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> b) they aren't designed It does seem like a reasonable statement, but when you take a bit of time to think about it, billions of people disagree with it. A s

by gspetr 8y ago

> b) they aren't designed It does seem like a reasonable statement, but when you take a bit of time to think about it, billions of people disagree with it. A sobering thought. > so there's no expectation that they should make sense under the hood What doesn't make sense is that at first you deny a religious explanation, then without skipping a beat you ascribe (what can ironically be described as divine) mysteriousness and inscrutability to a body organ. This not only doesn't pass the Occam's razor test, but also assumes a defeatist position that "we might never know for sure". EDIT: I've taken uncharitable tone with this comment, and it may come across as too personal, which wasn't my intention.

novaleaf 8y ago
actually, if you believe in natural evolution, brains are designed. just because there isn't any intelligence involved, doesn't mean that the brain isn't a meticulously crafted piece of perfection.
- RIMR 8y ago
  Our brains evolved by having the features needed to keep us alive long enough to reproduce. Ultimately we, as a species, designed our own brain.
  - Baeocystin 8y ago
    Hydrogen, given long enough, starts to wonder where it came from, and where it is going.
- abstractbeliefs 8y ago
  It's probably not, though. Evolution doesn't select for perfection, and many aspects of our evolutionary derived bodies are frankly bizarre. Take the eye as an example. There's no need for us to have a blind spot. Octopus have eyes almost identical in design, but without a blind spot - convergent evolution meant that both species ended up developing very similar eyes but with one crucial difference: in humans, the retina is wired the wrong way round. The retina is like a huge array of light detecting cells. In octopus, these cells are connected to the optic nerve on the back side. In humans, they connect on the front side. The blind spot in humans is because of the need for a hole in the retina for the optic nerve to pass through and split and connect to the retina proper.
- wpietri 8y ago
  If there isn't intelligence involved, then it definitely isn't designed. Or crafted, for that matter. I suppose it could be perfect, by some particular criteria. But it seems unlikely. And in the case of the human brain, it's definitely untrue. The selection criteria for the human brain have been shifting wildly over the last few million years, so it's guaranteed not to be perfect. Note, for example the long list of cognitive biases that we've so far discovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
portal121 8y ago
> What doesn't make sense is that at first you deny a religious explanation, then without skipping a beat you ascribe (what can ironically be described as divine) mysteriousness and inscrutability to a body organ. Are you saying that if we don't understand something, it follows that it must be of divine origin? That hardly makes sense. I don't see the contradiction in the op you seem to see here.
wpietri 8y ago
Oh, we're voting on the truth? That's how that works? Please. You're also wrong about the religious part. Plenty of people who believe in a god or gods believe that humans were created along with the rest of the universe, but many don't believe that they were designed in any useful sense of the word. You can talk to pretty much any scientist who's religious about that. E.g., a Christian astronomer may believe that his god started it all going with the big bang, but does not specifically intervene in the unfolding of creation except at specific points where miracles happen. > you ascribe (what can ironically be described as divine) mysteriousness and inscrutability to a body organ I don't in the slightest. I'm pointing at the contrast between my expectations about a) a system that has been expressly designed by minds similar mind to serve me and be comprehensible to them for ongoing work, and b) something that evolved over time with no such constraints. One can eventually come to understand something like that, but I think it would be foolish for an electronics expert to crack open a skull and expect that it would make sense in the same way that they would experience if they opened an iPhone. > I've taken uncharitable tone with this comment Yes. And given that I'm talking about my close relatives with brain tumors, I think you've picked a terrible place to do it.
- gspetr 8y ago
  > humans were created along with the rest of the universe, but many don't believe that they were designed in any useful sense of the word. Genesis 1-27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." If you create an MMO and then host it somewhere where it can run in perpetuity and then you move on and never touch the servers again, can you in good faith make an argument that the game wasn't designed by programmers, artists, composers, etc? So the players might have stumbled into a game (they were born) and believe that the game itself was created, but not designed? The people you talk about might believe in "a" god, but certainly not the christian god. It doesn't make sense to say that you are a christian, but you believe in it à la carte.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    The say they are Christians. Some even teach science at Christian colleges. I'm not sure why you think you know science (and theology) better than them given that it's their life's work. Also, your argument from that chunk of Genesis is weak. Created "in his own image" could mean quite a lot of things. Imagine that tomorrow humans get the ability to create new universes where they can speed up the flow of time. Pretty much the first thing we'd do is to run a bunch of universes along the lines of our own to see if intelligent life like ourselves turns up. If we succeed, did we create life? Yes. In our own image? Yes, definitely, as long as your reading of "image" is not extremely literal. Did we design it? No way. And a similar argument would apply if we jumped in further and directed evolution toward particular ends by artificial selection. We would create, but not design. If, on the other hand, you're very literal about "image", then it requires all sorts of questions. Does your god have a nose? Does it have boogers? If not, why do I have a nose and or boogers? Is he not good at designing in his image? Et cetera. And regardless, an approach to biblical hermeneutics that boils everything down to one sentence is generally quite weak. It's a big book. Hinging a conclusion about a complicated topic on a single verse is like doing interior decorating while looking through a toilet paper tube: an excessively narrow focus means you're going to miss things, and you're very unlikely to get the whole thing in balance.

by gspetr 8y ago

novaleaf 8y ago

actually, if you believe in natural evolution, brains are designed. just because there isn't any intelligence involved, doesn't mean that the brain isn't a meticulously crafted piece of perfection.

