Do you accept the theory of evolution? - Part 1

[Thundercrack85]

One thing I seem to read a lot is people saying that aliens won't look like us (i.e. the kind that can get to Earth).

I would say that convergent evolution would seem to imply that they will probably look very much like us. Especially if they come from a goldilocks planet.

Their may even be other apes out there.

 

[moviedoors]

I see you keep saying that, but I don't know. Of all the billions and billions of planets out there that could potentially harbor life, I'd be shocked if the standard form for most life is just a bunch of bipeds. Goldilocks zone or not, there's so many other factors to consider. Gravity? If it's higher, you're less likely to get something that stands vertically. You'd see something more centipede or crab like. If it's lower and the atmosphere is thicker? Than most certainly, flight is going to be part of the equation. Less pull, more lift, way more creatures are going to be airborne. What about a tidally locked planet? Imagine the flora that could develop on a planet that has a side that is perpetually in sunlight? Or what about the insane evolutionary offshoots that could take off on the side that will never see daylight? You're entire ecosystem is different based on the simple fact that the planet doesn't rotate. You could have an entire planet of extremophiles. What about a gas giant? The atmospheres of those planets can be so rich, and they give off so much energy, that life could thrive there, but only in ways completely and utterly foreign to us. What about a planet that's entire surface is liquid? Bipeds weren't designed for aquatic living.

That's just a few examples of how things might go. Just look at the massive range of life on our planet. Land based, sea based, plant life, fauna, vertebrates, invertebrates, limbless, eyeless. I see no reason to make a blanket statement that other intelligent life forms will be closer to us in physical form than they would worms or pitcher plants or krill or a million forms we lack the imagination to conjure.

 

[Piper Maru]

Life on Jupiter - Carl Sagan
[YT]uakLB7Eni2E[/YT]

 

[Thundercrack85]

Centipedes and crabs won't be building starships.

Billions of years of evolution, countless other species, and nothing else has come close to being able to do what we can do (by we I mean bipeds). We're the only species to have set foot on another celestial body.

Now granted, perhaps there's some species out there with tentacles, that can pull it off, but it seems likely that we'll encounter some humanoids, at least when it comes to spacefaring species.

You're not going to find limbless aliens in space (you'll find them on alien planets, but not in space).

 

[moviedoors]

Centipedes and crabs won't be building starships.

Why not? Tactile, many limbed animal designs. In terms of form, already capable creatures. Put a human brain in an evolved crustacean form. I see zero reason to think a creature like that couldn't exist, nay, doesn't already exist somewhere in the universe, and be space faring race. Why couldn't something that looks like a starfish, or a roach, or a dragonfly, or a spider become space fairing?

I say! this is human exceptionalism at play!

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, for one thing, it's hard to build a wheel with claws. Then try building a working spaceship. Quite a learning curve.

Actually seems rather cruel to give such a creature a human-like brain.

Our brains and bodies evolved simultaneously.

Though looking at gorilla feet, I think they got the better deal there... Well, our feet our great for running. But if you're lazy, it'd be pretty cool to have hand-like feet.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[Doctor Evo]

Your condescending tone doesn't bring validity to your claims.

How was that condescending? You said you were missing something, and I said I wasn't sure which part you were missing. We essentially agreed with one another. I apologize that you took offense. I was also placing emphasis to make my point more clear (regarding the italicized and underlined text). Was that the problem?

If you're going to be this sensitive, maybe this conversation shouldn't continue.

We are talking about free will.

If I knew my son was going to commit a murder at 20 and I still chose to have him, he would still be the entity choosing to commit that murder.

If the murder is a forgone conclusion, how do you figure he actually has a choice? I think your reasoning is fundamentally flawed.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[Doctor Evo]

One thing I seem to read a lot is people saying that aliens won't look like us (i.e. the kind that can get to Earth).

I would say that convergent evolution would seem to imply that they will probably look very much like us. Especially if they come from a goldilocks planet.

Their may even be other apes out there.

This argument would be far more valid if we had evidence of the existence of other anthropomorphic beings that were derived through an independent evolutionary lineage within the history of our own planet. The simple fact is that there are many taxa that are morphologically and physiologically unique; if your argument were based in reality, we should expect (realistically) to see only a very few general morphotypes for a given environment. This is decidedly not the case.

Parallel adaptive radiation appears to work in far too general a fashion to justify your prediction. There's also the issue of ecological niches being based, at least in part, on existing diversity. That is to say, the evolutionary history of co-existing organisms may play a huge role in future evolutionary development. Your argument must also assume, then, a progression of evolutionary development identical to earth's across multiple (and potentially all) lineages on this hypothetical planet, which seems rather unlikely.

 

[Doctor Evo]

It's all a matter of perspective, like I said in my edited post above.

I don't think knowing what other people will do means they won't do it by choice.

I really don't feel you've answered this question, though. I'm not sure there isn't a right answer:

If the murder is a forgone conclusion, how do you figure he actually has a choice?

