Why I Don't Believe In God

[Paulclem]

Disagree. All things are materials. Even our thoughts. That doesn't make them any less valid. It just makes them less fictional.

In what way are thoughts material?

[MystyrMystyry]

I think a lot of the evolutionary mis-information is due to the perspective of human/homo sapien (us) as being perfect.

These big brains, and long legs and flat feet, and vocal cords/language, and hairless differently coloured hides - they're not intentional adaptations like tool/weapons, but a series of mutations that allowed us to rule over the landscape - but not as agile in trees as certain primates.

We're amazing really, and it's sort of reassuring to know that some of our simian ancestors were around at the time of the dinosaurs, but when did we 'develop' into actual recognisable human form?

There's Lucy's bones - but they're merely the oldest we've found (I haven't been keeping up with it - are there any older?), we may well have become human on a dinosaur-less, sabre-tooth lion-less, island off of Gondwana (for all it matters - though unlikely), but if Lucy was 1.8 million years ago then what shape were we in 1.8 million years before - swinging from the branches, or had the evolution already occurred 18 million (or180 million) years previous?

Thing is about the specific date we don't know, and we probably did cohabit the Earth with Gigantosaurus and her ilk. But back then survival instinct would have been pretty high along with infant mortality rates and a probable life expectency of 15-20 years due to unbelievable stress levels.

Who would have had the time to stop and paint on a cavewall a wanted dead or alive poster of T-Rex public enemy no 1?

Come to that who would have had time to construct burial ceremonies either? Even if a shovel had been invented. Bones left in the sand break down fairly quickly compared to those protected by a layer of dirt, and so are lost.

[YesNo]

We're amazing really, and it's sort of reassuring to know that some of our simian ancestors were around at the time of the dinosaurs, but when did we 'develop' into actual recognisable human form?
...

Who would have had the time to stop and paint on a cavewall a wanted dead or alive poster of T-Rex public enemy no 1?

I remember reading a book by Brian Sykes called The Seven Daughters of Eve which used mitochondrial DNA to trace back the age of the human species to about 150,000 years. I don't know if that is still considered a good estimate. He also mentioned that our species and the Neanderthal's did not cross although I recall reading something recently hinting that they might have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Daughters_of_Eve

If humans existed during the time of dinosaurs like T-Rex, I suspect we would have seen a lot more cave paintings of those guys than we do today, but we probably wouldn't have survived--at least based on how they behaved in Jurassic Park.

[krymsonkyng]

In what way are thoughts material?

In that a CAT scan can observe them perhaps.

[Paulclem]

In that a CAT scan can observe them perhaps.

How can a cat scan see thoughts?

[krymsonkyng]

How can a cat scan see thoughts?

You're right, a CT scan can't. What is the scan that shows electrical impulses within the brain? Can anyone help me in naming the scan that shows brain activity?

I know also that scientists have developed devices approaching the ability to read thoughts, for example the robotic arm that moves at a thought. So thoughts are at least physical in that they affect the physical world.

[deryk]

In what way are thoughts material?

If there isn't an influx of sodium or potassium or a chain of electrons to complete a synapse, then that thought you were about to have does not occur. Did you think perception was magic? This is decades old information. Neurologists have more recently observed things like love and have been able to replicate the conditions. There is no magical land of abstractions, only the tiny hard copies of reality inside our brains and our ability to manipulate those copies. EVERYTHING is material. That doesn't mean those things aren't special. It just means we don't live in a world of make-believe.

In that a CAT scan can observe them perhaps.

CAT scans are old hat, but you're on the right track.

I know also that scientists have developed devices approaching the ability to read thoughts, for example the robotic arm that moves at a thought. So thoughts are at least physical in that they affect the physical world.

http://emotiv.com/
What you're describing is already a household item. They are difficult to use, but they do in fact work.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

If there isn't an influx of sodium or potassium or a chain of electrons to complete a synapse, then that thought you were about to have does not occur. Did you think perception was magic? This is decades old information. Neurologists have more recently observed things like love and have been able to replicate the conditions. There is no magical land of abstractions, only the tiny hard copies of reality inside our brains and our ability to manipulate those copies. EVERYTHING is material. That doesn't mean those things aren't special. It just means we don't live in a world of make-believe.

