may be linked to other traits that are disadvantageous and will appear together in a significant amount of individuals, thus leading to no overall increase in fitness. E.g. Vipera berus, the dark individual tend to be somewhat larger and stronger and they need less time to get warm in the sun, however, predators that prey on them also have an easier time spotting them.

Nowhere in the definition is there any such thing as a "direction" of natural selection, it is a mindless process that will work in any way depending on any number of details.

See above, natural selection will sometimes work for the worse, but those bad traits will be "deselected" in time. I'm not talking about individual cases or species, I'm talking over long, long periods of time. NS will always do exactly what it needs to do to ensure that species (or anything) survive by becoming better. To go back to the Catholic Church example, if they still required masses in Latin and persecuted all nonbelievers or anyone who broke a single commandment, you can bet they wouldn't be where they are today. They adapted to the times and are doing fine.

NS is a mindless process, but so is gravity, and that is very predictable and definitely has a direction. They are both facts of nature.

Natural selection is NOT a force like gravity. I repeat: Natural selection is NOT an underlying force of the universe. Natural selection is a dynamic process that results from the interplay of a myriad of factors. Natural selection does not "do" anything, it just is.
Whether a trait is "good" or "bad" depends on the environment. What's good in one case may be bad in an other. What part of this don't you understand?

MeDeFe wrote:3. Natural selection, memes and benefit to other entities
Applying the same reasoning as you did, virtually all viruses ought to be beneficial for us since those that somehow make us (their carriers) better should have an edge over those that make us sick. I think empirical evidence will disagree with this. Likewise, if you want to apply natural selection to cultural memes like religion, you need to ask yourself "How do tubgirl and meatspin benefit society?", or maybe lolcats if you want a more innocent example. Yes, from the standpoint of natural selection there's no difference between religions and pictures of cats with captions.

I'm not sure what you mean with the viruses, and what empirical evidence you're talking about, but I'll take your word for it. TG/MS/LC are hilarious/shocking and provide entertainment, and if they didn't then they would hardly be known. Who says they don't benefit society when people are entertained by them?

Humans are hosts for viruses.
Viruses tend to make their hosts sick.

Societies are hosts for religions (and other memes).
You claim that religions can only survive if they benefit their hosts.

Structurally there's no difference between a human having a cold and society having a religion, but you claim that religion must be good. Please note that I italicized the word "structurally" to put an emphasis on it. There's no good reason for why two structurally identical cases should follow different dynamics.

MeDeFe wrote:This is because your basic understanding of natural selection is flawed, you argue that religion (especially Christianity) must be beneficial to society because it has been around and dominant for so long. But then you're putting the cart before the horse because what you're really doing is applying natural selection to societies and concluding that their religions play a role in their dominance

I don't say it MUST be beneficial, I say it probably is beneficial, because if it wasn't, then how do you explain its predominance in many of the world's most developed countries for hundreds/thousands of years?

Your understanding is still flawed. If you had read my post you would have noticed the answer to your question, btw.

MeDeFe wrote:If you apply natural selection to memes, the memes need only be beneficial to themselves in order to be perpetuated, they may be beneficial to society, but they may equally be detrimental, there is no way to tell since society is the environment in which they thrive or perish.

But if they were detrimental to society, the society would tend to die off, taking the meme with it.

Here we go again, societies "dying off", i think the last time that happened on a significant scale was when the americas were invaded by Europeans.

MeDeFe wrote:On the other hand, if you apply natural selection to societies religion becomes merely one factor among thousands, under those circumstances it is simply foolish to conclude that religion must be the one contributing factor to a society's dominance.

Yeah I'm not giving religion ALL the credit. But you can't deny that it's a huge social force and has a large impact on how a society operates. You could say the same about systems of government for that matter- the bad ones will die off. Those two definitely deserve a lot of the credit for determining how well a society does.

Pray, do tell me more about this "dying off" of societies.

