The Root of all Evil : The God Delusion
POSTED BY: Calhoun
UPDATED: Thursday, December 17, 2015 06:12
VIEWED: 49488
PAGE 29 of 32
Quote:
Originally posted by leadb:
Heh, we were simo composing; if I had seen this post, I might not have bothered. I do appreciate your post here tho, it clarifies that I was correct in stating it is not "logically" justified, but "experientially" justified. I think we are on the same page, we just tend to use different language; or sadly, the same language to mean different things. Isn't it amazing how much trouble 'jargon' can get you into?
It's especially amazing when some of the jargon slops over between two different disciplines. "Belief," "assumption," and so forth both are used with discrete meanings in science and philosophy, but they mean different things. So when a philosopher and a scientist try to talk it takes two dozen posts just to define terms!
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- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police
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No doubt. But if you really want to muck things over, bring an engineer in to 'translate' between the two groups.
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Okay, this took good while for me to read through and I love the fact it it was Firefly that could bring together such a diverse group of philosophers (for philosophers I believe you to be after reading all of this,it would not be remiss to imagine these conversations in a Greek forum with as much magnitude). However it is late where I am, so I will only comment on one of the perspectives touched on in this threat and that is the one concerning the nature of evil.
I believe (I say the word believe because I do not think it is possible to ever truly know anything in this universe) that there cannot be an absolute for evil and that it must be observed and recognized in a case by case basis. However, throughout my life there has been an average definition that has sculpted itself through the observation of case by case situations. When a person harms another (in any way) who did not harm the transgressor (in any way) and the transgressor had non harmful options to resolve whatever greivance they had against the victem (imagined or otherwise), then I believe that to be evil. So to put it simple, If a man harms his fellow man because he enjoys doing so, then that is evil.
Under such a definition (vague as it is, I know) religion would not be the root of all evil, but rather the men who enjoy feeling justified in doing harm to others by thier religion are evil, with no roots attached.
Either way you look at it, Stalin and Hitler were both pricks.
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All good things must come to an end.
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Let me make sure I'm following you. I follow your reasoning and agree with your conclusion, but I'm fuzzy on the details. By your definition, an evil action is one in which a person makes an unprovoked attack on another person and enjoys it. Is that close enough?
That definition might apply to a truly sadistic person, but I don't think most people hurt each other for enjoyment. I think they do it because they feel angry/wronged/provoked/intoxicated/unheard/etc and see violence as a means of meting out justice or righting the situation or protecting themself. I also don't think most people, when they harm another person, think they are making an unprovoked attack. I think they feel justified/right.
So, after all that, we are left with a definition of evil as harming another person with the qualification that whether someone was "harmed" and what constitutes "harm" should be judged on a case by case basis. But then we get back to the original question. Who judges whether harm was done? Would people be able to come to a consensus? The court would be composed of individuals, each of whom might have a different point of view on whether the person was harmed. Harm would then be decided by majority opinion. But opinions of what is harm change over time. At one time, courts supported injustices done within the slavery system. Now they support equality, and even affirmative action.
I think my point with all my rambling is that with this definition, "evil" would be dependent on a person's (in a dictatorship) or a court's(in a democracy with a judicial branch)decision on a case by case basis. Thus, what is "evil" would fluctuate, depending on who is running the show. But this is unsatisfying to me. We should be able to say that the institution of slavery (with its violation of a person's freedoms and individual rights) is evil, even if the people in charge didn't think so.
Does that make sense?
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Quote:How do those species feel about it? I never said one species should necessarily consider the extinction of another species evil.
Originally posted by Malachite:
That is an interesting road you take us down with the definition of evil as anything that interferes with the propagation of the species (I'm not quoting you directly, I know). In relation to my above paragraphs, is there a way to justify that definition absolutely? What I mean is, wouldn't it be just as valid for me to say that throughout the hundreds of millions of years that life existed, species have come and gone. It is not evil. It is part of the natural order of things.
Quote:I don't think it logically follows that, because other species have become extinct we shouldn't care about our own extinction. Seems like saying, “because other people have been killed in Car accidents, you shouldn't wear a seat belt”.
Therefore, it doesn't matter if our species comes to oblivion because the birth-life-death cycle continues on and homeostasis or balance will be restored.
