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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: booters who wrote (378)	8/12/2000 5:22:38 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

<Is the most successful end of all growth or progress already predetermined, and by what laws or by whom? < Yes, physics. I'm glad somebody knew the answer! LOL! A simple question like that doesn't need proof anyway. :) Moving on: you say that all things are seeking eficiency and that is genetic. Booters, you have a good mind. Please sit on this a little bit. I'm going out. Back later, and always looking forward to talking to all of you. I'm learning a lot. Boots: (bear with me), efficiency is a human word, term, and concept...and a highly evolved one. It is one thing for you (the observer) to predicate that someone or something is seeking (note the language used) efficiency; It is quite another thing, to explain how the seeker knows what eficiency IS, or WHY the seeker SEEKS it???? Are you thinking for the seeker, or is the seeker thinking for you?? Genetics doesn't explain motive...it simply describes it.

To: booters who wrote (378)	8/12/2000 8:43:15 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

It maybe premature to assign the label evolution to such a recent event. If we are still doing this in a thousand years then perhaps Exactly :) Evolutionary theorists can never lose. Whatever survives was/is proof that it conferred a survival benefit. Its a win win situation. And only false science and irrational premises ever allow such silliness. As I said: Evolution (change) is a fact. To some degree change can even be quantified and qualified. But to rationalize facts to fit conclusions...well, that may be comforting--but it isn't science. The religion of evolution (religious because so many of the hidden premises are unproven, and based on faith or confused silence), is no more reliable than the religion that thinks that God has ears so that he will have a place for an hearing aid when he goes deaf...

To: booters who wrote (378)	8/12/2000 9:00:01 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

If all things are a reaction to stimuli, a chemical reaction to a stimulus, and that reaction is predetermined by physics. Then would you not have to say all things are predetermined? Some scientists accept the premise that "all things are a reaction to stimuli", and some scientists believe that all things are self determined. Some scientists believe that determinism is not incompatible with free will; some scientists don't. Some scientists are theists; some are atheists. Some have IQ's of 170; Some 100. I would not presume to second guess the rationality of any of them :)).

To: booters who wrote (378)	8/13/2000 4:31:00 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Actually, looking back at some posts, I don't want to be misunderstood. Your answer of physics is quite understandable to me, except that I consider many other laws, both known and unknown: So I will call it THE LAW. Determinism? I believe so. But I also believe in free will. I'll try to explain this when I'm back later. But for starters, we need to back away from reductionism and simply look at our mind, not at acid chains which we know nothing about. We certainly have free will (unless we wish to concede that a greater mind than ours created the necessary laws to prevent choice.) (REPEAT) Thinking could not be rationalized, (or justified), without the idea of free will as a component in there somewhere. It would be an evolutionary idiocy or worse. Any Supreme LAW that would justify determinism to fulfill the source code, would not encumber itself with such an idiocy as the pretense of meaningful thought. What kind of an sadistic bastard would think that up? (is order, design and structure a natural result of mindlessness?)? Why can't people separate the phenomenon of consciousness from the laws of motion? What do the laws of motion have to do with the laws of thought? *Why do we think that we don't think, and then try to justify our conclusions by the rationality of our thoughts? Have we no pride or respect?* Sure I believe in determinism. The universe is clearly far more intelligent than we little minds that keep uncovering, discovering, and copying--order, structure, and design. We operate subject to myriad laws...but at some epiphenomenal place...we have the abilty to recognize TRUTH. That is free will: To know which thoughts honor the LAW, and which thoughts don't. Understanding and logic are part of the LAW. Part of the LAW is the structure of logic and rationality. It is the LAW which allows us to think and to choose. It is still determinism, but it is also recognizing who you are. When one sits in the TRUTH (the TRUTH IN THOUGHT IS THE TRUTH IN FACT) then one is part of the TRUTH. Determinism: A is A. Free Will: a is a (NO DIFFERENCE). Later.