Irreducible Complexity

[kilczer15]

The main problem I have with understanding the concept of a God, an omnipotent, all knowing being that created the universe, is that he would have to be pretty complex himself.

Let me back up. If the universe is so complex that it needs a creator, wouldn't God be so complex that He also needs a creator?

[Grumpy]

boris010666

If a surgeon, prior to my recieving the anesthetic, told me that the only book of any meaning to him was the Bible(including the medical texts), I would not expect to survive the operation!!! That man would be a very poor surgeon indeed!!!

Why should other professions (archeologists, biologists, geology) be any different???

You are professing to us that you know the sciences of geology and paleontology, yet the only source you believe is the Bible. You are a very poor archeologist/paleontologist/geologist!!! In fact you are easily shown to be wrong in every particular you have stated. You simply do not know what you are talking about and evidently don't want to learn anything either, though you probably memorize the Answers in Genesis(which has only lies, by the way, at least as far as science is concerned)website.

Grumpy

[QED]

The story of the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest is about how order came about in the universe - it uses poetic language (the spirit of God moving over the face of the deep, et cetera.) and is a reflection of the older Babylonian creation stories.

It's also a great example for man to follow -- six days for working, one day off for a well-earned rest after all the exhausting labor! It seems to me that the council of wise folk in the 4th century had their eye on more practical matters rather than just poetry for poetry's sake.

The Adam and Eve story is all about man's relationship to God, about how human beings have arrived at our state of lost innocence.

Lost innocence? It's a very odd thing we're being asked to consider here: despite all the savagery going on in the rest of the animal kingdom (it's not just T-Rex and his buddies that had the big sharp teeth!) we're asked to imagine that humans were created gentle and innocent. Natural selection has an extraordinarily hard time pulling this sort of rabbit out of the hat -- therefore it makes me wonder how anyone who is an evolutionist but is also sympathetic to the allegorical value of the Bible could see anything of value in this central tenet of faith.

If we consider this the other way around, we find humans coming to grips with their recently developed sense of moral fortitude (recent compared with the timescales of their gradual evolution away from less intelligent species). It's not hard to imagine Pontius Pilate going home after a hard day's writing execution orders and contemplating his powers over life and death. In this view mercy might seem like a curious thing to the slowly developing human mind -- but this development would have taken place long before the Romans or the Greeks. Philosophers from these times would be thinking with our "modern minds" except that by virtue of their lack of archaeological and scientific methodologies they would be unaware of the distant history of humankind.

They would therefore find themselves apparently "floating" in time as though they had always been created thus -- and their impulses and urges (for better or for worse) would stand out in stark contrast against each other (although we can now say that the imperatives of natural selection would necessitate these things). So the most plausible explanation to those early minds might well be that they were created perfect and innocent and at some later time fell into their state of mixed grace and disgrace.

The story shows how we can be confused by our own moral self-awareness, how we can even lose sight of right and wrong (did God ever tell Adam and Eve that it was wrong to be unclothed? The only thing he told them not to do was to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil).

Confused indeed! This is the problem I would like to hear you explain; if you appreciate that natural selection could not produce "innocents" then what value is there in the biblical allegory? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if the story followed the natural sequence of events more closely? Maybe it could have described how God created all the animals including man in their "unrefined" state and then decided to specially educate him away from all the savagery -- the challenge then being to stay on the "straight and narrow" without forsaking the special gift bestowed upon is. This would seem to me to serve for general moral law and order just as well and at the same time wipe away much of the confusion that many Christians must feel about their "inner beasts"!

There is no conflict in my mind between faith in God and the Bible and espousal of the theory of evolution (otherwise, I wouldn't be a theistic evolutionist myself). Obviously there was none for the ancient and mediaeval Israelites, as the Rabbinic tradition demands a metaphorical reading of the creation story.

It's not a matter of what's fact and what's not. Genesis is an important story, and insofar as it is useful for realising our relationship to God, it is true. Whether it happened that way or not is triviality, and appropriating the creation story as a barrier against the inevitable truth of evolution is nothing less than flagrant abuse of the Holy Scriptures.

But the creation story and the fall would seem to erect an impenetrable barrier to evolution as I have explained. How do you personally get round this?

[MagusYanam]

Hmm... it seems you're reading into my post a little more than what I'd intended. Let's start here:

Lost innocence? It's a very odd thing we're being asked to consider here: despite all the savagery going on in the rest of the animal kingdom (it's not just T-Rex and his buddies that had the big sharp teeth!) we're asked to imagine that humans were created gentle and innocent.