Quote:With you right up till you said “In this world”. I dare say that if this world was that over populated, and it's resources were that scarce, we'd already be allowing the 'useless' members of society to die, just as countless populations have done in the past when conditions have reached that level of extremity.
Or, here is another equally valid read on that definition of evil. If interfering with the propagation of the species is evil, it is good to find ways to perpetuate the species. This includes such things as better medicines and healthier living and food for everyone but it also could mean that in this world of limited resources and overpopulation concerns, we should get rid of the elderly, the infirm and the handicapped and any other "useless" person who consumes our resources. In fact, let's limit the breeding population to only those who do not have various diseases. That way, we'll make our population even fitter and increase our chances for survival.
Our world is no where near that, otherwise there wouldn't be an obesity 'epidemic' hitting the western world, and where you find starvation conditions, for instance large swathes of Africa, you tend not to find all that many Elderly/Infirm/Handicapped, and so on. I think it's incorrect to say that extreme actions, under extreme conditions, are evil simply because they would be given our comfortable western environment.
Think about a doctor in a rich, well stocked, staffed suburban hospital, if they were to allow a patient to die that they could save, then it would be evil. If however, that doctor was operating triage in a poorly stocked, under staffed battlefield hospital, and allowed a patient to die that they could save, in order to save patients that had a better chance of survival, then that would not be evil. Yet the action, and outcome, are basically the same.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Hey Fredgiblet: Back to the origin of life discussion. I couldn't figure out how to PM you and I didn't want to start a new thread. So, I'll try to briefly respond to you. I don't really see our points of view as being diametrically opposed (since we both respect the scientific method and are both aware that we don't have all the answers) and respect your reasoning, but since I said I'd respond, I will... 
1) re: Your question about the early atmosphere composition. I just googled it and most links that popped up did not describe an early atmosphere consistent with the assumptions of the Miller experiment. In addition, the wikipedia link you sent me discusses the earth's early atmosphere and mentions the controversy regarding how it affects the relevance of the Miller experiment, so I don't think it is too off base to have some doubts about its relevance(But for me to say it definitely has no relevance was a bit too strong). Here is another interesting article which talks about Miller and the atmosphere and how his results were somewhat replicated by modifying the environment according to our current understanding of the past earth conditions: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=9952573C-E7F2-
99DF-32F2928046329479&ref=rss
2) I still think that a "flaw" in the Miller experiment is the use of a trap (which, oddly, the Wikipedia entry didn't even mention...). I call it a "flaw" because, while I agree it was useful to separate out the biogenic molecules, it doesn't apply to a real life scenario, in which all of the molecules would react with eachother, and wouldn't form isolated pockets of just nucleotides or just amino acids to react independently of eachother. Without separating the components, you might get a few nucleotides reacting together, but some other chemical is bound to stick to it and gum up the works. Even if it were possible that multiple pools of organic matter were all running simultaneously over millions of years, I still can't see how we get beyond just muck to form something that is more complex than anything we've ever invented. Even if you got enough nucleotides together to form some meaningful piece of genetic information, it wouldn't be protected from the rest of the molecules around it and could form side reactions or be mangled by the energy sources at work around it. One further point: saying that amidst all these pools one was bound to form life given enough time is in some ways not scientific because such a statement cannot be disproven, nor can it be tested. It's like the comment about how if million monkeys typed a million years, one of them would perfectly write Romeo and Juliet. It is an interesting idea, but I don't see any compelling reason to believe it.
3) Regarding what you describe as my presuppositions that life had to be this way -- that is using all left-handed amino acids and reliant on a nucleotide based code: The problem is, we can't conceive of what alternative there is and we don't have any evidence for it. We also haven't demonstrated that proteins with equal proportions of mixed-handed amino acids fold into something workable. All we know is that if you put the wrong amino acid in a sequence, you have a significant chance (some argue as high as 50%) of producing a non viable protein. So, we can't conceive of/build a simpler self-replicator and we also haven't been able to demonstrate that functional proteins of mixed chirality exist. Where does this leave us? Without evidence that there is some viable precursor (yet). All we can do is hypothesize, which is not the firm scientific ground we would prefer to stand on. To reiterate, we can talk about the possibilities of life evolving some other way, but there isn't any evidence for it. Again, we are making a statement that cannot be disproven.
