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tonyrey
Guest
How can anyone genuinely believe purposeful activity is produced by material objects?
They lack insight let alone foresight!
They lack insight let alone foresight!
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tonyrey
Guest
The remarkable success of science has led many people to believe it is the highest - or even the sole - form of knowledge. This implies that only material objects exist and our thoughts are produced by our brain. But our brain doesn’t know what it is doing or what is going to happen… So can it possibly be purposeful?
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bogeydogg
Guest
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tonyrey
Guest
I take it that you believe it’s impossible.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
I think its possibleI take it that you believe it’s impossible.
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tonyrey
Guest
A possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering!I think its possible
There are no intermediate stages. Either a being has a purpose or it doesn’t. How could it be semi-purposeful?
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lemondiesel
Guest
It’s purpose is to run on algorithmic survival instincts, controlling our physical bodies to adapt to changes.
A possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering!
What do you say about our brains creating a possibility not based on evidence then?
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
I have never heard that before.A possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering!
I have no idea.
. It would seem that I have no good reason to think that purpose can be a product of chaos.But I am going to say that it can happen anyway just to annoy you.
A thing can appear purposeful and yet have no objective purpose. That is to say that there can be the illusion of purpose if events accidentally coincide in such a manner that we can identify aspects of it as corresponding to our idea of purpose, much in the same way that a mirage corresponds to our idea of an oasis.
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bogeydogg
Guest
Can you provide evidence that a possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering so that we may try and determine if your thesis is worthy of our consideration?A possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering!
There are no intermediate stages. Either a being has a purpose or it doesn’t. How could it be semi-purposeful?
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bogeydogg
Guest
I am saying that those who argue that man coming from nowhere and going to annihilation could somehow have meaning in the twain has built his castle in the air since all such meaning would be subjective by force of irresistible logic. Therefore such subjective meaning, being based on feeling and want, would be impossible to prove objectively.I take it that you believe it’s impossible.
God Bless
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tonyrey
Guest
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tonyrey
Guest
If meaning is based solely on feeling and want it may well be meaningless!
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tonyrey
Guest
Then it’s original - but not thereby false!
I’m not annoyed, just amused.
I agree but it doesn’t follow that all purpose is an illusion!
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lemondiesel
Guest
That is not a devine purpose. From the very smallest forms of life to us, all life, is conscious enough to “know” that sleep, food, and reproduction are key to survival. A conscious purpose might be understanding that we are all the center of a single point, and allowing us to create our own purpose.
You are your brain, so how doesn’t it know what possibility is?
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tonyrey
Guest
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bogeydogg
Guest
I think perhaps he is failing not to distinguish mind from brain but perhaps to equate mind with self.
God Bless
God Bless
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tonyrey
Guest
“You are your brain” seems to leave no room for doubt because “you” is usually taken to mean the mind and brain. So mind+brain=brain!
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Why isn’t the mind physical?“You are your brain” seems to leave no room for doubt because “you” is usually taken to mean the mind and brain. So mind+brain=brain!
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inocente
Guest
Why isn’t everything physical when God created a material world?“You are your brain” seems to leave no room for doubt because “you” is usually taken to mean the mind and brain. So mind+brain=brain!
Your OP question gives an opportunity to trot out Richard Feynman’s fine poem:
*There are the rushing waves…
mountains of molecules,
each stupidly minding its own business…
trillions apart
…yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages…
before any eyes could see…
year after year…
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
…on a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest…
tortured by energy…
wasted prodigiously by the Sun…
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea,
all molecules repeat
the patterns of another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves…
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity…
living things,
masses of atoms,
DNA, protein…
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land…
here it is standing…
atoms with consciousness
…matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea…
wonders at wondering… I…
a universe of atoms…
an atom in the universe.
The Value of Science, address to the National Academy of Sciences 1955*
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grannymh
Guest
Obviously true. Though some may argue that the “evidence” is in the eye of the beholder.A possibility is not worth considering unless there is evidence to make it worth considering!
However, every created thing has a purpose. The distinction to be considered centers around the difference between the purposefulness of material ants for example and the purposefulness of human engineers.
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