THE LEGACY OF THE MASTODON: THE GOLDEN AGE OF FOSSILS IN AMERICA
by Keith Thomson, Yale University Press, 2008
In the mid-1700s frontiersmen uncovered mastodon bones in present-day Kentucky. In this unique and fascinating book, Thomson, a professor emeritus of natural history at the University of Oxford, takes us from the mastodon bones through finds of many unsuspected kinds of animals—tiny ancestors of horses and camels, birds with teeth, cattlelike creatures with claws and, of course, dinosaurs. All this is fascinating, but what makes the book unique is that Thomson links the emergence of the new nation to the discovery of its fossils.
Along the way, he turns up many surprising gems. American proponents of the New World, for example, were eager to prove that the native animals were larger and fiercer than those of the Old World. Thomas Jefferson and others even suggested that the recently discovered mastodon had been carnivorous. They were not without provocation: the Comte de Buffon, the great French naturalist, disparaged the fauna and flora of the Americas, going so far as to sneer that "in the savage, the organs of generation are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female."
TITAN UNVEILED: SATURN’S MYSTERIOUS MOON EXPLORED
by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton. Princeton University Press, 2008
Titan, one of Saturn’s roughly 50 moons, is aptly named. At 5,150 kilometers across, it is larger than Mercury. It also boasts turbulent orange skies, methane monsoons, equatorial sand seas and a polar hood. So intriguing is this moon that when NASA and the European Space Agency launched the Cassini satellite in 2004 to explore Saturn, they designed a separate probe—Huygens—that would detach and drop through Titan’s haze. Lorenz, a planetary scientist, and Mitton, a science writer, vividly describe this encounter with an alien landscape; excerpts from Lorenz’s log convey what it was like to be involved in the mission. “Psychologically,” the authors write, “Huygens made Titan a real place—a place to which we might soon return.”
Excerpt: REINVENTING THE SACRED: A NEW VIEW OF SCIENCE, REASON AND RELIGION
by Stuart A. Kauffman. Basic Books, 2008
Complexity theorist Kauffman acknowledges that the very notion of “reinventing” the sacred is likely to incite angry reactions from those who believe that a Creator God exists and that the sacred is an expression of His being and law. But his provocative argument for a different understanding of God is compelling:
“Is it, then, more amazing to think that an Abrahamic transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient God created everything around us ... in six days, or that it all arose with no transcendent Creator God, all on its own? I believe the latter is so stunning, so overwhelming, so worthy of awe, gratitude, and respect, that it is God enough for many of us. God, a fully natural God, is the very creativity in the universe. It is this view that I hope can be shared across all our religious traditions, embracing those like myself, who do not believe in a Creator God, as well as those who do....
“This view is not as great a departure from Abrahamic thought as we might suppose. Some Jesuit cosmologists look out into the vast universe and reason that God cannot know, from multiple possibilities, where life will arise.... Such a God is a Generator God who does not know or control what thereafter occurs in the universe. Such a view is not utterly different from one in which God is our honored name for the creativity in the
natural universe itself.”
See what we're tweeting about
42 Comments
Add CommentMeaning does not depend on Yahweh, the angry, violent, jealous war god described in Genesis, or on any other god, for that matter. Meaning is determined by human beings. Art, science, love, hate, virtue, vice, peace and war have meaning to human beings whether or not some mysterious Being is responsible for the universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can you have "awe, gratitude, and respect," for a random event? In a universe with no transcendent creator, there is no meaning to anything, only the illusion of meaning. The author should be more in honest and say, "For someone who doesn't believe in a transcendent god, I pretend to have awe, gratitude and respect for the random event of creation, since I know that everything, ultimately, is meaningless."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's start at the beginning> without a transcendent creator, human beings are a random mixing of atoms. Random events can only pretend to give meaning to their existence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, if there were a transcendent creator, human beings would have an absolute authority to whom to appeal with regards to morals, values, an the the like.
How does the mere existence of a creator, with absolutely zero interaction with us, give our lives, the world, and the universe more meaning than it would have otherwise?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's assume that as you read this, there is some higher power out there. Remote and uninvolved, but there. Okay, now imagine the higher power suddenly blinking out of existence and disappearing forever. How, exactly, would your life be less meaningful as a result, or more meaningful before? It's not as if you would know that the creator is there, or if it suddenly vanished. From the standpoint of human life, it's irrelevant.
