Evolution, Original Sin, and Death

[ribozyme]

Are you saying that humans would physically (or at least mentally) immortal before any kind of salvation is attained?

As for no objective difference, that strikes me as a bit vague. Why is there no difference in what - the harmful organisms and the good organisms? What kind of difference would you expect - a signal that they’re harmful? But we get that already with the human capacity to reason and self-identify. And as I’ve talked about, even the ‘harmful’ organisms can yield good things through control, study, and effort.

No, it is difference between harmful and good only subjective, that is it is based on human perception. So, you tell me how being infected with HIV (which means you are likely to have AIDS in the future, contrary to David Wells and Peter Duesberg’s views) is a good thing for you?

HIV, as a whole, is a harmful virus whose niche involves destroying the human immune response so it could replicate. HIV doesn’t kill a human directly; HIV allows other pathogens to “assail” an immune compromised AIDS patient as a consequence of its replication mechanism. Some of its parts might have a beneficial aspect for the human condition, but primarily HIV is not “friendly” towards humans.

 

[Nullasalus]

No, it is difference between harmful and good only subjective, that is it is based on human perception. So, you tell me how being infected with HIV (which means you are likely to have AIDS in the future, contrary to David Wells and Peter Duesberg’s views) is a good thing for you?

It’s not. But you don’t even need to get into evolution to get to this point with Christianity - it’s referred to as the ‘problem of evil’ in general. I’m dealing specifically with what you’re talking about in evolution, which seemed to be ‘The God of Christianity would not use this process to create humans, because it has also created things harmful to humans.’ I believe that to be a flawed concept.

It reminds me vaguely of - I forget who made this claim - the argument that, ‘God wouldn’t have created the universe by the Big Bang if His goal was to create humans. Look at all the useless material left over by the process.’ (Other planets, etc.) And yet, we’re constantly studying and learning from these ‘useless’ other planets - one astronomical event recently gave us some greater insight regarding dark matter. Sure, you could respond that the potentials of human thought and innovation make it so there’s nothing truly useless and pointless in the world - to which I’d have to respond, yes. Amazing, isn’t it?

 

[ribozyme]

It’s not. But you don’t even need to get into evolution to get to this point with Christianity - it’s referred to as the ‘problem of evil’ in general. I’m dealing specifically with what you’re talking about in evolution, which seemed to be ‘The God of Christianity would not use this process to create humans, because it has also created things harmful to humans.’ I believe that to be a flawed concept.

It reminds me vaguely of - I forget who made this claim - the argument that, ‘God wouldn’t have created the universe by the Big Bang if His goal was to create humans. Look at all the useless material left over by the process.’ (Other planets, etc.) And yet, we’re constantly studying and learning from these ‘useless’ other planets - one astronomical event recently gave us some greater insight regarding dark matter. Sure, you could respond that the potentials of human thought and innovation make it so there’s nothing truly useless and pointless in the world - to which I’d have to respond, yes. Amazing, isn’t it?

Ok… human ingenuity is able to use “harmful” organisms for human benefit. Evolution is able to convert a detrimental aspect of the environment and convert it into something useful too. My example above was oxygen.

 

[Nullasalus]

Ok… human ingenuity is able to use “harmful” organisms for human benefit. Evolution is able to convert a detrimental aspect of the environment and convert it into something useful too. My example above was oxygen.

Fair enough. I’m not sure I get where you’re going with that, however - care to explain?

 

[ribozyme]

Fair enough. I’m not sure I get where you’re going with that, however - care to explain?

Oxygen is the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain (converts high energy electrons from organic compounds into a proton gradient that is able to synthesize ATP: it is best to read Biochemistry Fifth Edition by Lubert Stryer to know what I am talking about, it is available on the web) in mammals as it is reduced to water. It is required by oligate aerobic organisms (like us, of course). Conversely, oxygen is able to generate highly reactive species (as in chemical) e.g. superoxide.

 

[Nullasalus]

Oxygen is the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain (converts high energy electrons from organic compounds into a proton gradient that is able to synthesize ATP: it is best to read Biochemistry Fifth Edition by Lubert Stryer to know what I am talking about, it is available on the web) in mammals as it is reduced to water. It is required by oligate aerobic organisms (like us, of course). Conversely, oxygen is able to generate highly reactive species (as in chemical) e.g. superoxide.

I’ll accept this all without question. What I really mean is, I’m not sure where you’re going with this - what does it prove? I’m not going to disagree with the idea that evolution can “take a detrimental aspect of the environment and make it something useful”. Unless you’re saying ‘Ah, humans aren’t the only ones who are able to turn a negative into a positive’ - but that would require you to… what’s the word… anthromorphize? evolution, or at the very least (You won’t go down this route, I’m sure) argue that it’s a tool with intention behind it. After all, turning something detrimental into something positive requires an entity to benefit from it - and the entity would need to have some manner of consciousness, or else it’s not ‘beneficial’. If the wind happened to erode a rock into a work of art, who benefitted? The rock? The rock does not care about such things. The wind? Same thing.

 

[ribozyme]

I’ll accept this all without question. What I really mean is, I’m not sure where you’re going with this - what does it prove? I’m not going to disagree with the idea that evolution can “take a detrimental aspect of the environment and make it something useful”. Unless you’re saying ‘Ah, humans aren’t the only ones who are able to turn a negative into a positive’ - but that would require you to… what’s the word… anthromorphize? evolution, or at the very least (You won’t go down this route, I’m sure) argue that it’s a tool with intention behind it. After all, turning something detrimental into something positive requires an entity to benefit from it - and the entity would need to have some manner of consciousness, or else it’s not ‘beneficial’. If the wind happened to erode a rock into a work of art, who benefitted? The rock? The rock does not care about such things. The wind? Same thing.

It does require an entity to benefit, but such a process does not require any sort of consciousness. Do you think that bacteria had conciousness while they were evolving mechanisms for aerobic respiration?

 

[Nullasalus]

It does require an entity to benefit, but such a process does not require any sort of consciousness. Do you think that bacteria had conciousness while they were evolving mechanisms for aerobic respiration?

I don’t know - consciousness is a tricky thing to define, and something we hardly understand even now.

But what’s the definition of ‘benefit’ at this point? Going to the dictionary, just so we’re precise here:

1. Something that promotes or enhances well-being; an advantage.

May as well go for the definition of ‘detrimental’ as well.

1. Causing damage or harm; injurious.

When you take consciousness out of the picture - intention, awareness, desire, context, perspective - you take away any real judgement of ‘benefit’ and ‘detriment’ along with it. You pointed out that evolution (as a broadly defined process) can turn something detrimental into an advantage. But that’s you projecting these aspects onto an otherwise unthinking, uncaring process - you’ve made proliferation a benefit, and extinction/reduction a detriment, because you have your own standard of success and failure, good and bad. Remove that perspective, and nothing positive or negative is happening no matter what the situation is regarding oxygen - unless you’re arguing that the bacteria must care, because it’s ‘doing something’. It’s akin to arguing that it’s more beneficial for a cosmological body to come into a stable orbit rather than rocket through space. Beneficial for whom? Why? There are no answers to this example, because there are no conscious agents present in the situation. Even if orbit means millions of years of stability, and rocketing through space means collision and the end of that body in hundreds of years, there’s no ‘benefit’ or ‘detriment’ going on without agents that are in some way conscious. It’s just a process.