Evolution is a basic, biological process

Not here, Robin. The clown doesn't approve. And it'll have to wait too, I wrote something about it but I, well, my brain left it at work.Please have some patience. Maybe you could start a proper thread on it and collect some of what has already been said about it. Coming Monday I'll see what I can do.

---

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Hi Tal I don’t totally agree with Loudmouth. First of all there is the semantic problem of statements like Gravity is a theory which I have discussed previously. Also, I must quibble with some of your statements re gravity. Again Gravity is a Law has the semantic problem — we can speak about the Law of Gravity but I don’t like the use of the term Law; it implies something immutable which isn’t always the case. Your term ‘theoretical guesses’ implies that people are just sort of taking a stab in the dark.No disrespect, but It’s not clear that you fully understand what is generally termed the scientific method A more correct term for ‘theoretical guesses’ would be hypothesis. An hypothesis is an initial theory/explanation of a phenomenon, which then must be tested by reproducible (i.e., can be done by others) experiments/observations of this phenomenon. If the test results agree with the hypothesis, then the hypothesis is deemed correct. If, at some later date, someone conducts an experiment/observation which doesn’t agree with the theory, then the theory has to be modified or perhaps discarded. Of fundamental importance is the fact that scientific progress proceeds from a continual, rather circular, interplay between experiment and theory.We can apply this to gravity. Gravity is a phenomenon that is universally observed. One of the early theories re gravity, based upon the observation that objects fall toward the earth is that the earth is the center of the universe. This has of course been proven incorrect.Newton was the first to formulate a reasonable explanation for gravitational phenomena when he deduced the formula
Grav Force = Mass of Obj 1 * Mass of Obj 2/square of distance separating M1 and M2Thus Newton formulated what seems rather obvious that gravity is caused by the attractions of objects that have mass. Of course, Newton had no idea why this is so, but, he was able to combine his formula (equation) of gravity with his dynamical equation Force = Mass * acceleration to deduce the equation for an object moving under the influence of gravity. Unfortunately this is a differential equation which he then solved by inventing calculus and arrived at the same equation for planetary motion that Kepler deduced empirically. Thus, even if we don’t know why a phenomenon occurs, we can use our knowledge of it to expand our understanding of the world around us.Re, what is gravity? Einstein demonstrated with his general theory of relativity, that gravity is caused by the warping of space time in the presence of large masses.Regarding There is a mountain of evidence that shows that the evolutionary process is a certain as gravity. A problem is that both gravity and evolution have been experienced for a very long time, but gravity is easy to see, while evolution is not. The theory of evolution explains a large number of observations that cannot be explained any other way other than to invoke such things as a supernatural being.Regarding the trilobite findings There are a couple of problems with these statements. The evidence that trilobites lived hundreds of millions of years ago is overwhelming and not our best guess based on what we know I invite you to enter trilobite into google and examine the many sites devoted to this little creature. I have extracted the following from one of them Regarding the apparent human sandal juxtaposed to a trilobite fossil. I have heard about this but never had the opportunity to see the foto. In looking at the foto, I don’t see a human sandal, but perhaps if I were to see it up close, it might appear to be one. On the other hand, there are numerous examples of people seeing things that appear to be one thing and really are something else. UFOs are a good example. The fact is, whatever made the imprint that appears to be a sandal wasn’t a sandal. If humans and trilobites lived at the same time, I would expect that many more examples of sandals or footprints juxtaposed with trilobites would have been found — I am unaware of any. Furthermore, there is a large body of evidence that demonstrates that trilobites became extinct about 250 Mya, while humans who could make sandals did not appear until a few thousand years ago.Changing subjects.Reflecting upon where you are sending these messages from (I must admit I was quite taken back and impressed at your cool by your rather laconic remark Ok I'm back. We had some rockets come in.) I would like to comment upon what the theory of evolution has to say about the human propensity for warfare.We begin with the observation that in order for a species to survive, members of the species must replace themselves, i.e. have children. Given a birth rate b and a death rate d, it is clear that either b=d or b>d. b=d would be ideal, but due to the variability of d, b > d. In many species, b >>d.Now there’s a problem when b>d. the number of members of the species grows exponentially, with the result that eventually the number of members of species becomes very large and competition for food and territory occur.While this is observed in all life forms, the situation with humans is, as with many aspects of the human condition, far more complex. Humans have evolved an interesting dichotomy of relationship between fellow humans. Humans have an instinctive ability/need to form groups which are internally cohesive and externally pugnacious. As far as I know, this idea was first advance by Robert Ardry is his seminal book The Territorial Imperative. The result of this evolutionary development is that humans form groups which give individual members of the group support; while fighting other groups when necessary when conflicts over territory or food occurs. We call these groups by many names: tribes, nations, countries, and so forth. While conflicts over territory or food are common to all life forms, we humans have used our brains to improve our ability to engage in conflict to a terrible degree.But there is hope. Since we know that three brains have evolved (see one of my earlier responses), the primitive reptilian brain aided by the emotional limbic brain is at the root of our propensity for war; however, it our cerebral cortex that repels from war. IF we can somehow get our cortex to be the dominant brain, the perhaps reason will be applied to the problems which bring us to war such as over population, and we could rid ourselves of this scourge.Soplar