Isn't it time for our species to move on? Deities were invented in the distant past to explain natural phenomena that our ancestors didn't understand. The world was so mysterious to us that the only a "god" could have caused the things we witnessed. Guess what... we understand those things now. We know that an eclipse isn't caused by a dragon eating the sun. We know that even if it did rain for 40 days and nights, the entire planet wouldn't flood. We know that you can't appease an angry fire god by throwing sacrifices into a volcano. Etc etc ad nauseam.
Did learning those things lessen the meaning of human existence or enrich it?
Why is it necessary to have "awe, gratitude, and respect" for some unseen being in order for life to have meaning. How sad it really is to have your entire existence hinge on the whim of an imaginary being that demands "awe, gratitude, and respect" in return for what... the promise of things that can't be seen, touched or verified? Faith isn't uplifting, it's pathetic. Reality is much more satisfying. Go ahead and spend your life groveling to some imaginary "transcendent creator" (whatever that is)... I truly do not understand how this activity imparts meaning to anything, but go ahead, whatever... I'll stick with the wholly satisfying and fascinating "random events," thank you very much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"On the other hand, if there were a transcendent creator, human beings would have an absolute authority to whom to appeal with regards to morals, values, an the the like. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only absolute is that which we can directly experience for ourselves. There are so many versions of that transcendent creator that there is effectively no absolute authority that more than a fraction of humanity can agree on. Morals, values, and the like are heavily dependent on which particular creator one chooses to believe in. Ask Al Sharpton, Pat Robertson, Mullah Omar, Ian Paisley, Desmond Tutu, and the Pope about the morals and values they receive from "the" creator, and you'll get six quite divergent answers. How absolute is that?
it's easy to denigrate looking to a Transcendent Being for inspiration as some infantile, irrational behavior. Sure, the concept of God has no rational basis. But the fact is that thoughout history, a large part of the population (me, too) DOES find inspiration from a belief in God. And the fact is that a belief in God helps lots of people cope with the stresses of Life, and forms the basis for supportive communities at church, synagogues, mosques, etc,. Isn't that all that matters?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Awe, Gratitude and Respect"? Robert Frost got it right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Oh Lord forgive my little jokes on thee,
and I'll fogive thy great big one on me."
For the purposes of this discussion I'll use the words "existence", "universe" and "life" synonymously. I'll also use the words "purpose" and "meaning" synonymously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrian D, Jim Lacey and Chris Jones think much the way I do. Martin's understanding of "meaning" is very different from mine. He requires some absolute or transcendent meaning to existence that he identifies with "god". I think he yearns to be assured that his life is part of some "master plan", and that his life is not as insignificant as it may otherwise appear. This is understandable, but not necessarily true.
To sum up my views:
1. The universe has no purpose outside itself.
1.1. The corollary of the previous statement: The purpose of the universe is contained within itself.
2. No other purpose is required or even possible.
3. The words "purpose" and "meaning" in the human or personal sense are simply concepts or mental constructs that we employ in our attempts to make sense of our existence.
4. Our concepts or mental constructs may have little or no significance on a universal level.
If you admit that "the concept of God has no rational basis," then it's pretty bizarre to turn around and describe irrational behavior (belief in that concept) as a positive force in society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there's a higher power, then it gave us the ability to reason, and it's scratching its head wondering why we give in to irrationality.
I'll grant you the "supportive communities" aspect, but at the same time, there are nearly infinite possibilities for finding such a community without resort to a belief in something for which there is and will forever be zero evidence.
At the same time... and my apologies if this offends anyone... To use that mystical, totally unsupported belief as a means of dealing with life's problems is a crutch. It's for weak people who lack the strength to deal with their issues internally or through other people. (Who by the way have the distinct advantage of being able to respond.)