...

if you appreciate that natural selection could not produce "innocents" then what value is there in the biblical allegory?

By 'innocence' I thought it was clear I meant only a state of moral clarity, where there is a complete absence of need for ethical thought. All animals, including T. rex, would be 'innocent' by my reckoning, since it has been proven only that humans do any sort of sapient ethical calculus. Other animals seem to act on instinct alone (where the only 'good' is survival of the self), but humans do not. A T. rex would not have considered, the way Pilate might have, the kind of power it would have had over life and death.

The fruit of knowledge of good and evil was the metaphor used by the ancient Hebrews for the ability to employ what Kant called 'practical reason'. And, as we have ample evidence, that kind of reasoning can be employed to the wrong conclusions. There seems to be little doubt that we are living in a collective state of confusion due to our sapience (an irony captured by a metaphorical reading of the creation story).

[McCulloch]

By 'innocence' I thought it was clear I meant only a state of moral clarity, where there is a complete absence of need for ethical thought. All animals, including T. rex, would be 'innocent' by my reckoning, since it has been proven only that humans do any sort of sapient ethical calculus. Other animals seem to act on instinct alone (where the only 'good' is survival of the self), but humans do not. A T. rex would not have considered, the way Pilate might have, the kind of power it would have had over life and death.

Do you have any evidence for this arbitrary division of homo sapiens from the other animals? True, homo sapiens, has the greatest intellectual capacity of all of the known animals. But, I think that is a bit of a stretch to say that no other animals have any kind of proto-ethics. I believe that the development of ethics is critical to the survival of social species such as ourselves and that simpler forms of ethics can be observed in some of the other social primates.

[QED]

Hmm... it seems you're reading into my post a little more than what I'd intended.

I'm sorry if I've taken any such liberty but your post presented me with an opportunity to explore a line of reasoning that I've consistently failed to understand!

By 'innocence' I thought it was clear I meant only a state of moral clarity, where there is a complete absence of need for ethical thought. All animals, including T. rex, would be 'innocent' by my reckoning, since it has been proven only that humans do any sort of sapient ethical calculus.

That would be an interesting proof to see -- especially as it would seem to exclude all primates from engaging in ethical thought.

Other animals seem to act on instinct alone (where the only 'good' is survival of the self), but humans do not. A T. rex would not have considered, the way Pilate might have, the kind of power it would have had over life and death.

Doubtless there are many living things out there acting on instinct alone but considering the evolution of the nervous system and the typical configuration of brains in higher mammals it would be truly remarkable if we had a complete monopoly on ethical thought. If we take into account the Neanderthals for example it would seem to be a developing trait.

The fruit of knowledge of good and evil was the metaphor used by the ancient Hebrews for the ability to employ what Kant called 'practical reason'. And, as we have ample evidence, that kind of reasoning can be employed to the wrong conclusions. There seems to be little doubt that we are living in a collective state of confusion due to our sapience (an irony captured by a metaphorical reading of the creation story).

I agree that there is confusion due to our sapience but this hardly seems like the same sort of "fall" that is used as a metaphor for our moral disposition. As I mentioned in my previous post evolution has recently (but long before any philosophers were around!) placed us in a position where our cerebral cortex has the potential to moderate the instinctive reactions emanating from the amygdala. This would seem to represent a rise in grace above the animalistic level -- something that surely deserves to be celebrated rather than being denigrated as any sort of loss of innocence? This evolutionary development isn't' just missed out in the Christian tradition, it seems to me to be totally inverted.

[MagusYanam]

Do you have any evidence for this arbitrary division of homo sapiens from the other animals? True, homo sapiens, has the greatest intellectual capacity of all of the known animals. But, I think that is a bit of a stretch to say that no other animals have any kind of proto-ethics. I believe that the development of ethics is critical to the survival of social species such as ourselves and that simpler forms of ethics can be observed in some of the other social primates.

Not really evidence per se but rather some strong observations. Our family owns a cat, for example. This is a fairly nice cat, loves to be around people and so forth, and he is also fairly intelligent in his practical sphere (he could figure out how to catch birds declawed, for example). But from what I've seen, he is not self-aware, not sapient. I don't think it an arbitrary distinction, but remember that even what we might consider 'proto-ethical' behaviour in other animals - pack behaviour and social structure among wolves, bees, ants and so forth - may be the result of instinctive behaviour, not self-awareness (and thus not qualify as 'ethical').