Oh, good. I get one more weekend when I can still be "me."You and others have managed to destroy 3000 years of philosophy and religion and morality, having scuttled free will out the door along with mentality.Now you are going to get rid of "me."No doubt there is no me but a whole bunch of multiple "me's" like film frames on a motion picture that go so fast that they produce the illusion of a continuous picture. And that's all the hell I am.Thanks a lot.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-07-2005 18:01 AM

Hi SchrafinatorThanks for the info from the trenches, so to speak.While I have not had direct experience with FMRI, I have worked with machines that do similar things and have read several articles based upon FMRI research, thus I am a bit surprised by your statement I compare these two investigative techniques with the examination of an auto factory.If one sits on a hill above the factory and watches raw materials go in one side and cars come out the other, one can try to figure out what is going on inside. On the other hand, if we had some way of detecting what is going on inside the factory, perhaps with a very sensitive magnetometer which could show us where the steel goes, we could begin to trace the fabrication paths in the factory and begin to understand how autos are madeSitting on the hill is the behavioral approach. We place subjects in a situation, watch their behavior and try figure out why they do what the do.On the other hand, the sensitive magnetometer is analogous to FMRI. Using this technique, we can match our behavioral observations with the map of brain activity provided by FMRI, which shows which area(s) of the brain is/are active when the behavior occurs and begin to learn in detail how the brain works.Soplar

Well that is it then. It has been proven to me beyond doubt that the theory/law of evolution is just as relevant as the theory/law of gravity.*EDIT*And I'm in the International Zone at The Presidential Palace. The most targeted place in Iraq for indirect fire. Oh happy days.This message has been edited by Tal, 01-08-2005 03:46 AM

---

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8
No webpage found at provided URL: www.1st-vets.us

Hey, that's no fair! Who are we supposed to argue with if you agree with us???

How about you keep your head down and get home safely? Thanks, we don't like to loose creationsist members.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 01-08-2005 11:34 AM

Hi RobinSorry to be late in getting back to this. Also, I've changed the title as I think it more correctly reflects my response and, as you will see, goes, I think, to one of the cruxes of this debate.Parsimonium appears to discuss three things: conciousness, illusion And what is the mind and how does it represent objects and more importantly itself There seems to be a lot of interest in illusion in many of the responses. It is interesting to note that the dictionary defines illusion as: In reflecting on Parsimonium’s response and others relative to the problem of illusions, it occurs to me that one of the cruxes of the EvC debate is the question This takes one into the basic philosophical area of epistemology, but I believe it is germane. There are libraries of books which discuss this topics, so I will per force be brief.Determining how we know is intertwined with illusions. For example the sun appears to go around the earth, but we know that this is an illusion created by the earth’s rotation. a rock appears solid but this is just an illusion. In fact the solid rock is made of atoms which are mostly empty space. It can be demonstrated that the illusion of solidness is created by the unimaginably small size of atoms an the strength of the atom binding forceIt is important to note that it required thousands of years to show that the sun going around the earth is an illusion and there are some who still aren’t convinced. I invite you to visit this site http://www.fixedearth.com/ for an interesting experience. That it took so long to dispel the sun around earth illusion is a testimonial to the tendency of people to cling to old beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, which is a principal reason for this forum.Now, from a scientists viewpoint, resolving the how we know issue is easy to describe, but often hard to do. As I have commented in other responses, although I didn’t state it this way, resolving the how do we know question rests on the interplay of observation of phenomenon and the explanation of these observations.We first must be sure that the observations are correct. This generally means that the observations are made by competent observers, and more importantly can be repeated. A fleeting, one-time observations is rarely of much value.Given correct observations, the next step is to explain them in a consistent manner. Since scientific inquiry is a continuous process, explanations need to be compatible with existing explanations. Of import is that an explanation that satisfactorily explains observations and is stated in a manner that can be understood by those with the correct background, is a correct explanation.This latter item has been at the heart of many debates. Many learned persons refused to accept Einstein’s special theory of relativity as it didn’t make sense imagine time dilation, foreshortening of rods and other such nonsense said many savant. Fact is, there have been no reputable experiments refuting the special theory. And of course the great Einstein famously dismissed quantum mechanics (QM) since God doesn’t play dice. A reference to fact that QM relies heavily on probability.Returning to the questions is conciousness an illusion? and what is the mind and how it creates representations.I believe that conciousness is not an illusion. To be conscious is to be aware of ones surroundings and ones relation to these surroundings. One uses the various senses, which make observations of the surroundings, to be aware of the surroundings. Now it is possible to make mistakes in ones assessment; again the problem of the illusion that the sun appears to go round the earth. But, just because our observations lead us to incorrect assessment of our surroundings, doesn’t imply that our conciousness is an illusion.Regarding the mind. As I have stated previously, the mind is created by activity in the electrochemical web we call the brain. As such, the mind is inseparable from the brain. As I also mentioned previously, we are beginning to learn where the particular parts of the mind reside by dint of FMRI and other observational techniques. Now the previous statement implies that the mind is not necessarily a cohesive item and I believe that this is true just as the brain is not a cohesive unit.How the mind stores images or representations is coming slowly into focus. We know that short term memories are stored in the hippocampus and that the creation of long term memories requires a transfer from the hippocampus to other areas in the brain. Those poor individuals whose hippocampi (?) are no functional have no short term memory (e.g. 50 first dates)Regarding whether the mind can create a representation of itself, I believe that when we finally have mapped all the mind functions in the brain we will have this representation.A couple of further points, if the mind is created by the brain, this implies that any life form that has a brain, no matter how rudimentary has a mind. Of course the mind of a fish will be relatively rudimentary, but the fish can still be aware of its surroundings.It is the fact that all life forms have some form of mind that is the basis for the evolution of the mind which I address in another responseHope this helpsSoplar

