End of the World

[Ierrellus]

Arminius,
If organic and inorganic matter are part of a cycle it becomes difficult to suggest which comes first or does one cause the other. It is probable, if the 1950s experiment to produce life is accurate, that life began on Earth with the coming of an atmosphere that could sustain it. The 50s experiment, in which chemicals supposed to comprise Earth's early atmosphere were brought together, produced amino acids. What is important to me is how these chemicals "know" what to become. If their activities were simply automatic. i.e., it is what is does, this makes a reasonable case for the Anthropic Principle.

[Meno_]

Irrellus, ill take up the slack here, not with standing , just to add a formal ingredient into this mix.

The question of knowledge may not only suggest an equally nebulous concept of consciousness, but entropy, decay may be the progenitors of the minutest elements of what such concepts may become from a potential formative basis.

Consciousness and knowledge too, may be understood in continual conjunctive relation, but as such they may be overlapping processes , where the more overlap the more signification.

There is no insignificant knowledge , and that is why we are calling conscious knowing a qualification to it. But that may imply that automatic action reaction type inorganic behavior we-differentiate, the difference between the built in automatic and willful .



In fact there is no contradiction , only a narrowly defined band in a spectrum of larger bands, if the analogy is appropriate.

In this scheme there is no difference between a thing defined by what it does , or one that is what it is by virtue of how it does it, and more likely is the evolution of attributing increasing inner causation to previous outer ones.

When this last frontier between inner and outer melts away, then the picture becomes clearer.

[Ierrellus]

If evolution is goal oriented, decay and entropy may amount to necessary shedding of no longer necessary parts of a given program. Of course this assumes a lot. It assumes that there is a goal that extends beyond the facts of individual organisms or a larger teleology than that which determines the growth and development of individual organisms, which puts us in the realm of the religions that claim there can be eternal life.
It seems that we humans are constructed to adapt to certain environments and that there is no inner need that is without an outer source of supply. I think about this condition when I contemplate God. We were made to survive. Something out there wants us to.

[Zero_Sum]

I often think to myself humanity is destined to destroy itself and there is nothing that is going to stop this even a fictional contrived God won't. ^^^

[Ierrellus]

I often think to myself humanity is destined to destroy itself and there is nothing that is going to stop this even a fictional contrived God won't. ^^^

But a real God might intervene.

[dan25]

A recent t.v. program showed a mile long patch of plastic debris floating in the Pacific Ocean.
There are over 7 billion people living on a globe that has limited natural resources.
"This is the way the world ends==
Not with a bang, but a whimper." --T. S. Eliot
How do you think the world will end? Or d0 you see the concern as just some religious or political propaganda?
Will science save us from ourselves? Can religion?

World War III, socio-economic collapse, and the desperate attempt at trying to preserve modern technological infrastructure at great costs to the natural environment.

Will religion or science save us? No, they're both the biggest problem and orchestrator of all this. World would be better off without each.

The world would be better off without science??
Without science we would still be living in caves, struggling to survive like wild animals....
I agree that religion has caused many problems.

[dan25]

Homo sapiens will become extinct sooner or later.
Even if we collonise other space-masses, life as we know it will become impossible with the heat-death of the universe...

[Zero_Sum]

I often think to myself humanity is destined to destroy itself and there is nothing that is going to stop this even a fictional contrived God won't. ^^^

But a real God might intervene.

Why would it if such a thing we're real? So far we have 2800+years of absence and non-intervention to match from this entity you believe exists.

[James S Saint]

It's a bit pointless to speculate about the end if you are unaware of the cause of continuance.

[Zero_Sum]

A recent t.v. program showed a mile long patch of plastic debris floating in the Pacific Ocean.
There are over 7 billion people living on a globe that has limited natural resources.
"This is the way the world ends==
Not with a bang, but a whimper." --T. S. Eliot
How do you think the world will end? Or d0 you see the concern as just some religious or political propaganda?
Will science save us from ourselves? Can religion?

World War III, socio-economic collapse, and the desperate attempt at trying to preserve modern technological infrastructure at great costs to the natural environment.

Will religion or science save us? No, they're both the biggest problem and orchestrator of all this. World would be better off without each.

The world would be better off without science??
Without science we would still be living in caves, struggling to survive like wild animals....
I agree that religion has caused many problems.

The only thing equally delusional or destructive to religion is the belief in scientific progress and innovation. In my mind we were better off as primitive animalistic savages living off the ignorant bliss and bounty of nature.

Homo sapiens will become extinct sooner or later.
Even if we collonise other space-masses, life as we know it will become impossible with the heat-death of the universe...

Yes, our extinction is an inevitability and no matter of prayer, self determination, or science is going to change any of that. This is the realization that most refuse to accept, the natural inevitability of total annihilation to everything.

[Zero_Sum]

It's a bit pointless to speculate about the end if you are unaware of the cause of continuance.

???

[James S Saint]

It's a bit pointless to speculate about the end if you are unaware of the cause of continuance.

???

What precisely do you believe has been causing the continuation of homosapian?

[Zero_Sum]

It's a bit pointless to speculate about the end if you are unaware of the cause of continuance.

???

What precisely do you believe has been causing the continuation of homosapian?

I don't understand your question.

[James S Saint]

Certainly you believe that everything has a cause (else you would have no reason to believe that an end would be immanent). Whatever it is that has been causing homosapian to continue existing would have to be removed or defeated in order for homosapian to stop continuing. To speculate that homosapian is going to soon end implies that you see the cause of his continuance going away or being defeated.

So what is it that is causing homosapian to continuing existing in the first place?