MeDeFe wrote:4. The lack of moral, ethical and philosophical contents in the process of natural selection
Let's go back to my earlier definition of natural selection. "Natural selection posits that the fittest individuals of a given population are more likely to pass on their traits to a larger number of offspring than the average. "Fittest" can be defined as "best adapted to the given environment"."

Yeah. Sometimes I'll stretch the principle beyond biology because I think it's a universal principle, but w/e.

Well, as I pointed out earlier and explained, it isn't.

MeDeFe wrote:Please demonstrate where in this definition there is anything regarding morality, because I don't see it. I don't even see why you could possibly think there is. While you're at it, please explain where you got the harebrained idea that killing people is beneficial towards spreading ones genes around.

Well like I was saying, I think it applies to things other than biology as well.

Actually I looked up the exact definition of survival of the fittest and found out about this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer

who as you can see extended the concept to societies and culture as a whole (I knew I couldn't have been the first lol). Check this out:

Wikipe-tan wrote:Spencer's interest in psychology derived from a more fundamental concern which was to establish the universality of natural law. In common with others of his generation, including the members of Chapman's salon, he was possessed with the idea of demonstrating that it was possible to show that everything in the universe—including human culture, language, and morality—could be explained by laws of universal validity. This was in contrast to the views of many theologians of the time who insisted that some parts of creation, in particular the human soul, were beyond the realm of scientific investigation. Comte's Systeme de Philosophie Positive had been written with the ambition of demonstrating the universality of natural law, and Spencer was to follow Comte in the scale of his ambition. However, Spencer differed from Comte in believing it was possible to discover a single law of universal application which he identified with progressive development and was to call the principle of evolution.

In 1858 Spencer produced an outline of what was to become the System of Synthetic Philosophy. This immense undertaking, which has few parallels in the English language, aimed to demonstrate that the principle of evolution applied in biology, psychology, sociology (Spencer appropriated Comte's term for the new discipline) and morality. Spencer envisaged that this work of ten volumes would take twenty years to complete; in the end it took him twice as long and consumed almost all the rest of his long life.

So anyway, the morals that are better for society will tend to last longer than those that don't. Simple enough. That's how we developed our international sort of moral code in recent years (e.g. just war theory, diplomacy, Geneva Convention, etc.), because it promotes our survival, and we aren't dumb enough to blow each other to smithereens.

Oh, so first you say that someone who takes natural selection seriously should have no qualms about any number of people dying all over the place, then you go on to explain how natural selection has lead to the Geneva Convention and people not killing each other left and right.

Apart from not understanding what you're talking about, you don't even remain consistent in your stupidity.

There you go, if you won't respond to that then I can't say I'd be surprised...

AAFitz wrote:

PLAYER57832 wrote:The problem with saying its beneficial is that the converse is not true. In truth ALL societies, failures and successes, have religious beliefs.

In truth, it is likely there is something fundamental to humanity that need religion, just as we seem to need government.

Within religions, what you say is somewhat true.

To say we need religion, simply because we have religion, is like saying Russia needed communism, or Germany needed Hitler simply because they had them. Need often has little to do with what one has, it is far more often determined by what they can get, which is almost always determined, by some sort of power.

No, you are being far, far too narrow.

I am saying that every culture, every nation on Earth has some form of governance... also some form of religious belief. If you expand that to atheism, in essence a kind of "non belief" in this context, it is axiomatic that people have religion, because any strong belief is really religion.

However, even if you narrow that to a belief in a diety or "system of being" (Scientiology, for example, Buddhism perhaps), it covers all.

AAFitz wrote:[Without a doubt some underlying beliefs are fundamentally necessary, one comes to assume the sun will come up tomorrow, but again, that does not mean it will... but there is no doubt that they need not be based on an omnipotent leader to be successful. Many were based on different religions and functioned well enough. Simply because one has won out in popularity does not mean it is needed, because it was more of a power struggle of men, which created this situation, and it is easily possible, that an entire other belief system would reign, given a slight change in history. The many wildly different religions prove this emphatically, and show man is capable of making up a God, a complicated set of rules, and since some are easily mutually exclusive, its safe to say all are suspect.