I'm far from discounting any evidence to be found for sapience in other organisms, but I think the best cases for sapience in other organisms besides man are to be made for the higher cetaceans (rorquals) and greater apes. (Just don't tell any Norwegians I said that, they might hunt me down and lynch me.)

Doubtless there are many living things out there acting on instinct alone but considering the evolution of the nervous system and the typical configuration of brains in higher mammals it would be truly remarkable if we had a complete monopoly on ethical thought. If we take into account the Neanderthals for example it would seem to be a developing trait.

I wonder, do you think that self-awareness is some event that happens to us (i.e., as an infant we are one moment not sapient and the next sapient), or a gradual process? I think a case can be made for both sides, though I personally incline toward the gradual process myself.

I agree that there is confusion due to our sapience but this hardly seems like the same sort of "fall" that is used as a metaphor for our moral disposition. As I mentioned in my previous post evolution has recently (but long before any philosophers were around!) placed us in a position where our cerebral cortex has the potential to moderate the instinctive reactions emanating from the amygdala. This would seem to represent a rise in grace above the animalistic level -- something that surely deserves to be celebrated rather than being denigrated as any sort of loss of innocence? This evolutionary development isn't' just missed out in the Christian tradition, it seems to me to be totally inverted.

The Christian tradition has often misinterpreted the 'original sin' of Adam and Eve to be that of the sexual act (think 'Paradise Lost'), so I wouldn't put too much weight on that logical rung. The classical way of looking at what later theologians described as 'the Fall' was that Adam and Eve eating the fruit was an inevitability, not a choice either to be celebrated or denigrated. (The Islamic tradition, which I understand can be used as a relatively accurate model for most of the theology of mediaeval Judaism, sees Adam as a saint, for example, and doesn't even have the concept of 'the Fall', even though the same creation story is there.) And notice that God does not punish Adam and Eve in the story, only the snake - he simply tells Adam and Eve that since they ate of the fruit, they will face hardship and pain and eventually die. In other words, they will lose paradise. Allow me to quote Episcopal theologian Marcus Borg's* book The Heart of Christianity:

What happens early in our lives is the birth of self-consciousness. By this, I mean simply self-awareness, that is, awareness of the distinction between the self and the world. How early this happens we cannot say with precision, but it clearly seems to happen in the preverbal stage of life. A newborn infant is not yet conscious of being a self. With good parenting, infants initially experience the world as an extension of themselves: they get hungry, they get fed; they get wet, they get changed; they cry, they get picked up. But at some point, infants in the process of becoming toddlers become aware that the world is separate from themselves...

... [T]he process of growing up, of learning about this world, is a process of increasingly forgetting the one from whom we came and in whom we live. The birth and intensification of self-consciousness... involves a separation from God.

and later on in the book, talking about the nature of sin...

In the history of Christian thought, sin has also been thought of in more "root ways" -- not so much in the plural as specific behaviors, but as a "state" or "condition" that produces the more specific behaviors that we commonly call sins. This is "sin" in the singular. Two theologians from the mid-twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, illustrate insightful ways of seeing the "root sin." Both go far back into the Christian tradition.

For [Niebuhr], heir to a school of thought reaching back at least to Augustine, the "root sin" is "pride", hubris, to use the Greek term. Hubris is self-centeredness. It names the primal self-concern that flows inevitably out of our nature as finite creatures who are also aware of our finitude and vulnerability. The result is we become anxious, very early in life, and in this state of primal anxiety become self-centered. The more specific behaviors that we typically label as sins flow out of this primal self-centeredness.

For [Tillich], the root meaning of "sin" is separation, to be put asunder. Tillich's term for this state is "estrangement," very deliberately chosen to suggest being separated from that to which we belong. Our lives are estranged from God. We live in exile, east of Eden. And our sense of separation leads to centering in the self or the world (or both) rather than in God and the more specific behaviors we commonly call sins. Tillich emphasizes the importance of this "root sin" by suggesting that "sin" be used in the singular only, never in the plural.

Although, to be specific, the Christian tradition is pretty vague on this point. The exhortation by Paul to 'in malice be children, but in understanding... men', leads me to think that in the early Christian tradition, the Fall was not seen to be so much something to be detested or denigrated as acknowledgement of where we have to start and where we're supposed to return. I doubt that you'll find many Christians that support the idea of reverting to sole reliance on instinct rather than reason (indeed, reason is one of the three guiding authorities of faith, in my denomination). It is thought of as one of the blessings we have in our estrangement, one of our roadmaps to return from the exile that Tillich (and Borg) describe.

