Evidence for Design?

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Shredderbeam said:
To be fair, your uncle lives in modern civilization. If your uncle had been born 200,000 years ago, could you say with certainty that he could live with no difficulties?
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  1. What difference would colour-blindness have made to his prospects for survival?
  2. Was colour necessary for survival in the first place?
  3. Was colour a necessary feature of the universe?
 
tonyrey said:
  1. What difference would colour-blindness have made to his prospects for survival?
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It might have impacted his ability to see predators, made him less adept at picking out ripe fruit, etc.

tonyrey said:
2. Was colour necessary for survival in the first place?
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Well no, as blind life and colorblind life seem to thrive, but it might give a species an edge.

tonyrey said:
3. Was colour a necessary feature of the universe?
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Probably not, but a colorless universe would be very strange, as color results from the changing wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. It would be somewhat odd if there was no continuum of visible light, just one wavelength value.
 
Shredderbeam said:
It might have impacted his ability to see predators, made him less adept at picking out ripe fruit, etc.
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You beat me to it. The ability to see color is certainly relevant to the survival of some species and probably to the survival of man.
Well no, as blind life and colorblind life seem to thrive, but it might give a species an edge.
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:yup:
Probably not, but a colorless universe would be very strange, as color results from the changing wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. It would be somewhat odd if there was no continuum of visible light, just one wavelength value.
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:yup: again.
 
inocente said:
At our altitude we usually get snow in January or February, but it’s been wall-to-wall blue sky for weeks. Almond blossom and butterflies. Colors are useful for survival - green meat and so on. By the by, watched a program from the UK on satellite the other night, Hockey’s iPad paintings of a year in the life of the woods near his home in Bridlington. He has the courage to paint the colors he sees rather than what he expected to see. If you get a chance, go to his Bigger Picture exhibition - at the RA until April-ish.
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Right now we are getting hail mixed with rain. :o
 
tonyrey said:
  1. What difference would colour-blindness have made to his prospects for survival?
  2. Was colour necessary for survival in the first place?
  3. Was colour a necessary feature of the universe?
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On the last point, color only exists in the eye of the beholder. We can only perceive a very narrow band of light frequencies, and even then can’t tell the difference between light at 580 nm and a mix of light at 550 and 680 nm - we perceive both as yellow, while it’s been proved that birds can tell the difference (the latter is “red-green”). Bees can see light at UV frequencies, we can’t. How we perceive color also depends on culture - there are some peoples who don’t have different words for blue and green. Learned this fascinating stuff training as an artist.
 
🙂
inocente said:
My point was that it does no justice at all to Thomas when we don’t at least try to see the world through his eyes.

For example, last time it came up, there wasn’t one Catholic poster, not even one, who could explain what CCC 365 means by ‘The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body’. That also seems to have something to do with potentialities and actualities (matter and form), but posters were just winging it as not even one of them had ever got off their behind and made an effort to understand.
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As I said, that’s so obvious that Thomas must be saying something a lot more profound. Well, unless he was a three year old at the time of course. 😃
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I don’t know what “material laws” are, but would be interested in hearing any hypothesis which seeks to show that any aspect of you can ever defy the laws of nature. In the same way that Hollywood does not defy any law of nature by using special effects to make Superman fly in a movie, your brain does not defy any law of nature when you imagine Superman flying, and your mind arises from your brain. (This is far more cogent, and anyway just me saying it gives tony apoplexy :D).
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I am seeing the world through the eyes of St. Thomas. – Are you implying that in his time, there was no gravity?

Material laws are laws which govern material objects in the material/physical world. Gravity is an example. When jumping out of an apple tree, our body naturally falls toward the earth. 😉 Unless, we are holding on to an humongous balloon.

I do not remember seeing your post on CCC 365. However, to get a grip on the sentence you mentioned above “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body’.” one has to start with CCC 362
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/362.htm

Catholic teaching cannot be condensed into a prime time sound bite.