I am not talking about a "popularity contest". For one thing, the religions and how they function have shifted significantly.

Perhaps religion is something people will "outgrow" as some modern individuals insist. However, I suspect that while some people will take that direction, many others will not. At any rate, that is simply a matter of opinion. The fact is that religion has been a factor in every human society in existance and continues to be a major force.

MeDeFe wrote:john, which part of "one coherent text" did you not understand, because what you provided me with was very clearly not one coherent text so much as it is your previous tripe minus the colors plus a minimum of structure.
Still, I suppose this is the best I can expect from you and your mental capacities, so let's see if any sense can be made of this.

You just responded in the same way, and do you see me bitching? Come on man.

MeDeFe wrote:Yes, anything that is naturally possible is also logically possible. But do pay attention, will you? I clearly wrote "for the sake of completeness", I'm not "going anywhere", I'm just giving you information for its own sake. You were supposed to pay attention to logical possibility and what that means.

Ok, noted.

MeDeFe wrote:I never wrote the word "random". I never thought the word "random". The word "random" only exists in your mind here. Now go take your burning strawman somewhere else and come back without it, the smoke's getting in your eyes and preventing you from reading and thinking at the same time.

Well here's what dictionary.com has to say about "random":

1. proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.

So if something has no direction, it's reasonable to call it "random". I think this is just a miscommunication because be both know how natural selection works.

MeDeFe wrote:And when did it show itself to be good? You said it has shown that it must be good because it is dominant. You're deducing one property from one that is completely unrelated. If you're then inducing from that one, so much the worse.

Fair point, but I still think it's odd that the vast majority of successful societies have some form of religion. It's possible that humans have some sort of innate desire for religion, but you'd have to explain that away as well because calling that "bad" is quite a stretch.

MeDeFe wrote:So the only way for morals to change is for a society to die out? You're either fucking kidding me or you're a fucking idiot. Just when did the societies in Europe from 1000 years ago die out and become replaced by other societies with different morals?

Nope. A society could just modify its morals to conform to the times. European societies didn't "die out" strictly, but parts of their culture did. If religion as a whole is removed from our culture, and we get along for the better, well then I'm wrong... but we'll have to wait and see.

MeDeFe wrote:I'm beginning to agree with Sultan's estimate of your status as a moral being. Here's an idea: you stop eating for a week and only get one glass (0.2l) of water each day, then you come back and tell us just how good starvation is.
If this is logic to you, you should, following its application, have died before seeing your first birthday. You entirely miss my point and reply with something completely unrelated that makes the character of Hans Landa seem like a really nice guy.
But even assuming you are correct and people starving to death is a good thing because it leads to smarter people surviving, then I imagine a world in which people are smart enough that death by starvation is unnecessary to make them even smarter. Don't even bother telling me why that's supposedly bad, because then you'd be missing the point so much you'd need divine help to find it again.
The point in its concise form: A better world without internal contradictions can be imagined, this means we do not live in the best possible world. No need for you to join Pangloss and Leibniz, they're doing a good job so far.

...wut lol? So you want me to starve myself so I can get emotional over the issue and take it personally whenever someone says starvation could ultimately be good? No thanks, I'd rather not be biased. You're right about the world without starvation though. But even in that world the smartest will have an advantage. There's no getting around it.

I still think it's pretty short-sighted of you to say that a world without starvation has to be better. You're putting the well-being of the current population ahead of the well-being of any number of future generations. The fact is that our world has consistent principles, and if God has to swoop down and change things up every so often, then those principles wouldn't be working out. Maybe they are after all...

MeDeFe wrote:Natural selection is NOT a force like gravity. I repeat: Natural selection is NOT an underlying force of the universe. Natural selection is a dynamic process that results from the interplay of a myriad of factors. Natural selection does not "do" anything, it just is.
Whether a trait is "good" or "bad" depends on the environment. What's good in one case may be bad in an other. What part of this don't you understand?