You can't just look at the fact that people keep pulling water out of the well and presume that soon the well must be empty. You have to also look into what is filling the well from deep below the surface. It is the balance between those that determines if and when the well goes dry.

[Zero_Sum]

Certainly you believe that everything has a cause (else you would have no reason to believe that an end would be immanent). Whatever it is that has been causing homosapian to continue existing would have to be removed or defeated in order for homosapian to stop continuing. To speculate that homosapian is going to soon end implies that you see the cause of his continuance going away or being defeated.

So what is it that is causing homosapian to continuing existing in the first place?

You can't just look at the fact that people keep pulling water out of the well and presume that soon the well must be empty. You have to also look into what is filling the well from deep below the surface. It is the balance between those that determines if and when the well goes dry.

I believe civilization will destroy itself, what is so complicated in understanding any of that?

The verdict is still out on whether that will create a human extinction level event or not.

[iambiguous]

You can't just look at the fact that people keep pulling water out of the well and presume that soon the well must be empty. You have to also look into what is filling the well from deep below the surface. It is the balance between those that determines if and when the well goes dry.

Some fill the well here with God, others with science.

But no one is able to connect the dots down through time such that they are able to arrive at an explanation [encompassed empirically] for the existence of existence.

An explanation that accounts for, among other things, dark matter, dark energy, and all that the human mind cannot yet even fully grasp about the "parts" before the Big Bang. The part, for example, where everything that now exists in a universe vast beyond comprehending came into existence out of nothing at all.

Stuff like this: http://www.iflscience.com/physics/top-1 ... s-science/

Or just google "mysteries of science": https://www.google.com/search?q=mysteri ... ce&ie=&oe=

The stuff that more or less revolves around... "But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

And that's before we get to the part about teleology.

Some however are able to "think" an explanation into existence.

They concoct out of words a world that is wholly understood merely by "analyzing" it into existence. A "theory of everything" nestled "intellectually" in their head.

And the more certain they are of it, the more certain you can be that they will never back down.

And this of course takes us to the mysteries embedded in human psychology itself. Mindful matter in and of itself is something of a miracle.

So, use that in imagining the existence of God.

Besides, as some suggest, what have you got to lose?

[James S Saint]

I believe civilization will destroy itself, what is so complicated in understanding any of that?

Civilization has been doing that for thousands of years, yet continues.

The verdict is still out on whether that will create a human extinction level event or not.

And it will stay "out" until someone bothers to examine what is causing it to continue.

[Ierrellus]

One idea concerning the continuance of civilization is the teleological argument for a force that drives evolution in ways beneficial to man. Will this force lead on to some final consummation for humans? If not, what is its purpose? If there is no such force, people might as well not believe in any religion.

[Zero_Sum]

One idea concerning the continuance of civilization is the teleological argument for a force that drives evolution in ways beneficial to man. Will this force lead on to some final consummation for humans? If not, what is its purpose? If there is no such force, people might as well not believe in any religion.

Evolution has no guiding direction as it is sporadically random. There is no higher purpose of anything beyond simple survival and procreation.

[Ierrellus]

One idea concerning the continuance of civilization is the teleological argument for a force that drives evolution in ways beneficial to man. Will this force lead on to some final consummation for humans? If not, what is its purpose? If there is no such force, people might as well not believe in any religion.

Evolution has no guiding direction as it is sporadically random. There is no higher purpose of anything beyond simple survival and procreation.

Without teleology there is no reason for religion. A billion or so believers think there is . Some of the believers are even evolutionists. Subtract purpose from existence and you deny it has meaning.

[Zero_Sum]

One idea concerning the continuance of civilization is the teleological argument for a force that drives evolution in ways beneficial to man. Will this force lead on to some final consummation for humans? If not, what is its purpose? If there is no such force, people might as well not believe in any religion.

Evolution has no guiding direction as it is sporadically random. There is no higher purpose of anything beyond simple survival and procreation.

Without teleology there is no reason for religion. A billion or so believers think there is . Some of the believers are even evolutionists. Subtract purpose from existence and you deny it has meaning.

All I see is random existence fluctuating everywhere and with chaotic random manifestations of being not only is purpose redundant but also it isn't even necessary. So yes, I am largely anti teleological.

[Ierrellus]

Without teleology creative evolution is a myth. Why create anything if there is no meaning or purpose to life.
Even Dawkins suggests that altruism is an evolutionary plus. So how do you explain a universe in which survival and procreation are not the sole motivators of human activity?

[Karpel Tunnel]

All I see is random existence fluctuating everywhere and with chaotic random manifestations of being not only is purpose redundant but also it isn't even necessary. So yes, I am largely anti teleological.

If that is what you see, how could you even find out or know that you are largely anti-teleological? That perception that is all noise, no signal. How do you even decide what is you, let alone what qualities that you really has?

[Zero_Sum]

Without teleology creative evolution is a myth. Why create anything if there is no meaning or purpose to life.
Even Dawkins suggests that altruism is an evolutionary plus. So how do you explain a universe in which survival and procreation are not the sole motivators of human activity?

When you look at the world you see altruism, where exactly?

[Zero_Sum]

All I see is random existence fluctuating everywhere and with chaotic random manifestations of being not only is purpose redundant but also it isn't even necessary. So yes, I am largely anti teleological.

If that is what you see, how could you even find out or know that you are largely anti-teleological? That perception that is all noise, no signal. How do you even decide what is you, let alone what qualities that you really has?

There is of course uncertainty everywhere but the difference between me and others is that I don't attribute that to an absentee God.