The Religion subforum.

Theoryofrelativity said:
there is no adequate scientific answer to this question, as I am sure you are aware

meanwhile

"Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (published in 1859), had presented an argument that modern organisms had evolved, over immense periods of time, from simpler ancestral forms, that species changed over time. Darwin himself declined to speculate on some implications of his theory - that at some point there may have existed an ur-organism with no prior ancestor and that such an organism may have come into existence, formed from non-living molecules."

If this can happen randomly why with all our intelligence can't we create life from non living molecules?
Why won't you get a book? Do I have to find the links that show the highly plausable scientific development of all kinds of eyes in the animal kingdom?
 
Theoryofrelativity said:
Our schools teach that random events are capable of phenomenally more than we deliberate intelligent beings are.

meanwhile your comment is evidence of your indoctrination.

I think for myself.
No, you don't. You speak from fear. And WADR, incredible ignorance of the topic.
 
superluminal said:
No, you don't. You speak from fear. And WADR, incredible ignorance of the topic.

fear of what? I have no religion, was not raised with it, not taught religion of any description in school (oh something on indian weddings once) never read the Bible etc etc.
 
Theoryofrelativity said:
fear of what? I have no religion, was not raised with it, not taught religion of any description in school (oh something on indian weddings once) never read the Bible etc etc.
Then why are you so anti-evolution without even investigating it?
 
Whoa. I am completely done with you, superluminal. Not only did you miss the point, you didn't even try. The next time you try shredding an argument, make sure you understand what's being said.
 
superluminal said:
that's it? that's all you have to say about my question?

seeing as how science treats evolution and abiogenesis as different what is the evidence that atoms become alive? the plain and simple answer is that there is not one shred of evidence that supports that hypothesis. that is my biggest beef whith what is taught in our schools, our students are being misled into believing that science has solved the problem of how we got here.
 
superluminal said:
Here's one. Google on "evolution of eyes". Please read the actual science ones, not the creationist or religious ones. I already know all of the arguments against evolution.

http://www.karger.com/gazette/64/fernald/art_1_0.htm

from your link:

"How did eyes evolve? Darwin, the great English naturalist who first brought the systematic explanatory power of evolution to bear on the bewildering biological complexity of our planet, felt that eyes offered a special challenge to evolutionary thinking because they are such '...organs of extreme perfection and complication...' (1859). He was quite explicit on this point, saying '...that the eye....could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree'. More than a century later, with new insights that reach from molecular to macroscopic levels of analysis, new mysteries reinforce Darwin's prescient writing. We still have much to learn from the evolution of eyes, both about the existing eyes as well as the processes of evolution that produced them"

Thank you for supporting my view :)
 
invert_nexus said:
You do realize, ToR, that this eyeball complexity argument is one of the most hackneyed creationist ploys out there? There are a million and one 'links' debunking it.

Your statement that there is no "adequate scientific answer" is completely ridiculous.

You do realize this, don't you?

Here. Take your pick: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="human+eye"+evolution&btnG=Google+Search

I picked

"Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera."

'How SOME scientists THINK' is not really much 'evidence' wise Invert? FULL of doubt.
 
Oh and I have studied evolution I know all about bats for example and little finches ;)

It is the wonder of evolution that convinces me more that evolution itself was designed and beautifully beautifuly so.
 
Look, ToR.

What the hell do you want?
Do you want the story from a to z which explains the wonderful masterpiece of the human eye? The masterpiece that could not possibly have evolved a piece at a time because its so perfect and flawless in its design?

Guess what, ToR.

The human eye is a shitty design. Why the hell are the blood vessels above the retinal layer? Do you realize how much of a problem this is? And the blind spot?

Come on. The human eye is lucky to work.

Try octupus eyes. Much better 'design'.
 
invert_nexus said:
Look, ToR.

What the hell do you want?
Do you want the story from a to z which explains the wonderful masterpiece of the human eye? The masterpiece that could not possibly have evolved a piece at a time because its so perfect and flawless in its design?

Guess what, ToR.

The human eye is a shitty design. Why the hell are the blood vessels above the retinal layer? Do you realize how much of a problem this is? And the blind spot?

Come on. The human eye is lucky to work.

Try octupus eyes. Much better 'design'.

invert, it is not directly related but if you read that link re consciousness the apparant flaws of the human eye are not neccessarily relevant as we manage to 'see' in ways not necessarily determined by their design. This is brain stuff but it is afterall the brain that 'see's and not the eye in any case.

