Hi Chris,
Considering that you have posted this twice, I assume you are eager for a
response. There are only two reasons for these discussions. One, to try to
understand each others position, or two, to try to make a point that you
haven't heard expressed before. You are admittedly a materialistic
determinist. That is your privilege, and please believe me when I say I have
no desire to impose another view upon you. If you have a desire to impose
materialism upon those who feel differently, I doubt you will succeed, even
if you learned to speak more politely. Most adults have a world view and
philosophy not easily changed.
>Chris
>So, you're claiming that the simplest possible living thing has free will,
>consciousness, intelligence, purpose, creativity, spontaneity and choice?
>Is there *any* evidence of this incredibly general claim?
Bertvan:
To me it is obvious these are the characteristics that distinguish life from
non-life. I believe your position is that free will doesn't really exist for
humans, that our actions are merely the mechanical result of neural
connections in the brain. To me that denies experience and common sense,
but I realize perfectly intelligent people hold that position, and for them,
no evidence to the contrary would be acceptable.
>Chris
>This is bull-crap.
snip
>Chris
>This is bull-crap to the fourth power, unless you have some bizarrely and
>arbitrarily restricted concept of evolution (or of observation). Maybe you
>live imprisoned in a cave and can't observe it, but many of the rest of us
>most certainly *can* observe it.
snip
>you
>have been pushing this general line of utterly indefensible irrationality
>for well over a year now, and I finally lost patience with it. It's utterly
>indefensible because you have not been able to provide even *one* fact that
>supports it, and because anyone who has not been living in your cave with
>you knows from personal experience (or *can* know, with a bit of thought)
>that you are just spouting nonsense because you refuse to think, you refuse
>to question the incredible mass of *assumptions* that you keep
>regurgitating on this list, supported each time with the same incredible
>falsehoods and the same incredibly *bad* (grotesquely illogical or
>blatantly unfounded) arguments.
>Your posts are often a waste of bandwidth on this list because you rarely
>if ever get out of the tiny little orbit of circular reasoning that you
>live in. You are apparently almost completely unable or unwilling to do
>*any* kind of serious analysis of concepts, ideas, or theories, so you just
>keep repeating packages of cliches, like college kids who pick up the
>latest intellectual fads and go with them, but without bothering to learn
>how to understand the concepts involved.
Bertvan:
Even many scientists and people who are convinced random mutation and natural
selection are the power behind evolution claim they are not strict
materialists. Most people acknowledge the existence of phenomena that
science can not presently explain. (If science doesn't remain rigidly
dogmatic, some of these phenomena might be explained in the future.) So your
materialism may be a minority view. Minorities have at times been able to
impose their will and view upon the majority, but it must be a tenuous
position. Your frustration might be an increasing problem. Good luck.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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