And gravity depends on the interplay of surrounding bodies with mass. Natural selection is a dynamic process, but that doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

I still think it's dumb to argue with you about this, because from what you posted it seems you do understand generally how NS works. So we're going in circles here.

MeDeFe wrote:Humans are hosts for viruses.
Viruses tend to make their hosts sick.

Societies are hosts for religions (and other memes).
You claim that religions can only survive if they benefit their hosts.

Structurally there's no difference between a human having a cold and society having a religion, but you claim that religion must be good. Please note that I italicized the word "structurally" to put an emphasis on it. There's no good reason for why two structurally identical cases should follow different dynamics.

You're right about that. Humans:viruses::societies:religions in lots of cases. But if there were humans (societies) who did not host viruses (religions), you'd think they would prosper. The evidence seems to indicate this isn't true... in fact many societies in recent centuries that explicitly downplayed religion are either hated or abolished. There's been discussion about this before and what role religion played in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, etc. so I won't go into that. But if religion as a concept was bad for society, people would have gotten rid of it long ago. Perhaps they have an innate need for it?

MeDeFe wrote:Your understanding is still flawed. If you had read my post you would have noticed the answer to your question, btw.

^ See above. ^

MeDeFe wrote:Here we go again, societies "dying off", i think the last time that happened on a significant scale was when the americas were invaded by Europeans.

See above again, they don't have to necessarily die off.

MeDeFe wrote:Pray, do tell me more about this "dying off" of societies.

...yeah.

MeDeFe wrote:Well, as I pointed out earlier and explained, it isn't.

It is. It's a basic fact of life that things will tend to improve in time out of self-interest (the deepest motivating factor in any decision).

MeDeFe wrote:Oh, so first you say that someone who takes natural selection seriously should have no qualms about any number of people dying all over the place, then you go on to explain how natural selection has lead to the Geneva Convention and people not killing each other left and right.

Apart from not understanding what you're talking about, you don't even remain consistent in your stupidity.

Remember when you said that natural selection has no direction? How it can be good OR bad? THAT'S NOT CONSISTENT derp lol. Had you worded it better you might have come up with something like this: "Natural selection can be good or bad for individual members, but overall tends to lead towards the better for societies, given enough time". So you agree on that?

We formed those conventions due to (as above) self-interest. Nobody wants global warfare.

MeDeFe wrote:

All these ad-hominems make me think you're on the end of your rope. I hope you don't turn into a mpjh style moderator, dodging the real questions to get in some cheap shots, especially in your own forum!

john9blue wrote:I backtrack as much as I can, complain when I get the answers I deserve, fail to understand the basic concepts and refuse to address the relevant point when I actually get them.

If I'm at the end of my rope, the other end is a noose tied around your neck. I'm not going to bring order into your mess of quotes and two-sentence replies for your convenience, I began with a highly structured and, as i think, easily understandable post, you resorted to chopping it up and scribbling in the margins. Apparently that's how you want things, so don't start whining about it now. Should you, however, feel that you may want to change back to longer texts with more structure I'd be happy to do so, but that ball's in your court.

Fair point, but I still think it's odd that the vast majority of successful societies have some form of religion.

So do the vast majority of unsuccessful societies. What's your point? Nevermind that it's up to you to define what constitutes "successful", "society" and "having a religion". Depending on how you define the second, the third may be extremely interesting.

And gravity depends on the interplay of surrounding bodies with mass. Natural selection is a dynamic process, but that doesn't mean it's inconsistent.

If you interpret natural laws as nothing more than descriptions of regularities that just happen to have been observed, this is correct. AFAIK the majority of natural scientists disagree with that, however, and claim that the descriptions describe other entities that are the actual natural laws. And where did I ever say "inconsistent"? I'm amazed you still have straw left.

But if religion as a concept was bad for society, people would have gotten rid of it long ago.