RIMR 8y ago
Our brains evolved by having the features needed to keep us alive long enough to reproduce. Ultimately we, as a species, designed our own brain.
- Baeocystin 8y ago
  Hydrogen, given long enough, starts to wonder where it came from, and where it is going.
abstractbeliefs 8y ago
It's probably not, though. Evolution doesn't select for perfection, and many aspects of our evolutionary derived bodies are frankly bizarre. Take the eye as an example. There's no need for us to have a blind spot. Octopus have eyes almost identical in design, but without a blind spot - convergent evolution meant that both species ended up developing very similar eyes but with one crucial difference: in humans, the retina is wired the wrong way round. The retina is like a huge array of light detecting cells. In octopus, these cells are connected to the optic nerve on the back side. In humans, they connect on the front side. The blind spot in humans is because of the need for a hole in the retina for the optic nerve to pass through and split and connect to the retina proper.
wpietri 8y ago
If there isn't intelligence involved, then it definitely isn't designed. Or crafted, for that matter. I suppose it could be perfect, by some particular criteria. But it seems unlikely. And in the case of the human brain, it's definitely untrue. The selection criteria for the human brain have been shifting wildly over the last few million years, so it's guaranteed not to be perfect. Note, for example the long list of cognitive biases that we've so far discovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

portal121 8y ago

> What doesn't make sense is that at first you deny a religious explanation, then without skipping a beat you ascribe (what can ironically be described as divine) mysteriousness and inscrutability to a body organ. Are you saying that if we don't understand something, it follows that it must be of divine origin? That hardly makes sense. I don't see the contradiction in the op you seem to see here.

wpietri 8y ago

Oh, we're voting on the truth? That's how that works? Please. You're also wrong about the religious part. Plenty of people who believe in a god or gods believe that humans were created along with the rest of the universe, but many don't believe that they were designed in any useful sense of the word. You can talk to pretty much any scientist who's religious about that. E.g., a Christian astronomer may believe that his god started it all going with the big bang, but does not specifically intervene in the unfolding of creation except at specific points where miracles happen. > you ascribe (what can ironically be described as divine) mysteriousness and inscrutability to a body organ I don't in the slightest. I'm pointing at the contrast between my expectations about a) a system that has been expressly designed by minds similar mind to serve me and be comprehensible to them for ongoing work, and b) something that evolved over time with no such constraints. One can eventually come to understand something like that, but I think it would be foolish for an electronics expert to crack open a skull and expect that it would make sense in the same way that they would experience if they opened an iPhone. > I've taken uncharitable tone with this comment Yes. And given that I'm talking about my close relatives with brain tumors, I think you've picked a terrible place to do it.

gspetr 8y ago
> humans were created along with the rest of the universe, but many don't believe that they were designed in any useful sense of the word. Genesis 1-27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." If you create an MMO and then host it somewhere where it can run in perpetuity and then you move on and never touch the servers again, can you in good faith make an argument that the game wasn't designed by programmers, artists, composers, etc? So the players might have stumbled into a game (they were born) and believe that the game itself was created, but not designed? The people you talk about might believe in "a" god, but certainly not the christian god. It doesn't make sense to say that you are a christian, but you believe in it à la carte.
- wpietri 8y ago
  The say they are Christians. Some even teach science at Christian colleges. I'm not sure why you think you know science (and theology) better than them given that it's their life's work. Also, your argument from that chunk of Genesis is weak. Created "in his own image" could mean quite a lot of things. Imagine that tomorrow humans get the ability to create new universes where they can speed up the flow of time. Pretty much the first thing we'd do is to run a bunch of universes along the lines of our own to see if intelligent life like ourselves turns up. If we succeed, did we create life? Yes. In our own image? Yes, definitely, as long as your reading of "image" is not extremely literal. Did we design it? No way. And a similar argument would apply if we jumped in further and directed evolution toward particular ends by artificial selection. We would create, but not design. If, on the other hand, you're very literal about "image", then it requires all sorts of questions. Does your god have a nose? Does it have boogers? If not, why do I have a nose and or boogers? Is he not good at designing in his image? Et cetera. And regardless, an approach to biblical hermeneutics that boils everything down to one sentence is generally quite weak. It's a big book. Hinging a conclusion about a complicated topic on a single verse is like doing interior decorating while looking through a toilet paper tube: an excessively narrow focus means you're going to miss things, and you're very unlikely to get the whole thing in balance.