*Insert your own Star Trek joke here, though be warned I am already aware of the inevitability of assimilation and the futility of resistance.

[Grumpy]

MagusYanam

Not really evidence per se but rather some strong observations. Our family owns a cat, for example. This is a fairly nice cat, loves to be around people and so forth, and he is also fairly intelligent in his practical sphere (he could figure out how to catch birds declawed, for example). But from what I've seen, he is not self-aware, not sapient.

Pardon my interjection but I must take exception to this.

The distinction is not between man and all other animals, it is between mammals and all other animals(birds have also "lifted"above most others, but by different evolutionary paths.

Your cat(a mammal)IS AS SELF AWARE AS YOU ARE. This has to do with the development of the prefrontal lobes of the brain. Apes can be taught "gorilla"signing(Koko was the first) and they may not be SMART to the level of humans, are able to have abstract thoughts of the future, identify their own personal place in the world, express desires, understands most of the concepts you can(yes, there is a spectrum, but I would argue that even squirrels have this ability).

The only absolute measure that always seems to indicate self awareness is, can they play? Works every time!!! Aligators don't play, squirrels do. Sharks don't play, whales and sealions do. Komodo dragons don't play,monkeys do. Snakes don't play, birds do(though they do so a little strangely compared to mammals, their intelligence developed seperately, thus differently).

"The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge"(some say "of Good and Evil", but that is not what the original Hebrew understanding was, nor the Islamic version) is a fair description of the difference, and having eaten that fruit we assume the moral responsibility of having a mind that is perfectly capable of destroying the world(or any subset thereof). I perfer this interpretation rather than a "Fall from grace".

Grumpy

[Goat]

Do you have any evidence for this arbitrary division of homo sapiens from the other animals? True, homo sapiens, has the greatest intellectual capacity of all of the known animals. But, I think that is a bit of a stretch to say that no other animals have any kind of proto-ethics. I believe that the development of ethics is critical to the survival of social species such as ourselves and that simpler forms of ethics can be observed in some of the other social primates.

Not really evidence per se but rather some strong observations. Our family owns a cat, for example. This is a fairly nice cat, loves to be around people and so forth, and he is also fairly intelligent in his practical sphere (he could figure out how to catch birds declawed, for example). But from what I've seen, he is not self-aware, not sapient. I don't think it an arbitrary distinction, but remember that even what we might consider 'proto-ethical' behaviour in other animals - pack behaviour and social structure among wolves, bees, ants and so forth - may be the result of instinctive behaviour, not self-awareness (and thus not qualify as 'ethical').

I am not sure I will agree with your assessment. Have you ever seen a cat when they know they did wrong? THey look VERY VERY guilty. I do see signs in self awareness in cats. They also are reasonably good at figuring some things out (Not nearly as good as other animals, but still, good enough.

They are also good at letting people know what they want.
I was house sitting once, and the cat insisted I follow him to the kitchen, and then he opened the cabinate with his paw that had the cat food behind it. The ability to communicate like that shows a certain level of intelligence. The cat knew how to attract my attention to follow him... and he knew where the cat food was, and had the ability to open the door and show me.

I'm far from discounting any evidence to be found for sapience in other organisms, but I think the best cases for sapience in other organisms besides man are to be made for the higher cetaceans (rorquals) and greater apes. (Just don't tell any Norwegians I said that, they might hunt me down and lynch me.)
[/quote[

While the high ceteceans and greater apes surely have a more sophiscated self awareness, the ability to cooperate to hunt, as found in the cuttlefish, does show a level of sophicication.

"Sapience" is so vaguely defined. I do see self awareness, and problem solving ability in many species though. I personally feel a lot of people overestimate the uniqueness of mankind in that manner. Yes, we are the best problem solvers, and the best tool makers. But we should underestimate those qualities in other species.

[Grumpy]

goat

the ability to cooperate to hunt, as found in the cuttlefish

Wow, thanks for reminding me, the octopi are a third route to intelligence to have arisen spontaneously on Earth. Some octopi are extremely intelligent(if a little strange to us) and can be trained.

Intelligence is not the sole province of man, it has arisen at least three seperate times(mammals, birds and octopi).

Grumpy

[QED]

Just a brief point on the subject of cats, I was impressed by this incident when I first heard it reported by the BBC. In certain extreme cases of Autism we might expect lesser reactions from humans. This leads me to think that there is probably a gradient to all matters of awareness and so called "ethical" thinking.