This is pretty interesting and I thank all of you for your comments to my initial post. I still maintain that if meaning (or purpose, values, morals, etc.) of existence is something that is humanly constructed, then only court of appeals we have is what the majority of human beings have acknowledged as right and wrong. This, to me, probably in my ignorance, appears to be arbitrary and meaningless.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMartin concludes that if meaning (or purpose, values, morals, etc.) of existence is something that is humanly constructed, then only court of appeals we have is what the majority of human beings have acknowledged as right and wrong. I can only agree, Martin, particularly if your majorities of humans are in particular places, members of particular communities, and living at particular times, not simply during the past 10,000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry, but as far back in evolutionary time as we can reach in order to propose plausible scientific hypotheses about them. And particularly, too, if the social and cultural construction you refer to is seen as emerging over millennia from earlier human group behaviours which were not accessible at the time to the kinds of analysis which are practiced now. Investigations into the evolutionary origins of virtue, morals, altruism, cooperative behaviour or what you will have been going on now for decades, and the resulting substantial literature is beginning to suggest what may be universal cognitive substrates of current values, morals or interpretations of purpose. Your reference to courts of appeal raises the interesting issue of whether anything like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the international legal processes which have arisen in its wake, could have arisen at any other time in history as an attempted universalisation of human values and morality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the precepts of the Baha'i Faith is that "Religion must be in accord with science and reason." With this in mind I see no basis to disparage new thought as to how we might resolve our differences about God. Sober reflection within the philosophy of religion can lead to growth in our awareness of physical reality. --Waldo T. Boyd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the same Kauffman, but two different threads. Same concept, two different commentaries. There is another article which is the same as this one. I've been very busy there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see fullhouse agreement here for the disagreement for "awe, gratitude, and respect" for emergence, complexity, creativity or randomness [or whatever that Kauffman puts out]. I found most agreement with Kauffman in the other one. And I resonate with most of your ideas.
However I have an extra question for Kauffman. Emergence is regarded as a spontaneous and magical uprising of some elementary lower order material/state to a complex higher order composite structure. Ex: Amino acids->Life, Chaotic Systems, Brain etc.
Is emergence a universal fundamental, or is it a defect in our understanding? Let's take life for example. Life's evolution from big molecules to a big living beings like a human, if you take two snapshots at two ends, is an emergence. But it happened via whole lot of tiny mutations. Each mutation is a dumb chemical process. Their occurance is totally random. Their convergence is automatic, as per the environment [natural selection]. None of these elmentary phenomena show us a creativity, complexity or a higher order.
But there exists a zillion of such tiny transitions. And the permutations are beyond our comprehension. So after such zillion transitions we see a lower order stage one tranferred into higher order stage two. And we call it emergence. Kauffman feels "awe, gratitude, and respect".
Emergence, creativity, or complexity is an inherent issue of our inability to comprehend the zillion "simple and dumb" elementary transitions that it contains. And hence it is all right to give them "awe, gratitude, and respect" in the same way as Yehwah or God received, since all three are most likely our imagination due to the inability of comprehension.
And for reality [if any] analytical mindset and curiosity will be enough. Lack of faith will make you more effective.
[apologies to anyone who followed the carbon copy of this idea in the other thread]
Well it's interesting to note that no one has mentioned that those who work with the Abrahamic Gawd are monolateralists, not monotheists....monotheism is sort of the modern reinterpretation of the Jews choosing one gawd over the others. As far as a single entity being responsible for what we call Earth....shure...very un freaking likely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn William James' book the Varieties of Religious experience he sorta presupposed that all peoples were experiencing the same dietie(s) during their interactions. It's not so. There are many levels of interaction with this reality...buddhism it classified as a religion by westerners, when in fact and in practice if it is practiced it is closer to a mental and physical discipline...a science of interaction, as is yoga Gnani, Raja, Hatha...leaving out Bhakti..
but you all know that right?
Fractals point in the right direction. They imply dimensions don't cleanly seperate into integers....but you all know that right?
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Religion started out as science, as a codification of experiences had by mystics, and the interpretations of those experiences by the layity...dogma.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll of the "religions," do have some common experiential linkings between those that actually have "religious," experiences....and in Hindu/Tibetan/Buddhic work there are certain powers and abilities that occur as the result of their work called siddhis...or if they were catholic saintlike abilities.
Commonalities between mytics? Isolation, sensory deprivation, rigor of interaction, discipline, mantras, teachers...
what do these items have in common
isolation tank, meditation, yogic posture?
they limit the impulses coming to the brain, they focus the attention and awareness of the individual.
Scholars and hucksters act as-if, there is single discoverable, standard-reality that they can sell a workshop on. That you can pay $250 dollars to get a one size fits all experience...and I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you too. There is not a. a "one spirit," "one divinity," or "one way of doing things" and certainly not the old standard, there is "one truth." What I have found is that there are parallel realities, "probable" realities occurring simultaneously; and realities outside of "time-based" realities, that are analogues but not exact analogues of what is happening on earth. How do you experience them? You don't if you don't have the skillset. How do you acquire the skillset?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt takes work. Proof, it's in the pudding.
First step is getting ahold of the parasympathetic nervous system linking breathing and meditation.
Then moving on to gazing...movement as meditation, stream entrant...