No matter how often you repeat this mantra of yours, it's not going to become true. Two problems with it that you aparently don't even consider: Firstly, concepts only need to be good for a few individuals who help perpetuate them. Secondly, maybe not enough time has passed to weed it out.

It's a basic fact of life that things will tend to improve in time out of self-interest (the deepest motivating factor in any decision).

Which, firstly, has nothing to do with natural selection and, secondly, may very well be false.

Remember when you said that natural selection has no direction?

Yes, I stand by that.

How it can be good OR bad?

To be precise, I said a trait may be good in one situation but bad in another.

THAT'S NOT CONSISTENT derp lol.

Reading comprehension fail on your part.
[bigimg]http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/9785/3808257770de784ee7e4.jpg[/bigimg]

Had you worded it better you might have come up with something like this: "Natural selection can be good or bad for individual members, but overall tends to lead towards the better for societies, given enough time". So you agree on that?

No, I do not agree with that, because I do not think natural selection can be applied to societies and memes in a meaningful way.



So far I see two basic problems with our little discussion.
1. You do not understand natural selection.
2. You have a too weak grasp on formal logic to understand some of my criticisms.

MeDeFe wrote:If I'm at the end of my rope, the other end is a noose tied around your neck. I'm not going to bring order into your mess of quotes and two-sentence replies for your convenience, I began with a highly structured and, as i think, easily understandable post, you resorted to chopping it up and scribbling in the margins. Apparently that's how you want things, so don't start whining about it now. Should you, however, feel that you may want to change back to longer texts with more structure I'd be happy to do so, but that ball's in your court.

I think my posts are just as legible as yours... maybe you're just biased.

MeDeFe wrote:So do the vast majority of unsuccessful societies. What's your point? Nevermind that it's up to you to define what constitutes "successful", "society" and "having a religion". Depending on how you define the second, the third may be extremely interesting.

The definitions are definitely shifty... e.g. you could still say the ancient Roman society is "still alive" today, even though they've changed.

MeDeFe wrote:If you interpret natural laws as nothing more than descriptions of regularities that just happen to have been observed, this is correct. AFAIK the majority of natural scientists disagree with that, however, and claim that the descriptions describe other entities that are the actual natural laws. And where did I ever say "inconsistent"? I'm amazed you still have straw left.

Ok then. I'd call a description of a natural law a natural law. I'll disagree with these scientists, wherever they are.

MeDeFe wrote:No matter how often you repeat this mantra of yours, it's not going to become true. Two problems with it that you aparently don't even consider: Firstly, concepts only need to be good for a few individuals who help perpetuate them. Secondly, maybe not enough time has passed to weed it out.

True. I'm not proving religion is good though. I'm just saying it's likely. Why do you think I'm trying to prove stuff?

MeDeFe wrote:Which, firstly, has nothing to do with natural selection and, secondly, may very well be false.

When you say stuff like this, I'm convinced that we're not on the same page. Like, natural selection is all about improving for the good of the population, no matter the cost to individual members.

MeDeFe wrote:Yes, I stand by that.

It's cool, frankly I didn't expect your opinions to change.

MeDeFe wrote:To be precise, I said a trait may be good in one situation but bad in another.

Yes...

MeDeFe wrote:Reading comprehension fail on your part.
[bigimg]http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/9785/3808257770de784ee7e4.jpg[/bigimg]

Lol okay. Sorry for flaming but come on. Cute pictures can only get you so far!

MeDeFe wrote:No, I do not agree with that, because I do not think natural selection can be applied to societies and memes in a meaningful way.

There's no way to prove one way or the other. Looks like we have different ways of looking at society. I'd call your way ignorant and say you don't understand, but then I'd be stooping down to your intellectual level... This isn't a grade school playground, man!

MeDeFe wrote:So far I see two basic problems with our little discussion.
1. You do not understand natural selection.
2. You have a too weak grasp on formal logic to understand some of my criticisms.

