No of course they don't argue about that fact because that fact is OBVIOUS. Intelligent humans are the end product. It follows that an end product with conscious intelligence must have conscious intelligence of some degree at its source. Note I said "of some degree." I did not say "God" or some supreme being.



That touches on part of the process but is certainly not the answer.




If you are talking about evolution (or "naturalism") I pretty much understand what you mean, but in my opinion that could not happen without some sort of conscious intelligence at the source.

Evolving towards something with intelligence and consciousness from something somewhat mechanical and unintelligent would be like expecting a computer to reinvent itself, reprogram itself, rebuild itself or "evolve" until it became conscious and intelligent. It's just too mechanical. IT DOES NOT FOLLOW.

The difference would be the ingredient "life." That is the ingredient that is missing and nobody really knows what constitutes "life." There are a lot of definitions, but nobody has it right yet.

Interesting idea. And actually, it doesn’t seem fundamentally different from the exact situation we are in today from a materialist perspective - the universe started and eventually we came along, noticed it was there, stepped in and started intervening. Now if I didn’t have more faith in something akin (but not identical) to Bohm’s Holographic Universe model, I’d probably be likely to adopt something like that as a philosophical world view.

From my perspective, this universe looks like a good design by almost any standard I can think of – especially if one looks at it like a game.

It is infinitely varied, yet the elegance of its most fundamental operation is almost absurd in its simplicity.

It exhibits a heart-stopping esthetic at all levels.

It is constantly changing at all levels, yet provides enough consistancy to allow players to amass great fortunes of whatever they deem valuable.

It allows for virtually infinite possibilities of game<=>player and player<=>player interaction.

It provides an unlimited supply of raw materials for individuals to shape new forms and plots to serve their own personal, functional and esthetic needs and desires – whatever they may be and however they may change.

It provides a virtually limitless supply of built-in, hidden, and progressively difficult mysteries to solve.

Even the characters themselves have built-in mysteries to solve and abilities to be gained. If you believe in the concept of “reincarnation” it affords an unlimited supply of “lives”. Not only that, but (according to some beliefs) reincarnation itself is a personal mystery to be solved and when one does finally solve it, all the experiences of, and abilities gained in, past lives are unlocked and available in future lives.

And it even allows one to change the very rules of the game itself.

I dunno about you but that’s about as close to the perfect game design as I can possibly imagine.

But that’s just my own personal assessment. I guess anyone can see it as good or bad according to their own assesment criteria.

I agree that it often takes a lot of work and insight to gain an understanding of some peoples perspectives – simply because they can be so different.

But I consider that every perspective/viewpoint/belief system has inherent consistency. Whether or not I consider that consistency to be “logical” is irrelevant. It simply is what it is. And what matters most to me is how closely another system aligns with my own.

So personally, I find that from what I understand of Abra’s and Jeannie’s belief systems, they are the ones (in this forum) that most closely align with my own belief system. Thus, I tend to understand them better than other’s who hold to a more conflicting belief system.

Well thank you! Sorry I replied so late. I just discovered your compliment now! At least someone enjoyed my entertainment on the first page of this thread.

That’s intersting perspective. I was thinking more along the lines of using it to help myself and others. But to each his own.

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Sometimes I see things in other’s opinions that cause me to more closely examine my own world view. Sometimes that results in a change my own world view and sometimes it results in a reinforcement of my own world view. So yes, other’s opinions that I disagree with can be useful in shaping my own world view. That is one of the beauties of this forum.

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Will these dashed lines work for you?

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No, I don't think brains/neuraons are a good place to look. At least not when investigating the subjective - simply because that would be investigating how the objective affects the the objective.

But investigating how the subjective effects neurons would be going in the right direction.

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Check out the PEAR research into man/machine interaction and remote viewing: http://www.princeton.edu/~pear

We're not. Dolphins, cuttlefish, salamanders, sparrows, alpacas, goats, guppies, squid, and so on didn't just get where they were some millions of years ago and stop. They've continued to change and are just as much the "end product" as we are.

At it's source? If we require an intelligent consciousness at our source because we are an intelligent consciousness why doesn't it require one and so on extending back infinitely?

Why can't our complexity arise from simplicity?

Answer to what?


What part of it?
"the things that survive are the ones we see today because they survived."
"it's chemically impossible to prevent mutations in the chemicals we use to store the instructions for how to keep our cells working and dividing."