Rumi and Hazrat Khan, Autobiograhpy of a Yogi, Sri Chinmoy...
words of non Catholic saints talking about their experiences in the "mystical state," of being
SEE ALSO: samahdi
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Sujeewa says: Emergence, creativity, or complexity is an inherent issue of our inability to comprehend the zillion "simple and dumb" elementary transitions that it contains, a perfectly valid observation which seems to me to be paradigmatic with the problem circumscribed by the anthropic principle. While I am sure that much of the complexity of the issue escapes me, at the risk of simplicity I will outline my view of it in three stages. The first is the general problem of observation, method and measurement which goes back to Heisenberg. The second, the median bit, is that it is human intelligences which are necessarily doing both the observing and the measuring. The third is the anthropic principle proper, which alerts us to the risk of seeing a teleological element in the process, in other words, leading us to suppose that human intelligence is meant to see things this way because it is currently the pinnacle of emergent complexity, and that the conditions of this part of the universe have been set up solely in its favour.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo Sujeewa puts the question aptly: Is emergence a universal fundamental, or is it a defect in our understanding? There is no source of independent validation of the status we accord human intelligence, so we do not have any criterion for determining how defective or otherwise it is. An interesting and related issue is that scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence warn that even if we found it there is no guarantee we should recognise it, because it might have none of the significant features we ascribe to human cognition. There is perhaps one possibility which occurred to me, and no doubt to many others, on reading the fascinating view of the cosmos offered by David Deutsch. It is that of future computer software, massively more powerful than any available at present, developing its own self-organising emergent intelligence which could eventually independently validate our own. As in the case of putative extraterrestrial intelligence, the problem might be that of interpreting it.
I am very bad on directing you to my blog. Sorry but Sci-am does not let me write enough :).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor Verily's idea on Extra-T life being unrecognizable, my blog post http://whisper-in-the-breeze.blogspot.com/2008/05/life-if-any_24.html refers to something very close.
For "Afraid-of-me?" [No we are not :)] commenting on religions of different sort [I like the comparisons of religions, which not only broadens our view, but also clears the "Supremacy" of our brain washes] see my sum up of the case of science, religion and inexplicable at http://whisper-in-the-breeze.blogspot.com/2008/07/beyond-rock.html
I appreciate your comments a lot.
And does anyone know how I can start a blog/column or something in Sci-am? I may not be a writer, and I write crappy English, but I like writing and have stuff to write about. :)
Martin, are you saying that, if you had no "transcendent creator," no "absolute authority" to define your morals for you, you would have no problem with running around killing people in the streets, raping, robbing, and committing other crimes? Do you REALLY require someone ELSE to define your morality and values for you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf that's true, then, by all means, CONTINUE BELIEVING IN GOD. I would certainly hate to see what you might do otherwise.
interesting article...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA refutation: MODERN HUMANS DID NOT START THEIR LIFE IN AFRICA. Evidence points to early presence of humans in continents other than Africa. Even the present study, based on bones and DNA comparisons, did not consider all facts, especially facts derived from study of language origin or the testimony from oil reserves. Bones We should first of all notice that Egyptology reveals serious efforts in Africa as far as conservation of corpes is concerned. This explains why the fossil record in Africa can mislead modern interpreters. It is also noteworthy that bones, though solid in appearance, have a spongelike structure. When exposed to variation of temparature over long time periods, the thousands of tiny holes in the bone structure can give way to the physical process of widening. Thus, bones used for study have been slightly, but steadily deformed over the ages. DNA To achieve a comprehensive study, DNA vertical comparison (DNA from people that lived in early years of human history and DNA from people that live today) should be completed by DNA horizontal comparison (DNA from contemporaries living in different climatic regions). In that line of reasoning, it is interesting to notice that an individual from northern Europe can be genetically closer to an individual from west Africa than to another individual from northern Europe. DNA being a criteria at individuals level, cannot be used to explain the alleged evolution of species. Language Scholars studying origin of languages strongly point to the plains of Shinear (Middle East) as the common origin of human languages. Oil reserves It is known fact that crude oil is the product of compression and heating of ancient organic materials over extended time periods. Therefore, Asia coming first as far as oil reserves are concerned shows that most ancient presence of life can be traced in Asia. To conclude, I claim human life started on earth when the planet was but one continent. Later on, the earth was basically divided in just 2 totally separated areas: the Americas and the rest (leaving aside isles). Movements from Africa to Asia, then to Europe have always been possible through continental ways. The American Indian