Those are bold claims lol, especially cuz you left out like half of my post. I thought this would go somewhere but neither of us seem to be getting through to each other. I guess it's a good sign that I'm having an impact on you (you're not just ignoring me like people do with thorny and the like).

Neoteny wrote:

Another cute pic. I lol'd. Who else brings out the popcorn while reading OT debates?

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:If you interpret natural laws as nothing more than descriptions of regularities that just happen to have been observed, this is correct. AFAIK the majority of natural scientists disagree with that, however, and claim that the descriptions describe other entities that are the actual natural laws. And where did I ever say "inconsistent"? I'm amazed you still have straw left.

Ok then. I'd call a description of a natural law a natural law. I'll disagree with these scientists, wherever they are.

Fair enough, but I think you don't realize the consequences of this. If natural laws are nothing more than descriptions of observed regularities that might or might not continue to hold in the future, and may or may not have held in the past before observation of them began, you don't have a leg to stand on if you make natural selection a basis of your argument.

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:No matter how often you repeat this mantra of yours, it's not going to become true. Two problems with it that you aparently don't even consider: Firstly, concepts only need to be good for a few individuals who help perpetuate them. Secondly, maybe not enough time has passed to weed it out.

True. I'm not proving religion is good though. I'm just saying it's likely. Why do you think I'm trying to prove stuff?

I know you aren't, and I'm not saying you're even trying to. I'm pointing out one of the flaws in your understanding of natural selection and why it can't be applied to memes and societies. Too bad you don't get it.

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:Which, firstly, has nothing to do with natural selection and, secondly, may very well be false.

When you say stuff like this, I'm convinced that we're not on the same page. Like, natural selection is all about improving for the good of the population, no matter the cost to individual members.

Natural selection is not "about improving for the good of the population". It's not "about" anything. Natural selection is akin to slime mould taking on shapes that resemble the Tokyo subway system (link). Or to random numbers generating a picture resembling a tree. Natural selection is like the the arbitrary "order" (for lack of a better word) that arises in complex systems. Really, natural selection is not a force that drives the system, it is something that arises from the system.
This is why I say natural selection isn't like gravity. Gravity is only noticeable because of the interplay between different massive bodies, but even if there were only one massive body in the entire universe and no interplay at all there would be gravity.
Natural selection, on the other hand, is the result of the interplay between a variety of actors in a complex system. In other words: Natural selection is not a cause (like gravity), it is an effect.

john9blue wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:No, I do not agree with that, because I do not think natural selection can be applied to societies and memes in a meaningful way.

There's no way to prove one way or the other. Looks like we have different ways of looking at society. I'd call your way ignorant and say you don't understand, but then I'd be stooping down to your intellectual level... This isn't a grade school playground, man!

"Stooping down"? Oh, I see, you've glued your feet to the cellar ceiling. Interesting perspective you've got there.

Look, I've provided you with several points of criticism for why your view of natural selection as a process with a direction is faulty, but you refuse to even think about them, much less respond to them. You backtracked so far on societies dying off that you effectively retracted your statements. You offer zero explanation for how you would even apply an emergent process like natural selection to socio-cultural entities like religion and lolcats. This is why I make such bold claims as

MeDeFe wrote:1. You do not understand natural selection.
2. You have a too weak grasp on formal logic to understand some of my criticisms.

Complain about me only quoting half your posts all you want, I don't see why I should reply to words that have no content. Don't become conceited just because I give you some attention, though, your impact on me is like that of a child shooting at an aircraft carrier with a water pistol.

The thing about "survival of the fittest" is that the decision of "fittest" is made only AFTER success. The idea that what we see is truly survival of the "fittest" is pretty much disgarded now. The fact is that many wonderful traits are disgarded in the course of evolution for reasons.

Anyone up for carp fishing? NO... if you are an angler, likely not so much. They are, in fact, something of a minor plague in eastern rivers.

