Who Wrote the Bible?

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Originally Posted by billyjack

i wasnt saying that we have no choice. what i was saying was that the line between "choice" and "not choice" is a slippery one. a little off point, but i'll get back on i a bit: i presume you find man as an animal to be one that is understandable--you must, since you attribute him with the power of choice and knowing what was chosen.

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Man is not an "animal" - he is very different from animals and possesses capabilities and faculties that clearly differentiate him from the animal kingdom.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

but how can we distinguish neccessary events from chance ones? how can we know what is our goal and what are the means to it? how can this become calculable? in order for us to know this, man must be understandable. yet, we are not understandable (look at psychology and physiology today, we have only skimmed the surface of man). so all that is understandable is our "idea" of man, man himself is not. so, to get back on point, your "idea" of man has made choices. but your "idea" and actual man are as seperate as a mile on a map is from a mile driven on the road.

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How does any of this relate to our discussion of freewill?

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Originally Posted by billyjack

so did i make the choice to write this? well, so many things happened to put me in this computer chair that its really tough to say. of course, as you've gathered, what i consider to be "me" is the entire universe (i think you'd say i'm in hell because of this) so in a sense, i did make a choice. but not "i" as we normally consider it as simply something that lies soley within a bag of skin.

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Somebody/thing made a conscious choice to assemble the words contained in your post: was it you or someone/thing else?

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

Man is not an "animal" - he is very different from animals and possesses capabilities and faculties that clearly differentiate him from the animal kingdom.



How does any of this relate to our discussion of freewill?

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man is an animal, but an animal that evolved unique characteristics.

the foundation of the free will argument is whether or not the subject of the subject-object dichotomy exist.

i am still waiting for a non-anthropomorphic idea from you.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

man is an animal, but an animal that evolved unique characteristics.

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No. Evolution is a fairy tale.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

the foundation of the free will argument is whether or not the subject of the subject-object dichotomy exist.

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Sorry - I'm a bit dim on the philosophy so I'll say something stupid here: freewill is about whether or not we choose freely the course of our life.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

i am still waiting for a non-anthropomorphic idea from you.

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I don't think I necessarily disagreed with this.

From dictionary.com:

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an·i·mal /ˈænəməl/
–noun
1. any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes.

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Sounds like a person to me. But wait:

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2. any such living thing other than a human being.

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Billyjack is using definition number one, Redzeppelin is using definition number two. Hope that clears that up.

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Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9

From dictionary.com:

Sounds like a person to me. But wait:
Billyjack is using definition number one, Redzeppelin is using definition number two. Hope that clears that up.

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I believe that would be correct.

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

No. Evolution is a fairy tale.



Sorry - I'm a bit dim on the philosophy so I'll say something stupid here: freewill is about whether or not we choose freely the course of our life.




I don't think I necessarily disagreed with this.

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1) *edit*

2) yes, that is what free will is. but the idea of free will exist in a foundation that dichotomizes subject and object. this foundation says the two are seperate rather than unified. in order to solve the free will debate, or at least shed some new light on it, we need to come at it from new angles. this is what i am attempting to do.

3) you have said you agree with watts' statement saying:

"All ideas about the world, whether they be religious, philosophical, or scientific, are translations of the physical world and of worlds beyond the physical into the terms and shapes of the human mind. There is no such thing as a nonanthropomorphic idea"

well then you would be accepting that any concept or meaning we have of god/eternity/the beyond/morals/ect..., is a product of the human mind (brain and central nervous system). i agree.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

1) *edit*

2) yes, that is what free will is. but the idea of free will exist in a foundation that dichotomizes subject and object. this foundation says the two are seperate rather than unified. in order to solve the free will debate, or at least shed some new light on it, we need to come at it from new angles. this is what i am attempting to do.

3) you have said you agree with watts' statement saying:

"All ideas about the world, whether they be religious, philosophical, or scientific, are translations of the physical world and of worlds beyond the physical into the terms and shapes of the human mind. There is no such thing as a nonanthropomorphic idea"

well then you would be accepting that any concept or meaning we have of god/eternity/the beyond/morals/ect..., is a product of the human mind (brain and central nervous system). i agree.

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I'm sorry - I can't keep going round and round with you - I've lost track of what we were originally discussing. Yes, Watt's is probably right. There - can we move on to something else now?

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

No. Evolution is a fairy tale.

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Even if there is an element of faith behind each theory...evolution is still less of a fairy tale. There is nothing physical backing up adam and eve besides a few pages in an ancient book of myths.

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Originally Posted by hyperborean

Even if there is an element of faith behind each theory...evolution is still less of a fairy tale. There is nothing physical backing up adam and eve besides a few pages in an ancient book of myths.

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Here:

Sir Frederick Hoyle, a Bristish astonomer, has said that the occurrence of a single-cell organism from random couplings of chemicals is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard. There's your fairy tale, my good man. (I assume - let me know if my gender is wrong and I'll edit accordingly.)

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

Sir Frederick Hoyle, a Bristish astonomer, has said that the occurrence of a single-cell organism from random couplings of chemicals is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard. There's your fairy tale, my good man.

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Is everyone an expert witness when it comes to biology? Why should an appeal to the authority of a famed astronomer have any bearing on the notion of the origin of life?

And where did anyone ever say that complete organisms just popped up out of random chemical combinations?

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Originally Posted by Babbalanja

Is everyone an expert witness when it comes to biology? Why should an appeal to the authority of a famed astronomer have any bearing on the notion of the origin of life?

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Because the possibility of an event occuring can be mathematically calculated. Astronomers know how to calculate just like biologists do. No biological training is necessary to use a computer and a calculator.

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Originally Posted by Babbalanja

And where did anyone ever say that complete organisms just popped up out of random chemical combinations?

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The theory of evolution posits that the first single-celled organism came out of a "primordial soup" on the oceans of the ancient earth.

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Originally Posted by Red

The theory of evolution posits that the first single-celled organism came out of a "primordial soup" on the oceans of the ancient earth.

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For the last freakin' time: that's an abiogenesis hypothesis, not the theory of evolution. Furthermore, nobody thinks complete cells just popped up out of the primordial soup. Most hypotheses suggest that cells evolved from certain self-replicating molecules which were formed in the primordial ocean.

some guy that had nothing better to do, that's who

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Originally Posted by cuppajoe_9

For the last freakin' time: that's an abiogenesis hypothesis, not the theory of evolution. Furthermore, nobody thinks complete cells just popped up out of the primordial soup. Most hypotheses suggest that cells evolved from certain self-replicating molecules which were formed in the primordial ocean.

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Excuse my inaccuracy, please. Despite my imprecise terminology, the point stands: scientists who believe in evolution/abiogenesis suggest that life sponatneously appeared in the primordial ocean - whether in single-cell form, replicating molecules - whatever. Either way, the mathematical odds are against such a formation. We can argue fossil records, transitional forms, yadda yadda yadda - but the math points to impossible odds - odds that time doesn't change.

Well, time does, in fact, change the odds, as time leads to greter understanding of the conditions of early earth. One can calculate the odds of an event with greater precision if one has more precise information about that event. Note, however, that while biologists do treat common descent as fact, they do not, if they are good biologists, treat the currently accepted hypotheses of abiogenesis as one. For the purposes of biological evolution, it doesn't really matter if the common ancestor came from primordial DNA-like molecules, God, martians, the infinite improbability drive or whatever.