found themselves on the other side when the earth was divided (see the historical account of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, chapter 10, verse 25). Thus, these are the only humans that could be naturally isolated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHE REHABILITATION OF RADIOCARBON DATING Dating methods using carbon-14 show human species to be younger than expected by evolutionists (6 000 years old). Concerning division of pangaea into various continents, it happened even later (4 000 years ago). Some would claim the amount of carbon-14 found in ancient human remains is so low that it cannot ensure accurate dating. Still, radiocarbon dating is considered most accurate for youngest remains. Moreover, evidence points to a 30% maximum difference between carbon-14 proportions found in all human organism remains. Therefore, the method is appropriate for determining global human age. Furthermore, the 30% ratio shows more than 2/3 of the carbon-14 ever produced in upper atmosphere has not yet been disintegrated. It follows that the decay process started some 4 000 years ago. Therefore, cosmic rays could not strike Nitrogen before 2 000 BCE. This fact endorses the Bible account in the Book of Genesis, mentioning waters above the expanse (atmosphere or firmament), a solid blue glassy sea made up of huge, congealed cloudy masses, compact enough to be supported by the atmosphere. Nevertheless, 4 000 years ago, these floodgates of the heavens were released in order to deluge a wicked world, leading to subsequent dislocation of pangaea and surviving righteous human family being scattered over the surface of the earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat I am pointing at is that science and religion are an attempt to codify the same events and their interrelatedness....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisevents occur, and they are interpreted according to the level of understanding of the observors....and also according to their ability to attain and unpredjudiced interpretation of events...those who are trained in perception
yogi's and _real_ buddhist practitioners who meditate and learn to achieve "no taste," or "clear light" practice and the occaisional observant scientist SEE: Bohm, Einstein, Locke, Heisenberg and others
who listen but don't BELIEVE their predecessors stand a better chance at arriving at their observations with a minimal amount of personal interpretation aka distortion...
The old adage that a cup of seawater isn't the ocean, although it is the ocean is a synopsis of why most people can't understand reality as-it-is...
Thier ability to sample is too small and their sample is held in the shape of thier teacup of personal experience. ..
All of the interpretations of Siddhartha Gautama's work should include an understanding that it is first of all a methode of training perception...and that is why it's important...
one should also understand Nagarjuna, and what Mahamudra is....
I remember reading western psychology in the early 70's and thinking how inadequate it was....and is...compared to some writings from 56 Centuries ago....and what a bunch of popinjays westerners were to talk about what they couldn't demonstrate...
as in discuss buddhism or christ or milarepa for that matter or even explain the existence of repas.
ah me
obviously, if you can't demonstrate the abilities of a christ, you don't understand it...you all of course know that Milarepa a Tibetan saint could walk on water and fly too. Right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit has been clearly proven that most humans are descended from tree shrews, not apes.......and that those who obsess over xtianity, are actually descended from regular shrews, ground shrews...who must consume three times their body weight to stay alive, they are consummate consumers...they can't get the proper perspective that having come from a higher point of view would have given them....so they obsess and control as a way of being sure that they can eat everything first...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissupposing that there is a higher order of awareness.....might it not be using the earth as a test tube, or a factory???? What is the end product that this higher awarenss might be shooting for?????? You all are like chickens calling the farmer gawd IMHO.... Maybe this experience is like the HOLODECK of the Enterprise and is a vacation or a training room....maybe it's all those things. I would imagine that roaches think that gawd is p.o.ed at them.....is that true???? You "scientists," exclude so much from your "understanding of reality," that the possibility of your getting it right is "not very freaking likely." Want to get it right? Don't exclude, let the truth emerge as a natural order of existence....will it seperate in to a single truth???? Not freaking likely, is a shoreline a clean seperation between the body of water and the earth???? Is it made up of multiple levels and kinds of interactions???? How about tides???? Listen closely, "IT VARIES," it shifts as the position of an electron shifts....is it predictable? Yes and no....could it be made predictable????? Sure if you had an equation that took everything into account in the universeS that this reality rested within. Dark Matter.....what could that be??????? Could it be the effect that those unseen Universes had on this one???? Naw....of course not....that would fly in the face of your judeo/christian/muslim mythologies that put the earth at the center of the universe....Galileo faced the same problem....but since your interpretations are flavored by your enculturations....you couldn't catch a clue if it came up and bit you on the foot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStuart A. Kauffman, call me if you want...we can talk about what's really going on. I enjoy a good conversation. Wm...sciAm can give you my email if you want to continue the conversation live. Ciao