Know how they got here? One story I have heard is that European settlers had to have a fish with which they were familiar, as opposed to those "nasy trout" that "won't even take a bait". (I read an early publication by a US fish biologist who declared that he had noted a "strange behavior" of trout taking a fly.. he thought it was a case of changed behavior due to transport, lol).

I don't know 100% if that is how they got here. I DO know that humans have made many, many similar errors. The entire introduction of brown trout, for example. And why on Earth would someone insist upon bringing rainbow Steelhead out east, instead of just developing the brook trout, etc.

The truth is that whenever people try to design or "fix" our natural world, we screw up. It is impossible for even the most intelligent human being to fully and completely understand the utter complexity of nature and all the ramifications of change.

NotAConservative wrote:I am Atheist. I base this assumption on the fact that everything must have a start and an end. If there was a God, this would be impossible; if God created everything, who created God?

Nice facts..

Now about getting them straight...

NotAConservative wrote:I am Atheist. I base this assumption on the fact that everything must have a start and an end.

This is true in our universe, but most physicist, etc. pretty much accept that something else must be true outside our universe.
In our universe, it is impossible for "something" to come from "nothing" by any fashion. So, adding in God makes no real difference.

NotAConservative wrote:If there was a God, this would be impossible; if God created everything, who created God?

Again, how did it all get here without God? What we know indicates it would be impossible. Yet, here we are! Obviously, "what we know" is not the full picture.

I think the logic is utterly flawed in the line

everything must have a start and an end

To me this stands in stark contrast to the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

In my eyes it's very simple (so simple that it's complicated to some people) that the things that are, always were in one form or another..

GabonX wrote:I think the logic is utterly flawed in the line

everything must have a start and an end

To me this stands in stark contrast to the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

In my eyes it's very simple (so simple that it's complicated to some people) that the things that are, always were in one form or another..

I was once told by one of the pioneers of quantum physics that "reality does not exist". I sort of laughed. He thought I did not understand what he was saying. I told him that reality was, by definition, "what exists" and that what he had discovered was that reality did not conform to the constraints he thought necessary.

Some things are just beyond our ability to truly understand right now. If were to travel back in time and talk to some of Abraham's cohorts, I might have a hard time explaining the concept of a circular Earth, going to the moon, etc. OR... maybe it would not be so difficult after all. Sometimes what we call "knowledge" actually blinds us to other possibilities.

Ultimately it is very hard to tell whether starvation is good or bad. What if I told you that the smarter someone is, the less likely they will starve, so starvation tends to kill off less intelligent people, making our species smarter, and leading to more progress and prosperity for thousands of generations into the future? It's how the rest of the animals on Earth work. That's why I bring up natural selection so much, because it accounts for this, and helps explain why some suffering might ultimately be good.

I would laugh at you.

If anything, starvation is what makes you less intelligent. Kids who aren't fed properly will never reach the mental capabilities of kids who are. Starvation doesn't kill of the less intelligent, it makes them less intelligent. That's bad for the whole species because those who could be the most intelligent don't end up as the most intelligent.

Snorri1234 wrote:
If anything, starvation is what makes you less intelligent. Kids who aren't fed properly will never reach the mental capabilities of kids who are. Starvation doesn't kill of the less intelligent, it makes them less intelligent. That's bad for the whole species because those who could be the most intelligent don't end up as the most intelligent.

Starvation does make you less intelligent, but if everyone is starving, then the above would apply.

The problem is that this is simply not really true. The ability of intelligence to overcome starvation is often outweighed by the ability of some bodies to survive starvation better.

That is, what matters in starvation is more how well your body utilizes what food is available. Also, brute strength often allow the "less intelligent" (comparatively speaking) to get food from the "intelligent". This is, in fact one of the factors that becomes apparent as a society degrades. It is why "barbarians" overrun "civil" societies.

God is everywhere, you can see him in all things created. He is in the amazing features of this Earth, he is in all people. God is almighty, he is just. God has a reason for everything, it is up to you to follow him though, he has given us the power to make our own decisions, we just need to honor him in all that we say and do.