End of the World

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.

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: iflscience.com/physics/top-1 … s-science/

Or just google “mysteries of science”: 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?

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

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

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.

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?

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?

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

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

I am not sure how that responds to what I wrote. If there is uncertainty everywhere how do you even have self-knowledge? For example regarding your own anti-teleological belief?

Zero,
No evolutionary teleology? Every stem cell in your body “knows” what organ it will produce. This is hard determinism on a biological level. It is evidence that DNA construction of organisms contains its own deterministic purposes.

Whether it’s correct or not there has to be some level of pragmatism concerning day to day survival.

I will never say all of human survival or existence is rational, far from it.

Be as that they may be for me that is far more sufficient in saying than some make believe nonexistent God deity.

Most of evolutionary theory is incomplete and imperfect where I’m not even comfortable speaking about any of that in absolute terms. It is the best explanation thus far however and I am a determinist.

Haha if you can’t trust yourself, can you trust your mistrust of yourself? If you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anything. I trust myself knowing I will be right and wrong sometimes because I have no other choice but to trust myself. Nothing is certain, but I still have to trust my statistical assessment.

There is no teleology because there would be no point if there were. The plan is to not have a plan.

Yeah, basically my own point also.

Sure, and as a practical heuristic I take the same stance. If I can’t trust myself, then…well, it’s game over. This is oversimplified, since we both, presumably, calibrate, notice where we have biases and weaknesses and try to fix these, but sure. But I also think there is some order outside. If I am in a sea of just noise and no signals, well, I am fucked, regardless of how much I trust myself.

This does not allow for learning. And even if present, would not be evidence of planning or not. Could be a frivolous deity.

What are we trying to discover here? If you desire to create a robot that can walk and you’ve no idea how, then the best strategy is to create an evolutionary algorithm to let the robot learn what you have no idea how to teach. In the design of the algorithm, there can be no plan because you cannot presume you know how a robot should execute commands in the proper order and timing to produce a stable gait. So the idea is to not make any assumptions and let “nature” take it’s course.

You have to let what works be the test for what is right and not what you dictate to be right from the beginning. If you could dictate what is right from the beginning, then there would be no point in the evolution. If you knew how to program a robot to walk, then just program it; no need for algorithmic learning.

You see?

It’s not that the universe is a chaotic and random mess, but a dark place where we must build our own eyes and fumble around learning as we go. If it could have been understood from the beginning, then there would be no point to any of this. Life is the discovery of the unknown; not rediscovering what is already known.