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMartin makes several incorrect assumptions. The implicit assumption that in order to feel awe towards an event you must first ascribe to it meaning is insane. One can feel awe towards just about any event imaginable and the notion that I can't feel awe, without first making up a reason to find meaning, is ridiculous and archaic. There is far more awe and wonder in a universe where there is no master plan. What is more awesome? The thought that we are an extant species which began it's journey 3.5 billion years ago as complex organic molecules, or (in Judeo-christian mythology) the thought that the earth is 8000 years old and and some Misogynistic Hypocrite fashioned us in His image, had us inbreed, killed everyone, had us inbreed again and told us to practice ritual cannibalism every sunday? One event inspires awe, the other disgust. The second foolish assumption is that there must BE a god in order for there to be meaning. If "God has a plan" or "God wills it" or "He/She/Mittens/Fluffy/Puddles is with God now", how can anything have meaning? The fact that religious proponents cite such non-sensical "facts" as a method of explanation when things go wrong (or right: "I'd like to thank God"), implies that their very actions are pre-determined and therefore serve no purpose other than to amuse afore-mentioned Misogynistic Hypocrite. To be without purpose is-in the broadest sense-to be without meaning. Unless ones purpose is to be meaningless I suppose. This brings me to the final untenable assumption of Martin's: That there need BE purpose and meaning. The assumption that our actions have meaning or purpose-or that the universe does- by virtue of who we are is ridiculous and arrogant. It also provides the first look at the basis of religious bigotry: If my life has purpose granted to me by my God, I cannot assume that your beliefs hold equal validity because to do so negates my purpose; therefore, you are without God. The collection of Martin's untenable assumptions are not new and fail, as always, to provide a rational statement which in any way supports the viewpoint he is such a strong proponent of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany of you who made comments on the article seem to be of the mindset that denies the existence or even the need for a Creator of all things. The purpose and meaning that most humans seek throughout their lives in various ways some of you have reduced to mere infantile mass delusion. One person even called faith 'pathetic'! This is sad to me. Though throughout history man has continued to consistently graffiti any sort of genuinely useful spiritual path ever devised, one can never rationally omit God from the equation. In the book of Romans 1:20 it is said that God's attributes are percieved by the things made in their very existence! Quantum physics and m-theory theory is touching the surface of the issue but many refuse to see the simple truth right under our collective noses for desiring a more 'scientific' answer! i for one cannot deny Gods existence because of the same reason I could not deny that a fully furnished mansion in the middle of a desert devoid of any intelligent life was made by someone. Every aspect of our world; its position in space from the sun, the existence of water in three separate states, the amazing mix of just the right amounts of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and iron to allow the profusion of life we see to be possible, the incredibly complex functionings of our minds and bodies... the list is exhaustive but you get my point. Life could not have come into existence accidentally. First we must come to grips with what all our observation-based sciences can agree upon-- that is: God doesn't waste anything. We have a purpose that is intimately linked with every other molecule and energy form in the universe. The sooner we stop wasting time fighting and hating and denying each other and Him/She/It who Causes Everything to Become, the sooner we can embrace our unique and favored position in creation and get some real work done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore I go deep, I should say that God feasts on inexplicable, and someone will always imagine God, as long as there is something inexplicable - which seems to exist forever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"WhoIsLikeGod" stated that there is no way to disprove god. I wonder WHICH God you mean. If you cling onto a theory like Kauffman's in order to avoid virtual freefall of your faith, certainly you deny God as in Bible. And Jesus DID deny the Yehwah in many ways when he defined that God of bible. Simply put, when knowldge horizen deepens, and freedom of thought flourishes, the God believers cling onto the reamining dark shade of unknown. Right now you can find shelter in few such places as Quantum Physics [randomness] or Chaos theory [Emergence].
I DO NOT rule out God or any such explanation. My idea is that we are unable to arrive at a definitive answer; i.e I dont think that there will be such definite day that TRUTH will be found. But the God of Bible is so primitive that the chance of it being true is very little. And there are so many contradictions within itself. There are so many facts which certainly denies those it defines, notably theory of Evolution.
Kauffman's God is totally funny. Kauffman [unless he used the term for styling purposes] suddenly starts worshipping some simple theory in a totally inappropriate sacred notion. Great Kauffman, this is stupid.
Let's assume that there is truly an elementary phenomena of Emergence. Fine, then that is a segment of universe. If you worship that then you ought to worship, gravity, electricity, nuclear energy and almost every fundamental of universe. You can not bundle them into a God or GUT yet. So montheism becomes multiple Gods all of a sudden.
