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IWantGod
Guest
How can you infer purpose if your mental activity is acting without a purpose?
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Bradskii
Guest
You shouldn’t. None exists. But it’s easier to say that you carry stones to protect yourelf from animals when the real reason was a genetic abberation which proved to be useful.Bradskii:
How can you infer purpose if your mental activity is acting without a purpose?
Most people wouldn’t understand.
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IWantGod
Guest
Nobody is talking about the complexity of behaviour. Goal directed behaviour isn’t just complex (that is not the reason i challenge metaphysical naturalism) it is a different order of activity to a blind natural process. One is goal directed the other is fundamentally not.
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IWantGod
Guest
So you never act for goal.
Because it’s nonsense to claim that a thing only exists because it proved useful. That a thing is useful is not a sufficient existential explanation for why it exists in the first place.
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JimG
Guest
Are internet postings the result of blind natural forces? Is scientific experimentation and thesis writing the result of natural forces? Writing novels? Writing theology texts? Political discourse? Making decisions? If that is the case, I suppose that the development of theistic religion as well as atheism must be the result of natural forces. We can attribute them both as well as everything else to natural evolutionary processes. But it’s rather discouraging to engage in any conversation about such matters when I know that it’s not really me acting at all, just inevitable responses of natural processes.
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IWantGod
Guest
Loooooooool.
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STT
Guest
I think we are dealing with two different problems in here. One problem being how matter in specific formation could be intelligent and in another specific form couldn’t. Another problem is whether another sort of matter could be intelligent when it is in specific form. I think the first problem is irrelevant in this discussion. The second problem is the key problem. One can only argue that the existence of God is very likely if the current sort of matter is the only sort which can be intelligent. For this one also has to show that other sort of matter could not exist.
po18guy
Well-known member
The elephant in the non-believer’s living room is the transcendent; the supernatural. Eliminating that is controlling the dialog, by imposing artificial limitation on thought. Discarding the spiritual also limits the intellectual at some point.
Some today deny the human spirit, which is not a classical atheist view as I understand it. It is lowest common denominator thinking, i.e. shallow.
Since Darwin postulated his theory, mankind has been seeking the “holy grail” of non-belief: the mythical “missing link.” It seems to me that man is willfully descending so as to supply that missing link. Being an artificial means, truth is not arrived at.
Some today deny the human spirit, which is not a classical atheist view as I understand it. It is lowest common denominator thinking, i.e. shallow.
Since Darwin postulated his theory, mankind has been seeking the “holy grail” of non-belief: the mythical “missing link.” It seems to me that man is willfully descending so as to supply that missing link. Being an artificial means, truth is not arrived at.
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Techno2000
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Is the Venus flytrap… goal directed … or … blind natural process ?
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Bradskii
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I didn’t say that something exists because it’s useful (in an evolutionary sense). There was no use in it coming into existence. It BECOMES useful (or useless or actually harmfull) depending on the environment. If it becomes useful then there is a tendency for it to remain because of the advantage it brings. And then we say, wrongly, that it was there for a purpose.Bradskii:
So you never act for goal.
Because it’s nonsense to claim that a thing only exists because it proved useful. That a thing is useful is not a sufficient existential explanation for why it exists in the first place.
And in everyday terminology, without going into the matter in any depth, it IS convenient to talk about purpose. Why am I going to the fridge? To get another beer. The purpose seems plain. But is there some hidden and deep seated real meaning behind getting a beer? Does getting a beer really count as a meaning in life. As a purpose?
Dig deeper and it comes down to natural processes. I’m thirsty. That’s entirely natural. I’ve been working in the garden and I feel a reward is due. That’s entirely natural. I’m a little stressed and I need to relax. Entirely natural. So the purpose of me getting a beer is to fullfill entirely natural physical and mental needs. There’s nothing happening that’s any deeper and meaningful than that.
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Bradskii
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The latter. As I would have thought would have been obvious.
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Bradskii
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They’re an attempt to connect with like minded people. It forms a sense of a group. An entirely evolutionary aspect of home Sapien. As was mentioned earlier. So I thought that that would have been obvious as well.JimG:
Loooooooool.
See how you and Jim have connected against a common enemy? Evolutionary psychology 101.
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George720
Guest
The above is a very funny exchange…
Monty Pythonesque!
Nothing is stable…
That should tie up all the loose ends!
geo
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Techno2000
Guest
Seems to me, that the goal of this plant… is to catch a fly.Techno2000:
The latter. As I would have thought would have been obvious.
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George720
Guest
My brother used to say that everybody needs to believe in something…
And for himself, he said believed he would have another beer…
He was not prepared for death…
geo
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George720
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Bradskii
Guest
It does seem like that to you, Tecno. Maybe the purpose of lightning is to make a big bang. Who can tell…Bradskii:
Seems to me, that the goal of this plant… is to catch a fly.Techno2000:
The latter. As I would have thought would have been obvious.
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Techno2000
Guest
Well, I would lean towards blind natural process on that one.Techno2000:
It does seem like that to you, Tecno. Maybe the purpose of lightning is to make a big bang. Who can tell…Bradskii:
Seems to me, that the goal of this plant… is to catch a fly.Techno2000:
The latter. As I would have thought would have been obvious.
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Bradskii
Guest
You need to lean a bit further.
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IWantGod
Guest
You are trying to turn this in to a debate about evolution, but it’s got nothing to do with it. It is irrelevant if homosapiens have a social nature and whether or not this trait has emerged within the processes described as evolution. It’s a question of whether or not specific traits or activities such as goal direction or an activity driven by intent can be intelligibly reduced to blind natural processes alone (not that physical processes have nothing to do it) as a sufficient cause for their existence (that’s a philosophical question, not a scientific one).
We are still talking about goal directed activity when you create posts on a forum with the intent to rationally debate with other humans about the nature of reality, and you are falling to understand that this type of activity cannot be compared to a gust of wind blowing a ball down a hill; it simply doesn’t make rational sense to conclude that a goal driven rational conversation is going to emerge from that kind of process or any blind natural process as a consequence.
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