Why is the unity of soul and body so profound?

Check out CCC 363
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/363.htm
and if one really wants to be thorough, go back and study CCC 355 and following.
scborromeo.org/ccc/para/355.htm

Why is the unity of soul and body so profound?

Check out Aristotle’s “hylomorphism” , in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and other sources.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism

Note: Catholicism considers the “soul” as signifying the “spiritual principle” in you and me.
 
Tony, you said that you know about Hume (or something to that extent). Can you recommend an inexpensive book about his philosophy? Something like Hume for Dummies? The only book I have is the one I referenced before and although it is a serious book it’s also funny and the Socrates character (the protagonist) has had to change a few of his beliefs after his death or else Kreeft would have to write a book called Socrates Meets Socrates in which he argues with himself and proves himself wrong.

Maybe I shouldn’t be starting with Hume but if it’s relevant to this thread that is where I want to start. I know he’s a skeptic, but I don’t even know what that means to him.

HELP!

(thanks! :))
 
grannymh said:
I am seeing the world through the eyes of St. Thomas. – Are you implying that in his time, there was no gravity?
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The dogs are waiting for their walk, I’ll have to leave the other points until tomorrow, but NO you are not even attempting to see the world through Thomas’ eyes. Newton developed the concept of gravity, that’s what Newton is famous for, before that it was just assumed that everything fell. You’re seeing the world through Newton’s eyes, which is a completely different worldview than Thomas. Even then you’re a bit out-of-date, because in Einstein’s model there are no forces and instead space-time is curved. So there are three completely different ways of seeing a rock rolling down a hill just going from Thomas to Einstein, but you’re imposing one modern American view on them all.

You’re kind of culturally colorblind here, but then a lot of Americans are 😃
 
LittleSoldier said:
Tony, you said that you know about Hume (or something to that extent). Can you recommend an inexpensive book about his philosophy? Something like Hume for Dummies? The only book I have is the one I referenced before and although it is a serious book it’s also funny and the Socrates character (the protagonist) has had to change a few of his beliefs after his death or else Kreeft would have to write a book called Socrates Meets Socrates in which he argues with himself and proves himself wrong.

Maybe I shouldn’t be starting with Hume but if it’s relevant to this thread that is where I want to start. I know he’s a skeptic, but I don’t even know what that means to him.

HELP!

(thanks! :))
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Its quite tough understanding Hume if you’re not used to reading 18th century philosophy. Just ask me questions - on a new thread if it’s not about Design - and I guarantee you will understand what he’s driving at! 😉
 
inocente said:
On the last point, color only exists in the eye of the beholder. We can only perceive a very narrow band of light frequencies, and even then can’t tell the difference between light at 580 nm and a mix of light at 550 and 680 nm - we perceive both as yellow, while it’s been proved that birds can tell the difference (the latter is “red-green”). Bees can see light at UV frequencies, we can’t. How we perceive color also depends on culture - there are some peoples who don’t have different words for blue and green. Learned this fascinating stuff training as an artist.
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I’m asking whether it need exist at all! 😉
 
inocente said:
The dogs are waiting for their walk, I’ll have to leave the other points until tomorrow, but NO you are not even attempting to see the world through Thomas’ eyes. Newton developed the concept of gravity, that’s what Newton is famous for, before that it was just assumed that everything fell. You’re seeing the world through Newton’s eyes, which is a completely different worldview than Thomas. Even then you’re a bit out-of-date, because in Einstein’s model there are no forces and instead space-time is curved. So there are three completely different ways of seeing a rock rolling down a hill just going from Thomas to Einstein, but you’re imposing one modern American view on them all.

You’re kind of culturally colorblind here, but then a lot of Americans are 😃
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What does Newton have to do with St. Thomas observing gravity? Does “assuming” that objects fall down instead of falling up invalidate Newton’s and Einstein’s theories? Aw, forget it. Today’s people can always check Newton and Einstein when in doubt.