If you were Abra I'd have to add a third point about chemicals simply being like counting numbers that go up one each time-

But those two things are really all it should take from the point you've placed the designer at. So without a designer guiding the process should we see species around today that died off? Should we never see a chemical process with multiple low energy configurations (*copying DNA takes the least energy but any time things have more energy, such as after having absorbed a photon, they can overcome a larger energy barrier. For things that remain solid or liquid this is usually reversible so at a stable temperature you would get mostly the lowest energy configuration but there's always going to be another photon absorption or similar event that gives some molecules enough energy to go another route.)

Too mechanical? Exactly how mechanical can it be or not be?

Intelligence and consciousness are useful are they not? Having something useful that nobody else has is an advantage is it not?

What's wrong with the old "making copies of yourself that have the same heritable traits" definition?

Unimaginable cruelty is a good aspect of a game?

Isn't that just telling of our ability to make mundane things aesthetical?

That's not something you want in design at all. A bridge with any important parts that constantly changes through a great deal of variety won't be able to support vehicles traveling over it and basically any program that changes at all levels is going to break almost immediately.

Earth is a lot more limited than that and we'd never have the fuel to move people or materials about the observable universe. Add in that as time passes less and less of the universe is within the bounds we could ever reach even going at light speed and you have a scenario of rapidly declining availability of such things.


Not lives like you see in any game I've actually seen produced. That's more akin to selecting "new game" than having extra lives.

Sizable memory card/space though so we could at least conclude that we were more likely a computer game than a console game~

Who's ever changed action and reaction or that objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other?

Sand box games are only fun until you understand the rules behind them. Then they become tedious and you want to find a different game to play unless you're up for grinding out some annoying achievements.

I'd be hapier with the game if they hadn't left out respawn points~

How can contradictions be consistent?

I think it's more the way they describe them than what they're actually describing that you align with.

man this has got to be the "copy and paste" thread of the year

I don't agree. Humanoid bodies with a human consciousness is the end product. Animals are stepping stones, but they are not as capable of self awareness. The ultimate purpose of evolution is a body and mind that can be SELF AWARE.

Self awareness and human consciousness is the ultimate goal of evolution in this world.

That is an opinion. You also have to consider the premise of reincarnation in this view. The conscious designer experiences its existence by flowing through all the life forms it has manifested. In incarnates throughout the universe into all forms and life.






It does arise from simplicity. It arises from a simple and small degree of consciousness.





You obviously wrote that for some reason. It is not an explanation that works, it is either an observation or opinion that does not solve the question of how we evolved from non-conscious and non-intelligence to conscious and intelligent. At what point in our evolution did we suddenly become conscious and intelligent? I contend that it was a gradual process, but one that arose from an very small degree of conscious intelligence. (awareness potential.)



I don't quite understand the question.

But maybe this will answer the question: The "designer" evolved along with the design. It did not start out as an all-knowing supreme being. Species that died out died out for a reason and by design. Trial and error so to speak. They were abandoned by the awakening "designer" because they did not work.






Yes, but what's your point??




Not sufficient. A mindless unconscious computer virus can do that.

Evidence of a designer

------------) . (------------------


That is it! That little dot. There yo go! This is the evidence.

Now stare at it and go in awe!!

Evidence of a designer

------------) . (------------------


That is it! That little dot. There yo go! This is the evidence.

Now stare at it and go in awe!!

The most fundamental aspects of a game are “winning” and “losing”. Which are defined as succeeding or failing to overcome obstacles. And all games have degrees of difficulty – i.e. “How hard is it to overcome the obstacles.” And the difficulty of the obstacles are different throughout the game.

So “unimaginable cruelty” is nothing more than a personal assessment of the relationship between an obstacle and a player’s abilities – just like any other game.

Well yes, that wold be true, since aesthetics are wholly subjective. But then, I was simply stating my own subjective assessment of the game properties in the first place.


I’m talking about a game here, not a bridge. The purposes are completely different and thus the design criteria must be completely different. Form follows function.

I’m talking about the universe and eternity here, not just the fragile lifeforms on one tiny planet at the edge of a mediocre galaxy in the middle of who knows where. That’s only 1*10^-(very big number)% of the entire game.

Well ok, so that’s your view of how reincarnation fits in with the entire game. But that’s why I said “belief”. Not all beliefs in reincarnation are the same.