And I see no such elementary emergence anywhere. I think I do comprehend emergence although I'm unable to mathematically define it. It is just the zillion combination of tiny dumb events which converges along the degree of freedom provided by other elements of nature. And I have stated in different articles [and my blog], how Water Oxygen and all has been supportive elements for life "purely by chance".
And any redefinition is a denial of the original faith, since religions do not leave room for uncertainity, for you to R&D on a new God. This is just for your mental satisfaction you tend to cling onto some dark shade. It is very opportunist, dishonest and dogmatic to do that.
But it is fair and understandable. A very little of humans can overcome their childhood brainwash. A very little can comprehend that univesse can be beyond comprehension.
orderedness does not imply design perse, it implies a pattern of existence and interaction....look up chaos theory and understand it.....a cline bottle says something as does a mobius strip....there is intelligent intervention but it's at multiple levels, not a grand pervasiveness of intent....there are waves riding waves of events and interacting through time, now....and the past is reachable, now....and altering the past is possible, now......where is an electron circling a nucleus? it exists in probabilities not certainties.....but if you can see life events as they really exist you would know that.....propensities exist until they don't, but emergence is just the making visible the effects of communication with multiple intents as a generated nonrandom event....is it a wave is it a particle is it lamarkian is it pure evolution......the physical world is an expression of recursiveness and yet it's made up of multiple universes...not a single one...wholeness and the implicate order is only a beginning, a first step towards understanding...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo all I say, against all odds here we are. we exist. And with us is all of life's impossible profusion and complexity. I recently read a book called the Intelligent Universe that encompasses all the current theories about the origin and purpose of life in the cosmos. In the end, I think that we are like bacteria trying to comprehend the actions of men. We should live to learn, loving to live, while learning to live long enough to comprehend love itself. Recognizing that all men are but aspects--perhaps cells of one creature, with one destiny. We are the highest form of life on the planet; why aren't we acting like it yet? Afraid-of-me's reference to budhism is appropriate I think. They were on to something stranger than percieved reality. everything we are capable of seeing is made of the same stuff, utimately, and mostly nothing. Not like laymen believe, a void without substance or meaning, but a fertile vacuum, an endless plenum of potentials on the cusp of being... i think that may be God; this void-that-binds-everything-and-from-which-all-is-born.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYours is a very highlevel statement ending with a complete imagination. Let me get a simpler example for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSun is our energy doner. It is for Sun that we, Earthians, live. Realising this ancient people [even some of today's religious variety] believed Sun is a living being, a God, who rules the universe.
Sun, as per today's science is a ball of H2 hot and compressed enough to start nuke-fusion. Apart from this simpler phenomena, and its gravity due to another phenomena, science finds nothing special in Sun.
If I tell this to the Sun believer, he'd say, "come on, we get all energy from Sun, our life, the trees, animals the butterflies and everything is there because of Sun. As per evolution, the sponser of the life of earth is sun, who gave the much needed energy for the operation? All the creativity of life of earth is sun and if not for HIM earth is a dead planet. So why are you calling it a dumb ball of H2?"
I will have no answer. Not because I'm helpless, but because he is. After showing that all the contribution from Sun was just pure energy produced by "dumb" H2->He fusion, he is still awe-struck for the high level complexity, ignoring the low level elementary simplicity.
And you are just like him.
But you, like the ancient
A suggestion for Martin: I think ur arguing at the wrong level... "The God which u believe is not the same as the God which some of the other people(against you) don't believe" Those pple or at least many of them first have a preconceived notion of God and they decide not to believe in that God... Like their religious counterpart... even the seemingly athiest are seeing reality through a lens (e.g. the lens of militant atheism). Philosophers agree that there is no such thing as a neutral point of view. There is no such thing as a view from nowhere... Does this mean that there is no absolute truth? you decide... that will be determined by what we mean by 'truth' . Nowadays, the word truth can be narrowly used.. the scientific notion of yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0. But whatever post we had made, even if its from the Judeo-Christian point of view, whatever we write will be true only if what we know about that 'God' which we belive manifest in our lives... for e.g. its TRUE that Mother Teresa really belive in a God of LOVE.. Hence, the truth behind the religous' or athiests' statement can only be known in real life.. not just on arguments...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe DNA code is not a random code that mutates and causes deviations or mutated human beings. Why is it that mutations currently cause us diseases, dis-functionalities and many things that are negative, and nothing that is positive? You should contemplate our structure and its complexity. I've never seen a random event cause such complex structures. They say, "saying that the DNA randomly formed is like saying that there was a storm and it hit the junkyard and formed an airplane from the materials in the junkyard."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly I have to conduct basic biology lesson again. The facts below, again, are not my authentic idea, but the commonly accepted model called theory of evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHuman is not a result of one random event. The humans have come to exist due to a stream of zillion events. It is not purely randomness driven. At each small node of an infinitesimally small event, there were so many possibilities [or choices]. They all get excuted. But there are another zillion environmental factors which unintentionally happen to select the strongest candidate of them, which multiplies more. The selection of best candidate is not random, but environment-biased [natural selection]. The creation of the candidates [mutation] is a random event.