Being “kind of culturally colorblind” …I bet I am in the minority of people who know the color of the top light in a traffic signal.😃
 
Shredderbeam said:
It might have impacted his ability to see predators, made him less adept at picking out ripe fruit, etc.

Well no, as blind life and colorblind life seem to thrive, but it might give a species an edge.

Probably not, but a colorless universe would be very strange, as color results from the changing wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. It would be somewhat odd if there was no continuum of visible light, just one wavelength value.
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Even with different wavelengths perception could have been in shades of grey for everyone. I think we can agree that colour wasn’t absolutely necessary for survival - and it certainly isn’t a necessary feature of all possible universes! I still think it’s a magnificent luxury we should appreciate and for which we should be very grateful. 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
Its quite tough understanding Hume if you’re not used to reading 18th century philosophy. Just ask me questions - on a new thread if it’s not about Design - and I guarantee you will understand what he’s driving at! 😉
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Hume is probably one of the philosophers who couldn’t decide if and where they existed. I dismissed that group because they were a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
 
grannymh said:
Hume is probably one of the philosophers who couldn’t decide if and where they existed. I dismissed that group because they were a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
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He toyed with the idea that we are just “bundles of perceptions” but probably changed his mind when he socialised. He wrote rather touchingly:

“I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther. Here then I find myself absolutely and necessarily determined to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life. But notwithstanding that my natural propensity, and the course of my animal spirits and passions reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the world, I still feel such remains of my former disposition, that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy. For those are my sentiments in that splenetic humour, which governs me at present. I may, nay I must yield to the current of nature, in submitting to my senses and understanding; and in this blind submission I shew most perfectly my sceptical disposition and principles. But does it follow, that I must strive against the current of nature, which leads me to indolence and pleasure; that I must seclude myself, in some measure, from the commerce and society of men, which is so agreeable; and that I must torture my brains with subtilities and sophistries, at the very time that I cannot satisfy myself concerning the reasonableness of so painful an application, nor have any tolerable prospect of arriving by its means at truth and certainty. Under what obligation do I lie of making such an abuse of time? And to what end can it serve either for the service of mankind, or for my own private interest? No:** If I must be a fool, as all those who reason or believe any thing certainly are, my follies shall at least be natural and agreeable. **Where I strive against my inclination, I shall have a good reason for my resistance; and will no more be led a wandering into such dreary solitudes, and rough passages, as I have hitherto met with.”

unc.edu/~jjeffrey/Hume%20Files–start%20with%20B3/B1.4.7.html

(My emphasis.) I believe the best test of any philosophy is how it corresponds to the way we live. Jesus said: “By their fruits you shall know them.”
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Okay…do you think i have a big head?
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I have a big head. Really. And I’m female! It’s big! I can’t wear those “one size fits all” hats because they’re too little. I have to adjust hats to make them big enough.

It isn’t obviously big but it’s big.

😊
 
inocente said:
You’re kind of culturally colorblind here, but then a lot of Americans are 😃
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We are not! First of all, we are a “salad bowl” of different cultures. I would bet that we have more cultures in this one country than any other country in the world (and I’m not even mentioning agar and other cultures of that type).

I should also point out that the term “Americans” can be used to describe all inhabitants of North, Central, and South America. That is a lot of cultures!

I should also point out that the poster who is being derided in your post is, arguably (though weakly), *historically *or *scientifically *colorblind, not *culturally *colorblind. And I would even argue with that as she has stated that she has attempted to look through St. Thomas’ eyes, not Newton’s eyes and it isn’t up to you to decide that she can’t attempt to do so.

I should also point out that Newton, Thomas, and Einstein are not the only people in history to have reflected on the concept of gravity. I’ve even done it myself. :eek:

And we aren’t culturally colorblind.

P.S. This entire post is rather tongue-in-cheek and not meant to offend anybody.
 
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