Soplar, I think what Para is suggesting--unless I misunderstand her, which is quite possible--is that the brain makes a "mistake" when it it attempts a "representation" of consciousness. It portrays it as something "mental" when it is actually physical.Your comment suggests that we will soon have a different private experience!But what I think you meant was that we will have eventually an understanding of the "representation" rather than the representation itself.Our private experience suggests a world of mind. There is this house that I used to live in that no longer exists. It is vivid in my mind. In my mind, I can go through it like I have a flashlight, examining all the different details. It is this "mental space" that Para suggests is an illusion. She is not suggesting that consciousness is an illusion.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-08-2005 21:30 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-08-2005 21:31 AM

Hi RobinThought perhaps people had given up on this thread — yours is the first e-mail today.I’m still not sure we have this item clarified. There is the brain and then the product of activity in the brain that we call the mind. The two are inseparable.The mind is capable of processing inputs to the brain from the various sensors such as the eye to form an understanding of its surroundings. One part of this understanding is an image, stored near the visual cortex, I believe, of the surroundings. The image mentioned here matches the dictionary definition of representation as As I believe I have mentioned somewhere, the initial images are stored in the hippocampus which are then transferred to long term storage.One aspect of the feelings one has when we become aware of our surroundings is conciousness. But conciousness is not totally an image, it is the cumulative reactions in the body which we term conciousness including the image we create of our surroundings. Thus, conciousness is not an illusion, unless the image and perceptions of our surroundings that the mind creates is incorrect, then we might say that our state of conciousness is delusional.Also, while the state of conciousness, like any other activity, is controlled by the brain, we experience conciousness throughout our bodiesIt is important to note that this feeling is supplied by all three parts of the brain. Richard Restak, in his excellent introductory book, The Brain, provided this rather interesting possible scenario of a man becoming conscious of a former lover Restak's book was written everal years ago, before the advent of FMRI. It would be interesting to have a person "wired" for an FMRI scan in such a situation. I would image the FMRI screen would light up like a Christmas treeSo Para is correct when she states that the since, in the accepted sense of a representation, conciousness can not be represented. Conciousness is a complex intereaction between the brain and the rest of the body.Regarding I have trouble with statements like these. There is a tendency to distinguish between physical and psychological phenomenon, when in fact everything is physical. As I commented in the FMRI discussion, if we use just behavioral measuring techniques, we tend to ascribe some behavior to psychological effects, but when we examine the brain while the behavior is occurring, we find that there a re places in the brain that are producing this behavior — thus, what might be considered psychological is actually physicalThere are numerous examples of the phsy/psy confusion. I occasionally suffer from mild anxiety. Until the development of the benzodiazipines, the treatment would be some sort of counseling to try to be calm, relax, etc. On the other hand, there is a physical cause for anxiety — insufficient natural anxiolytic which are bolstered by the BZsRE I think I have shown that my comment re FMRI does not refer to the representation of conciousness, rather the ability to correlate mental activity with the place in the brain where the activity takes place.Re I don’t believe that, while the house in which you used to live no longer exists, your memory of it is not an illusion since an illusion is When it existed, the house was quite real and the image formed of the house in your mind was an accurate perception of the house.I still hope to put together a discussion of the evolution of the mind — I think there are some interesting items.Soplar

That's what I wanted to know. Thanks.By the way,is FMRI the same thing as a "brain-scanner"?

PobinGlad that helped.an FMRI is a form of brain scanner. There are others such as Computer Aided Tomography (CAT) scans. Here is a brief description of FMRI that I got by entering FMRI into Google There are some terms you may not be familar with such "Fourier transformation" but I think you should be able to followthe jist of it.One thing the article doen't point out is that the FMRI machine "sees" glucose and glucose is "burned" during mental activity, so the amount of mental activity is proprtional to the amount of glucose being "burned"Soplar

Hi Soplar,Now it is I who must apologize about taking so long to respond. So, it sounds like you are saying that HOW the code came to be is NOT important to understanding the code itself or the mistakes that can occur in it. Is that your position?

{This message has been moved here: Message 100}This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 01-10-2005 10:23 AM

{This message has been moved here: Message 101.}This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 01-10-2005 10:33 AM