Yes it’s true that “the universe game” is not exactly like other games. But then no game is exactly like any other game.

Yeah, that’s a workable analogy – to a point.

Tell that to a five-year-old.

Seriously though, I don’t agree with your assessment of what makes games fun. As I see it, what makes games (or anything else) “fun” is the personal satisfaction of overcoming barriers in the pursuit of a goal. So of course if your only goal is “to understand the rules”, then once that goal is achived, there is no more fun. But “understanding the rules” is not the only goal anyone could ever have. But if one’s goal is to, for example, win duels with other players, then the “rules” include the unpredictable actions of those other players. Or if the game has some sort of “random” events, then a complete understanding of all ther rules is not possible because “randomity” is part of the rules.

And not only that, but one can set a goal, achive it, and then set the same goal again and achieve it - repeatedly. So in that sense, ever a simple “sand box game” can be fun over and over.

I don’t play any games that use the term, so I don’t really know what it means. But if I did, I’m sure I’d probably agree.

You seem to be “consistently contradictory”. (Just kidding – mostly. )

Seriously though, ask a quantum physicist how non-locality and general relativity can be consistent, and then use that answer.

(Hint: We don’t know how they can be consisten. We just assume that they are in some unknown fashion. And we work at finding the missing link in our understanding of them – or not.)

I don’t. I think it’s the other way around. I think it is the fact that the overall viewpoints align, which allows me to better understand the description of those specific pats of the viewpoints. Think of it in the sense of “cultural similarities”. If you grew up in the same culture as someone else, it is easier to understand their expression of ideas that are common to that culture.

so if humans are the end product, would you characterize all potential life forms outside of our solar system that may not be humanoid as inferior to humans as regards self awareness?

By humanoid, I mean basically a sentient being with at least one head, two arms, two legs and walking upright who has the capacity of self awareness.

"Inferior" and "superior" are relative terms and have more to do with potentiality than a current state.

Is a ninth grader "inferior" to a third grader even if the third grader has a higher I.Q.? The ninth grader may know more, and have more knowledge and be more aware of self, but I would not call him "superior."

It would depend on how you measure superiority. But if you measure it by the capacity for self awareness, then the creature who is most self aware or has the potential to be most self aware, is superior.

Even if it is not a humanoid.

This applies only in the physical universe because we are talking about physical bodies.

is there a universe that is not the physical universe?

is there a universe that is not the physical universe?

Hi just taking a quick break to read - BUT I have to reply to this:



The addition of "I" "self" "my" & "mine" to ALL languages is acturally pretty recent but somehow without them humans were still capable of great leaps in agriculture, in philosophy and YES even in the scientific revolution.

Furthmore - when you read the fables from ancient scripture you find a lack of origniality - did it ever occur to you that the writers and story tellers intended to tell the story that way? - so that the morals of those storys could be gained from a personal level.

Example: the same fable could teach a person not to lie and another person would walk away having learned not to be stingy.

It was a matter of "creative" analogy - perspective perhaps but CLEARLY much more creative and allowing much more freedom of "individuality" than you give them credit for.

History and Language are absolutely necessary subjects to learn about. If for no other purpose than to give you broader knowledge - something, by the way, which "subjective opinion" can never do.

I admit I'm racing through what I've missed so as not to get too far behind but I'm confused as well.

For example: Creative - If there was no other animal life around you, if you were the only one always - you would never be the objective. If you were never made the objective what would you have to confirm your existance? Without confirmation of what you have subjectively analysed you would have no sense of self and the subjective could be little more than responces to sensory stimulation to fulfill basic needs.

It is possible that they had help from an advanced and older civilization. There is a lot of evidence on this earth for that.



Perhaps, but ALL OF THEM were written in that way. I think it is more likely that they did not know HOW to write any other way.

Lack of originality, lack of imagination, lack of feeling. Many myths were taken from older writings and slightly re-written. They seemed to have a problem thinking up any new stories at all.



That kind of "teaching" is for children and simple minds, which tells you that this is who they were speaking to.



True, but irrelevant to my point. --Which is that people in general have become more aware of self and of subjective reality.

My point here is that it would be much more direct to study the causative process itself, to understand how it works, rather than trying to infer how it works by only studying the effects of the causative process.

Once we understand how that creative process works, then we’ve got the whole universe by the tail, so to speak.