The action of thinking is a material process, but it's a bit harder to claim that what we think, for example pondering the possibility that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, is material. Unless I'm mistaken, no machine can read our thoughts. They can see them take place and make basic observations, but they can't read our thoughts.

[OrphanPip]

I think a lot of the evolutionary mis-information is due to the perspective of human/homo sapien (us) as being perfect.

These big brains, and long legs and flat feet, and vocal cords/language, and hairless differently coloured hides - they're not intentional adaptations like tool/weapons, but a series of mutations that allowed us to rule over the landscape - but not as agile in trees as certain primates.

A lot could say that most animals are amazing in this sense, they are all, in the words of Darwin, perfect in their interconnectedness and adaptation to their surroundings. There's nothing special about humans biologically.

We're amazing really, and it's sort of reassuring to know that some of our simian ancestors were around at the time of the dinosaurs, but when did we 'develop' into actual recognisable human form?

There's Lucy's bones - but they're merely the oldest we've found (I haven't been keeping up with it - are there any older?), we may well have become human on a dinosaur-less, sabre-tooth lion-less, island off of Gondwana (for all it matters - though unlikely), but if Lucy was 1.8 million years ago then what shape were we in 1.8 million years before - swinging from the branches, or had the evolution already occurred 18 million (or180 million) years previous?

Absolutely not, we diverged from monkeys less than 20 million years ago, and the earliest placental mammal that we can trace the ape lineage to emerged around 60 million years ago, after the extinction of the dinosaur, and it likely resembled a sort of quadrupedal raccoon like animal with grasping hands.

Lucy is not human either, she is a hominid (H. erectus to be specific), that is she is in the same lineage of upright apes we are in. Modern humans are only around 300,000 years old. It's a mistake to understand evolution as this progressive process where Lucy evolved into humans. Hominid ancestors are not unique either, the fossil record shows that multiple lineages of hominids have lived simultaneously around the same time. Humans and Neanderthals lived at the same time, and likely shared an ancestor, being from divergent clades.



This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution works, lineages radiate like the branches of trees from common sources, forming a web like pattern if you wanted to trace population histories along lines.

The picture above groups fossils anatomically and temporally. What you can see from reviewing that picture is that some of the lineages that gave way to humans also gave way to a number of other hominids that likely went extinct. Hominids were not a rare kind of animal over the evolutionary scale, humans are only special because we managed not to go extinct.

Thing is about the specific date we don't know, and we probably did cohabit the Earth with Gigantosaurus and her ilk. But back then survival instinct would have been pretty high along with infant mortality rates and a probable life expectency of 15-20 years due to unbelievable stress levels.

No, humans are roughly 300,000 years old as a species, and anything that can be reasonably described as human like could not have existed prior than 2.5 million years ago. Something ape like didn't even exist 20 million years ago.

I remember reading a book by Brian Sykes called The Seven Daughters of Eve which used mitochondrial DNA to trace back the age of the human species to about 150,000 years. I don't know if that is still considered a good estimate. He also mentioned that our species and the Neanderthal's did not cross although I recall reading something recently hinting that they might have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Daughters_of_Eve

That would be the date of the last common matrilineal ancestor of all extent human beings. It's a different indicator than the age of the species. As the last matrilineal ancestor of most people from specific ethnic groups in isolated breeding populations might only be a few hundred years back.

[deryk]

Unless I'm mistaken, no machine can read our thoughts.

You are mistaken, but not completely. Marketing firms already use observations of brain functions to effectively determine product placements. Can scientific techniques "read your mind" verbatim? No, but we're probably much closer than you realize. Our thoughts aren't beyond ratio and measurement. It's a matter of time, not an impossibility.

But it's all beside the point anyhow. The point isn't that it can be done, the point is that those materials are verifiably the makeup of what we think and feel. That isn't even new science, it's old science. Form IS function. The separation between the two only exists in our understanding (or lack thereof).

[mazHur]

BTW where will 'thoughts' go after death????

[deryk]

Into the air and ground and other organisms. I guess you could use it to support a belief in reincarnation, but not a supernatural world of spirits.

[mazHur]

Into the air and ground and other organisms.

That's a shot in the dark!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Into the air and ground and other organisms. I guess you could use it to support a belief in reincarnation, but not a supernatural world of spirits.

Well, that's scientific.

[mazHur]

Well, that's scientific.

I wish it were and there was no question of matter and non-matter.