Sorry for the long (and unrelated to the current topic) post.
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Hey Fredgiblet: One more tidbit about the origin of life and my disagreement with the idea that with enough time, life would have had to arisen. I've already said that this statement can't be disproven. But this is approaching the concept from a different angle. This is another thought/analogy about the assertion that given enough time, something that defies the odds would become likely, or even inevitable. Here goes...
I remember discussing in either a physics or chemistry class the concept that at the atomic level, there is a relatively large amount of space between protons of the atoms in a solid. This has led some to consider whether, given all of this space between atoms, a person's molecules and atoms might shift in such a way that they could walk through a wall without resistance. Heck, I think someone even put a probability to this phenomenon occuring (which, of course, was incredibly low). (I'll use a probability of 1 in 10^54 times -- but I'm just making the number up and don't remember the actual number off hand)Have you heard of this concept?
Anyways, this could be an example of something with a very low probability analagous to the concept of life spontaneously originating. In our present day, we have millions of real life experiments occuring in which in any one of them, someone might actually walk through a wall, put his hand through a desk, or even just get a little bit fused with some object (like a cell phone) at the molecular level. Sure, the probability is low, but with all of the millions (or who knows how many?) of opportunities for it to occur, why hasn't it happened? Why aren't we seeing several reports a day about how some guy got his hand fused to his tennis racket, or some audience member's hands fused while they were clapping? Because the probability of such an anomaly occuring is incredibly small each time someone puts the idea to the test. Even if you did it 10^54 times (for example), that doesn't mean it is going to happen, because it doesn't keep track of how many times it has been done and each time the chances of a fusion/passing through occuring are 1 in 10^54. I would venture to say that it is unlikely for the event to ever happen, and a bit bold to claim that it would be inevitable.
This is where the lottery argument (that even though there are low odds to win at an individual level, the odds that somebody will win is fairly likely) doesn't perhaps apply to the origin of life question and can be dismissed by someone still claiming to be thoughtful and rational. Let me define some terms here to avoid confusion. I will define an "individual" as "one person" and "someone" as "one individual out of all the people who are taking part in the event". An individual's odds of winning the lottery are say one in 18 million. But people win the lottery almost everyday, because the odds that someone (out of all the people who bought a ticket) will win the lottery are much higher -- say 1 in 5 or so. Going back to the walking through walls analogy: the probability that an individual will spontaneously walk through a wall is very small (just like the odds that an individual will win the lottery). But, in contrast to the lottery, in which there is a good chance that at least someone will win, I think that the possibility that someone in all the earth will walk through a wall is still incredibly minute. Unlike the lottery, the chances that anyone will walk through the wall are much smaller, and, I would venture to say, highly unlikely, even though there are millions of chances for this to occur on a daily basis. Therefore, I think it is still rational to state that an improbable event does not have to occur if you just give it enough time and enough trials.
Did I explain myself clearly?
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True. But if the odds are 1 in 10^54, and it happens on the first try; you still have life, as unlikely as it may be. No matter how infinitessimal the odds, nothing is better than just being lucky.
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Coming in from left field a little bit...but when all is said and done...doesn't the infinitessible low, yet eminantly possible chance of life occuring on it's own still provide a more tangible explanation than intelligent design?
Take the theory of the humoculous. Some of our ancestors from long past postulated that a tiny person lived inside each and every one of us. This tiny person was the house of our soul and will. This explanation by way of one degree seemed to satisfy some folks until it was asked what then could be controlling this tiny person- another tiny person? And so on and so on? If life could only be created by intelligent design, then what created intelligent design? If you are incredulous to believe life could spontaneously spring from chance...why wouldn't you be even more incredulous about an intelligent designer springing from no where?
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Quote:
Originally posted by ethan:
Coming in from left field a little bit...but when all is said and done...doesn't the infinitessible low, yet eminantly possible chance of life occuring on it's own still provide a more tangible explanation than intelligent design?
If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?
Marci Tullii Ciceronis, De Natura Deorum,Book II.VIII
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/nd2.shtml
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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