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[nogster]

I just don't see the incompatibility. If you could look into the future, you'd see what will happen. But if you chose to let it happen anyway, you wouldn't have any influence over it.

Maybe I will choose to move to Australia after a job opportunity is presented to me in 2020. If you knew it right now, would that become your decision rather than mine?

I guess I just see that omniscience as something completely different than the creation process.

If God creates, I don't think he does it depending on what it will result in. God is supposedly a selfless entity, and I don't think he does things to suit a personal agenda.

Omniscience is not just knowing one event. Thats a poor analogy.
Its knowing everything. Every thought, action and repurcussion of everyones "choices" and the events or incidents that influenced these choices. past, present and future.
This god is said to be not only omniscient, but also omnipotent. The creator of the entire universe and all matter, living or otherwise.
Nothing is created that he doesnt have complete knowledge of. If this is the case, then free will is an illusion because our paths have already been written.
Regardless of whether we actually make them. we can't make a decision contrary to his will.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[Greens]

Well obviously God has an agenda. He wants everyone to worship him.

 

[Doctor Evo]

I just don't see the incompatibility. If you could look into the future, you'd see what will happen. But if you chose to let it happen anyway, you wouldn't have any influence over it.

But the choice you make is critical here. You routinely ignore that factor.

Maybe I will choose to move to Australia after a job opportunity is presented to me in 2020. If you knew it right now, would that become your decision rather than mine?

If I were able to make a choice or to take an action that would directly set that sequence of events into place, then yes, it would.

If God creates, I don't think he does it depending on what it will result in. God is supposedly a selfless entity, and I don't think he does things to suit a personal agenda.

This again misses the point entirely.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well obviously God has an agenda. He wants everyone to worship him.

Don't you want your kids to worship you and praise you every day?

 

[Greens]

Don't you want your kids to worship you and praise you every day?

Of course! I don't claim to be entirely selfless, though.

 

[Thundercrack85]

And that's totally typical healthy behavior. Not at all disturbing.

I wonder what religion would be like with a "cool dad" holy father, instead of a creepy, jealous, psychopathic one.

You know, instead of smiting us, he'd buy us a beer, or let us drive his car.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[Bill]

I don't see what I'm ignoring.

You're getting reponsibility and decision-making mixed up. If you want to say that God is responsible for everything we do because he lets it happen, then yes. He's still not the one taking those decisions for us. Creation doesn't change anything about it if his sole purpose is to create altruistically, selflessly, without any personal objective or agenda.



But that's my point. You can't. You're just a witness of what the future will be. You don't come into play when it comes to my decisions. You haven't made them for me.

Like I said, perspective. From our point of view as human beings, there's nothing we can surrender to whenever we have a choice to make. We assess the situation, and choose. We have our free will. Whether it's written or not doesn't matter, because we are consciously taking those decisions when they are presented to us. We experience that choice, we live it, and therefore, it exists.

You're talking after the fact of creation. To simplify: Did you have the choice to be created and be a pawn in God's game? Your choices, your fate, everything has already been decided, and the choices in the confines of your perspective were made with the limitations of your experiences, education, and upbringing, but you were not given the one crucial choice that would have made free will truly free; the choice to be created or born in the first place. God made that decision for you. He put you in the game without your consent. He gave you a mind limited by factors beyond your control, and placed you into an environment in which all that "free will" is only as good as the quality that those factors will allow. If you had the "choice," would have chosen to be limited by those factors, or anything else? You're playing on someone else's board, under someone's rules, and working towards a goal laid out by someone else, and you were never given the choice to partake in any of it. How free do you really think you are?

 

[Doctor Evo]

I don't see what I'm ignoring.

You're getting reponsibility and decision-making mixed up.

I am doing no such thing.

If you want to say that God is responsible for everything we do because he lets it happen, then yes. He's still not the one taking those decisions for us. Creation doesn't change anything about it if his sole purpose is to create altruistically, selflessly, without any personal objective or agenda.

The question of his will or his purpose is entirely irrelevant. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make that particular point.

But that's my point. You can't. You're just a witness of what the future will be. You don't come into play when it comes to my decisions. You haven't made them for me.

But God can: he can either create you, or not create you. Why present an analogy that isn't applicable to the discussion in any way, shape or form? Yet AGAIN you ignore the fact that God is an actor, not merely an observer, in this process. You consistently ignore the act of creation.

If by committing the act of creating you I ensure that that particular choice will be made, it is no longer a choice on your part. It is an illusion that it is any longer your own choice. That isn't free will: it is the illusion of free will.

It was decided that the event would occur before you were ever even capable of making that "choice."

^ The underlined and bolded portion is the entire point. You have yet to address this point at all.

I have a feeling that from here on out, I'm simply going to be repeating myself. There are only so many ways I can present the same argument, so I'm going to step away from this particular discussion. I'd much rather discuss evolutionary biology, and this conversation seems far more suited to the Atheism thread.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted

 

[Thundercrack85]

Why are you guys arguing about the intentions of someone who doesn't exist, and didn't create us?

It's fairly pointless.

 

[Mandalore464]

Edit : Deleted