Questions about evolution

NaddiaAoC · Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2002 11:33 pm Post subject: Re: Purpose and purposelessness

LanDroid,

Alone in this world what value would you have? If there is no god to give purpose to your existence and there are no other humans to assign value to your life, of what value are you? You will compete for survival with other animals and you might very well die at the hands of another species, whether it’s a lion who hunts you down for his next meal or a strain of bacteria that overpowers your immune system. Not a single being would mourn your death, except perhaps you, but only because you assign your own life value, not because of any inherent worth.

We can assign our own lives value if we’re mentally capable of doing so, but a severely mentally retarded person cannot do that and neither can a human embryo. And some, while capable of doing so, demonstrate that they do not value their own life by intentionally ending it.

In a social context we assign one another value, or as you pointed out, we can devalue one another. But without a creator I don’t see how it can be argued that humans have any intrinsic value. Alone in the universe nobody would ever care whether we live or die. And that’s the situation as I see it. The lives of individuals, especially those with whom I’m close, are very precious to me. But in the big picture my life is meaningless and so is yours. The only large scale purpose we have is to reproduce and continue our genes. If a person never has a child then he will have left no lasting mark on the world whatsoever. And even if he does reproduce, who knows how long his line will continue or if humans will even be around a few thousand years from now. What was the point? Does any of this really matter?

Cheryl

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 10/30/05 3:50 pm

ZachSylvanus · Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 8:09 pm Post subject: Re: theory vs. fact vs. opinion

Sprouting legs is easy, since it's just a bunch of successive mutations on the Hox genes for the limbs. Flippers to drag out of the water, slowly morphing to something a little better suited to both water AND land locomotion.

Now picture you're an aquatic animal, with a slow metabolism. You're a predator. The warmer you are, the better you can prey on other animals. So you drag yourself out of the water a bit, gills still working at the shore, and warm up a tad more than your neighbours. You're able to be a better predator, and are more likely to survive to propagate your genes. As time passes, more mutations lead to a better ability to get out of the water onto the land to bask. The Hox genes shift to make you a quadruped, and you can swim and maneouver on land--you're an amphibian.

I know that's highly simplified, but it's a good example.

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2002 1:40 pm Post subject: Re: theory vs. fact vs. opinion

In General: Evolution is a fact. Not every detail has been worked out. The fact that every detail has not been worked out says nothing about one of the most thoroughly tested and examined theories in all of science.

In Specific: There is new evidence that legs evolved long before the move to land. Animals have been discovered who were fully aquatic, and used legs to move about on the bottom of shallow coves. Of course we can't be certain about specific historical events, but our current best guess is that animals walking around underwater found themselves in water TOO shallow; those variants that could use their legs to get to another pool were the ones who survived events that trapped their cohorts.

Timothy Schoonover · Sophomore Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 269 Gender:

Returning to the subject of Cheryl's question:

How does viewing our existence and our origins from an evolutionary or natural standpoint vs. that of a divine purpose affect the value you put on life? ... A deity is not essential for us to value our own lives and one another, but it is essential for us to have intrinsic worth. So my question is, how does this lack of intrinsic worth affect a person’s value of human life?

This could easily be considered one of the defining question of philosophy. So great is its history that Socrates himself contemplated and defended such issue against the sophists.

There has been much effort to disarm the implications of your question by undermining the religious point of view. Some have said that the existence of a God does not render life more valuable, others state that life becomes even less valuable. I know you and I share similar backgrounds and similar approaches to life and I suspect that you find these answers to be as equally shallow as I find them. This is not a question that you can win by default. Eliminating the opposition leaves us right where we started, doesn't it? Babies still die. People still starve. Couples fall in love, other's grow to despise one another. Life goes on and there's not a damn thing anyone can do to change the inevitability of our finitude. In the grand scheme of things what difference does it make if we die as the victim of infanticide or live the life of Socrates?

You said that a diety imparts some intrinsic worth to our lives, but I ask you, what is the inherent worth of God, in the grand scheme of things? What difference does it make if God himself exists or not? His being has no more inherent worth than that of our own. What right have we to derive value from an entity who according to our own premise is valueless.

Cheryl, this is a path which you should not travel unless you are fully prepared to face the consequences of your inquiry. Even the great Socrates chose to die before embracing the proposition you are about to hear. The Sophists said that all things are but conventions. There is no objective truth. Meaning and value cannot exist beyond the framework of man's mind. You are indeed worthless Cheryl, as is your child, as am I, as is every member of this community, and every person and everything that has drawn breath on our pale blue dot in the grand scheme of things. Why? There is no grand scheme; there is no objective reality; there is no point of reference from the human perspective to drape ultimate value upon.

"I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. Goddamnit, an entire generation of pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression...is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't...And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very...very...pissed off."

...

"You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You are not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."

...

Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God? Listen to me. You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. It's not the worst thing that can happen to you. We don't need him. Fuck damnation, man. Fuck redemption. We are God's unwanted children, SO BE IT! First you have to give up. First, you have to know, not fear, that someday, you're gonna die. It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

...

"I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom."

Cheryl, once we understand that there is no real meaning to life, only then can we truly appreciate the value confered upon each other through explicit relationships and implicit social conventions. What is more precious than that which can be so easily lost?

I would love to end here, but the matter of "ought" cannot be neglected. If life is inherently meaningless, as I have implied, then what right have we to condemn those who regard life accordingly? I have argued that enlightened self-interest demands that we sanction those who take life, but I am no longer so certain that this is a sufficient model. I must concede that I have always felt the subconcious pangs of doubt lurking in my mind although I did not recognize them then as such. My reading of Bloom's The Lucifer Principle has more than ever forced me to acknowledge that socially atomistic theories, like self-interest, can never fully describe human nature and therefore can never provide the basis on how humans ought to live. I think Rousseau, a French contract-theorist, provides an essential clue in that he believes man's only true virtue, in the state of nature, is pity. Mankind is thus inherently social, and I think Bloom would affirm this notion. 'No man is an island' becomes annexed to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' as the golden rule. We ought to value and preserve life because each of us is a member of a larger organism. No single cell, by itself, determines the course and fate of the body, nor does it ultimately matter if one cell lives or dies, but the course and fate of the organism is dependent upon the unity and cohesion of it's constituent cells.