"One crucial question, then, is whether perceptual states as well as beliefs admit of both conscious and non-conscious varieties. Can there be, for example, such a thing as a non-conscious visual perceptual state? Higher-order theorists are united in thinking that there can. Armstrong (1968) uses the example of absent-minded driving to make the point. Most of us at some time have had the rather unnerving experience of ‘coming to’ after having been driving on ‘automatic pilot’ while our attention was directed elsewhere -- perhaps having been day-dreaming or engaged in intense conversation with a passenger. We were apparently not consciously aware of any of the route we have recently taken, nor of any of the obstacles we avoided on the way. Yet we must surely have been seeing, or we would have crashed the car. Others have used the example of blindsight (Carruthers, 1989, 1996). This is a condition in which subjects have had a portion of their primary visual cortex destroyed, and apparently become blind in a region of their visual field as a result. But it has now been known for some time that if subjects are asked to guess at the properties of their ‘blind’ field (e.g. whether it contains a horizontal or vertical grating, or whether it contains an ‘X’ or an ‘O’), they prove remarkably accurate. Subjects can also reach out and grasp objects in their ‘blind’ field with something like 80% or more of normal accuracy, and can catch a ball thrown from their ‘blind’ side, all without conscious awareness. (See Weiskrantz, 1986, 1997, for details and discussion.)

More recently, a powerful case for the existence of non-conscious visual experience has been generated by the two-systems theory of vision proposed and defended by Milner and Goodale (1995). They review a wide variety of kinds of neurological and neuro-psychological evidence for the substantial independence of two distinct visual systems, instantiated in the temporal and parietal lobes respectively. They conclude that the parietal lobes provide a set of specialized semi-independent modules for the on-line visual control of action; whereas the temporal lobes are primarily concerned with more off-line functions such as visual learning and object recognition. And only the experiences generated by the temporal-lobe system are phenomenally conscious, on their account."


"But what implications does this have for phenomenal consciousness? Must these non-conscious percepts also be lacking in phenomenal properties? Most people think so. While it may be possible to get oneself to believe that the perceptions of the absent-minded car driver can remain phenomenally conscious (perhaps lying outside of the focus of attention, or being instantly forgotten), it is very hard to believe that either blindsight percepts or D.F.'s sensorimotor perceptual states might be phenomenally conscious ones. For these perceptions are ones to which the subjects of those states are blind, and of which they cannot be aware. And the question, then, is what makes the relevant difference? What is it about a conscious perception which renders it phenomenal, which a blindsight perceptual state would correspondingly lack? Higher-order theorists are united in thinking that the relevant difference consists in the presence of something higher-order in the first case which is absent in the second. The core intuition is that a phenomenally conscious state will be a state of which the subject is aware.

What options does a first-order theorist have to resist this conclusion? One is to deny the data (as does Dretske, 1995). It can be said that the non-conscious states in question lack the kind of fineness of grain and richness of content necessary to count as genuinely perceptual states. On this view, the contrast discussed above isn't really a difference between conscious and non-conscious perceptions, but rather between conscious perceptions, on the one hand, and non-conscious belief-like states, on the other. Another option is to accept the distinction between conscious and non-conscious perceptions, and then to explain that distinction in first-order terms. It might be said, for example, that conscious perceptions are those which are available to belief and thought, whereas non-conscious ones are those which are available to guide movement (Kirk, 1994). A final option is to bite the bullet, and insist that blindsight and sensorimotor perceptual states are indeed phenomenally conscious while not being access-conscious. (See Block, 1995; Tye, 1995; and Nelkin, 1996; all of whom defend versions of this view.) On this account, blindsight percepts are phenomenally conscious states to which the subjects of those states are blind. Higher-order theorists will argue, of course, that none of these alternatives is acceptable (see, e.g., Carruthers, 2000).

In general, then, higher-order theories of phenomenal consciousness claim the following:

Higher Order Theory (In General):
A phenomenally conscious mental state is a mental state (of a certain sort -- see below) which either is, or is disposed to be, the object of a higher-order representation of a certain sort (see below).
Higher-order theorists will allow, of course, that mental states can be targets of higher-order representation without being phenomenally conscious. For example, a belief can give rise to a higher-order belief without thereby being phenomenally conscious. What is distinctive of phenomenal consciousness is that the states in question should be perceptual or quasi-perceptual ones (e.g. visual images as well as visual percepts). Moreover, most cognitive/representational theorists will maintain that these states must possess a certain kind of analog (fine-grained) or non-conceptual intentional content. What makes perceptual states, mental images, bodily sensations, and emotional feelings phenomenally conscious, on this approach, is that they are conscious states with analog or non-conceptual contents. So putting these points together, we get the view that phenomenally conscious states are those states which possess fine-grained intentional contents of which the subject is aware, being the target or potential target of some sort of higher-order representation.

There are then two main dimensions along which higher-order theorists disagree amongst themselves. One concerns whether the higher-order states in question are belief-like or perception-like. Those taking the former option are higher-order thought theorists, and those taking the latter are higher-order experience or ‘inner-sense’ theorists. The other disagreement is internal to higher-order thought approaches, and concerns whether the relevant relation between the first-order state and the higher-order thought is one of availability or not. That is, the question is whether a state is conscious by virtue of being disposed to give rise to a higher-order thought, or rather by virtue of being the actual target of such a thought. These are the options which will now concern "


bit of blah blah but interesting so included it all.
 
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