That example of storm and aeroplane do not match. Somewhat closer analogy would be a stream of zillion storms, one after other hitting the junkyard. Still we lack anything to represent the natural selection for your junkyard->aerolplane process - hence spoardic event. Not every process gain a convergence based on natural selection [see my blog site http://whisper-in-the-breeze.blogspot.com/2008/05/life-if-any_24.html]
Mutation is trial. Natural Selection is a feedback system. So the process of oraganic matter -> human [evolution] is a trail->feedback->success/error process. It can occur without any planner. After intiation, rest is automatic and inevitable. But it is not a complex, creative or higher scale process - very dumb, simple, slow moving and lousy process.
Of course you can argive that someone designed it, since no one can disproive a creator. In that case I can argive that chinese dragons live.
Now you said mutations mean no good to humans - come on - it does. The mutations from ape to us has done great for our survival in harsh environments. Mutation does not make us vulnerable for dissease - excuse me - it make us strong fit to combat dissease. RNA mutation of virus make it beat our mutation. That shows that nature does not take us as pinnacle. And nature has no cause or course. It simply happens. Terms like, ineitable, automatic, random would explain few unexplained elements of nature.
You can imagine/interpret GOD out of any of the unexplained terms - random mutations, natural selection [nature's bias] etc. But it is never a necessity for the system - a pure imagination of yours.
But the complexity is a visual effect if you casually observe nature, underlying the single complexity there is an almost infinite simplicity. It is a cheating and ignoring of facts.
look, information is interaction and identity....similitude is understanding....a being is a word of god, if that words gains coherency and identity as an individual and as a part of the whole, that word becomes gawd.....it's effect bounded by the effect/mass/energy that the individual can control......if the individual has access to itself totally, it has access to everything in the vicinity as well......................think about that.......understand what _that_ means..........................wanna talk about !MIRACLES!???......try understanding the science behind them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere are layers of "randomeness," and directed interactions.....the randomness is a form of beauty.....and it's only random because of the scale of interaction.....if the thing that notices uses up some of itself in the creation, it has gained the element of "capability to be surprised," that it is not using in creation.....FACT: cognitively speaking you can use up all of your awareness being/seeing or doing/creating..........awareness is LIFE....you can _spend_ your awarenss perceiving or creating.....training awareness gives coherence and directability....but doesn't increase the "credit limit," accesssing totality and qualifying/directing/shaping it does......there are multiple dieties, and things outside of time and space, that are directly perceiveable, that can and do communicate with us.....dark matter is phase shifted, but it's not controlled by a single phase shifting.....but by multiple phase shifings simultaneously on several different "carrier waves" / chakras......
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdenies the need for a concerned creator.....this is a predatory reality....a controlled experiement, a movie, a predictable event(s), in the sense that if you can conceive of it, you can predict it....a scripted event(s)........teacup of ocean is "the ocean," just not all of "the ocean," 3 blindmen and the elephant........the thing about simplicity is correct from sujeewa, but there are layers of complexity and simplicity........if you directed 7-22 beams of energy together to create a reality and the beams contained information riding the beams, with the effects of the beams creating _this_reality_ that would be a INADEQUATE but SUFFICIENT synopsis description of _this_ reality....now you really need to get this point....the streams are coming together in all parts of reality AT_ONCE....and emerging from the conflux as a universe creating event...time is a construct of the flow of events and not necessary as a boundary....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI bet every one of the aforementioned readers spouting about how everything is random, on the last moment of their lives, at that last breath, how many will be saying their prayers, because nothing is revealed to us, not even to scientists. It's called "Faith."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI once created a T-shirt design on customink.com (I think). That said
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"20 Billion years ago
God said bang
Laid down
and let gravity do the rest"
Science and religion need not oppose each other,
but it is you that need to learn, believe, and live.
leroy_slater@yahoo.com