I hope that I have respectfully and sufficiently addressed your question, Cheryl. I hope that I have not provided you any answers, but only a point to ask more questions. I appreciate your determination to pursue questions of ultimate concern and to reject the easy answers that appeal so powerfully to our human concete. If I have ever been insightful, it is only because of people like you.

Edited by: Timothy Schoonover at: 12/13/02 8:55:25 pm

Chris OConnor · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 9:59 am Post subject: Re: theory vs. fact vs. opinion

Tim

That has to be one of the most impressive posts I have seen in a very long time. I'm seriously proud to have someone like yourself a part of the BookTalk community.

Quote:
You said that a deity imparts some intrinsic worth to our lives, but I ask you, what is the inherent worth of God, in the grand scheme of things?

What is the inherent worth of God? What a phenomenal question! People just assume that a creator sits at the pinnacle of worth and value, but why should this be so? Perhaps because the deity says this is the way it is supposed to be. He demands our respect, admiration and worship. He demands it! "Believe and worship...or I'll cast you into a lake of fire for all eternity."

Quote:
Cheryl, this is a path which you should not travel unless you are fully prepared to face the consequences of your inquiry.

This gave me chills. Probably because I traversed this path a long long time ago. What strength it takes to ask such blunt questions, knowing fully well the answers might be extremely painful to digest.

Quote:
There is no objective truth.

I would probably word this differently, but when push comes to shove, you and I probably agree on the underlying meaning. I do believe there is an objective reality, and rational man must strive to bring his subjective interpretation of this reality as close as possible to the objective. One can never be 100% positive that their understanding of reality, and objective reality, are one and the same. But science and reason have proven themselves repeatedly to be the best known tool for bridging this gap.

The key word here is "truth." By "truth" I doubt you are referring to "reality," but are more or less referring to values and worth. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Chris

Half of my post mysteriously vanished after I clicked the post button! Just pretend the above response is much longer and more thorough please. Thanks.

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 10/30/05 3:51 pm

Timothy Schoonover · Sophomore Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 269 Gender:

Chris

Thanks for pointing that out. I did indeed mean that there is no objective moral reality. I can see how that could be misleading.

Kenny Meek · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 2:23 pm Post subject: Re: theory vs. fact vs. opinion

TimmmaaHH!

Ani Osiris · Almost a regular Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 49 Gender:

Quote:
I did indeed mean that there is no objective moral reality.

I don't think this necessarilly follows from the things you've said. Or, if it is true, that means you lose any basis for judging what someone ought to do and you're again left with the unsatisfying business of self-interest and in a position of undecidability imposed by relativism. I'm not suggesting that there is any sort of externally imposed Good (i.e. god) - and I'm not sure I see how serving the larger organism is any different than serving god (in fact, I think it's precisely that close similarity - the serving a higher purpose - which can make the superorganism notion so appealing). I am suggesting, though, that in order for there to be a meaningful morality there needs must be an objective principle by which acts are judged, i.e. we must define Good and make sure it is in all cases in accord with reality.

For me, that principle resides in the celebration of the individual if you will, rather than subordinating that individual to a larger whole... I like to say "everything is local" and that would include morality. It is not found in the existence or purpose of something 'larger than ourselves' (which is rendered meaningless as, in my reading, you point out with your questioning of god's worth and denial of a grand scheme). Rather, Good is found moment to moment in our state of being; or more accurately perhaps, Good emerges discretely from interelational states.

Quote:
Meaning and value cannot exist beyond the framework of man's mind.

I would disagree. Things exist in relation to one another whether or not they are conscious. That relation is meaning. A. Greimas worked this out into a formal system of semantics by which you can define anything by its state of relation to its associated (i.e. semantically adjacent) concepts. The basic form looks like this:

The really nifty thing about that, I think, is that meaning is formed in terms of intensions (sic) and is idependent of arbitrary symbols and, esp., is free of any particular manifestation of that meaning: truth beyond fact, i.e. the meaning would be true in all possible worlds - and that gives you objective meaning that is also internally generated.

Jeremy1952 · Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2002 12:25 am Post subject: Re: theory vs. fact vs. opinion

Quote:
the theory of evolution is a "theory" for one reason

flat wrong. Building theories is what science does. We especially like the true ones

Quote:
it has never been proven experimentally

flat wrong. Reference: Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch : A Story of Evolution in Our Time

Quote:
The funny thing is that even the theory of evolution is not well understood.

flat wrong.

Edited by: Jeremy1952 at: 12/18/02 10:24:24 pm

Timothy Schoonover · Sophomore Joined: 22 Nov 2002 Posts: 269 Gender:

Ani:

I agree with you when you say that things exist in relation to one another, and that relation is meaning. However, I'm not sure I follow your logic when you conclude that meaning in this sense is synonymous with meaning in the moral sense. Can moral values exist in relation to other moral values independent of consciousness and can they be universally objective for that matter? I guess I just don't see how the descriptive relationships between moral concepts can tell us anything about what is good anymore than black is not white can.

Your comments on meaning in terms of intention lead me to believe that I have misunderstood your argument. Certainly you cannot be saying that intention can exist as a meaningful objective moral standard?

- Tim

Edited by: Timothy Schoonover at: 12/18/02 10:24:09 pm


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