Purposeful Design or Chanced Processes?

[theStudent]

Evidence of God is everywhere.
The Bible states that truth clearly, when it tells us, "The hearing ear and the seeing eye — Jehovah has made both of them."

The ear consists of three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
The middle ear is a small chamber that begins with the eardrum and leads to the maze of passageways that constitute the inner ear.
Besides its function in connection with hearing, the inner ear also possesses organs having to do with balance and motion.
The use of two ears greatly helps a person to locate the source and direction of sounds.

The human ear detects sounds within the range of about 20 to 20,000 cycles per second.
The ears of many animals are sensitive to tones of higher pitch that are inaudible to the human ear. The range of sound energy perceived by the human ear is remarkable. The loudest sound that the ear can tolerate without danger is two million million times as powerful as the least perceptible sound. The human ear has the maximum sensitivity that it is practical to possess, for if the ears were any keener they would respond to the unceasing molecular motions of the air particles themselves.

The outer ear is precisely designed with a specially designed structure of curves, and an opening designed to catch and channel sound waves into the inner ear.

How the ear works


How the hearing works
[youtube][/youtube]

How your ear works - Inside the Human Body: Building Your Brain - BBC One
[youtube][/youtube]

The eye is a highly efficient, self-adjusting “camera� that transmits impulses to the brain, where the object focused on the eye’s retina is interpreted as sight.
The possession of two eyes, as in the human body, provides stereoscopic vision. Sight is probably the most important channel of communication to the mind.

How the Eye Works Animation - How Do We See Video - Nearsighted & Farsighted Human Eye Anatomy


Anatomy and Function of the Eye
[youtube][/youtube]

A Journey Through the Human Eye: How We See


Eye Animation
[youtube][/youtube]

If the male and the female reproductive organs evolved, how had life been proceeding before the complete formation of both?

An egg from a woman’s ovaries cannot produce life on its own. For this to happen, a sperm cell from the male reproductive system must combine with the nucleus of the egg.
What does the sperm do to make the egg develop?

Differently shaped cells begin to form - nerve cells, muscle cells, skin cells, and all the other types that make up the human body.
Science Digest

No one knows for sure, why certain cells aggregate to form a kidney while others join to form a liver, and so on.

Eventually, the human body reaches full growth, being made up of some 100,000,000,000,000 cells.
What causes the cells to stop dividing at just the right time and why?

How Sperm Meets Egg | Parents
[youtube][/youtube]

The Masterpiece of Nature, by Professor Graham Bell

Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. . . . It seems that some of the most fundamental questions in evolutionary biology have scarcely ever been asked . . . The largest and least ignorable and most obdurate of these questions is, why sex?

Imo, it is truly mind-boggling how one can say they have no evidence of God.

Do you agree these give evidence of design and purpose?
Is there any chance that these came about through the process described by evolution theorist?
Evidence for arguments required.

[William]

[Replying to post 170 by William]

I noticed you used the word undeniable a couple of times for recognising design in nature. This brought to mind a book written by Douglas Axe called Undeniable. He is a molecular biologist and though his book does go into some detail about how life is designed from a biological point of view he has written his book for the layman so that they can also understand the logic of why he believes life has to be designed. He calls this the design intuition that everyone has even as children we perceive design in the world. We are all common scientists who can decern design from non-design and this is within all of us.

Rather than children being deluded and having to be taught how to grow out of this design intuition as many have said, it is the other way around. As adults, we try to suppress this design intuition but it is hard to deny. Those who deny design in life have to continually tell themselves that there are other reasons for how life came about and exists and this takes some effort. That is why Mr Axe calls the book undeniable in that we cannot deny that life is designed. There has been studies and research which show that belief in dive concepts comes naturally for children and they have a natural tendency to see design in life. Even as adults the studies show that we naturally will believe in the idea of something that is beyond our material existence which is behind everything.

http://www.undeniabledesign.com/about/

Matthew 18
3 “Truly I tell you, He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Religion Is Natural
Some recent findings suggest that two foundational aspects of religious belief - belief in mind-body dualism, and belief in divine agents -- come naturally to young children.

We have a similar bias to attribute an agent when we see nonrandom structure. This is the impetus for the argument for design -- the intuition that the design that is apparent in the natural and biological world is evidence for a designer. In one recent poll in the United States (July 2005), 42% of the respondents said that they believed that humans and other animals existed in their present form since the beginning of time, and most of the rest said that evolution occurred, but was guided by God.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... Is_Natural

Yes - it is something which has been more of a subconscious realization than a conscious one for me until recently where the opportunity presented itself and I was able to bring that into the conscious aspect of consciousness and commit it to writing and sharing that.
Then, just randomly perusing the threads I came across a head to head debate between a former member of this forum and otseng here [link] and otseng makes the same argument within that debate...

From the thread - in this post: [Link]
From all our experience, we only see intelligent agents having the capability of creating novel and complex things. We never experience non-intelligent agents with the ability to create, esp from nothing. So, a non-intelligent agent does not conform to what we experience to be true.

Here's an example. Suppose we receive a signal from outer space of prime numbers. We would automatically deduce that an intelligent agent was behind it. Nobody would be arguing that it came from a non-intelligent agent.

It could be that the intelligent agent created something to create the universe. But, ultimately, the intelligent agent created the universe, whether directly or indirectly. We can at least attribute responsibility of the creation of the universe to the intelligent agent.

I understand the logic of this argument. As you say, we inherently know this to be the case, so any rejection of GOD will primarily have to do with other things - things which suppress that inner knowing we are all born with.

Humans 'predisposed' to believe in gods and the afterlife
New research finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. Research suggests that people across many different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death. The studies demonstrate that people are natural 'dualists' finding it easy to conceive of the separation of the mind and the body.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 103828.htm

Some people even have experiences of this separation - commonly referred to as Out of Body Experience (OOBE) and I am one of those who have experienced this on several occasions. Such experience adds to the innate - the intuitive knowing - that there is more to 'life' than what we are presently experiencing.

Those who have cast off and otherwise rejected ideas of GOD and afterlife can often be seen using science to argue that these experiences are brain malfunctions (which are combated with drugs for those unable to understand or cope with such experiences) but as the saying goes 'seeing is believing" and I have yet to see any direct evidence which might convince me that such explanation is actual truth.

I didn't initially directly ASK for the experiences, but I had them anyway - and all these years later I can identify with hindsight that in my own way, yes, I was asking...only I didn't comprehend that at the time.

Essentially what I have come to see is that Consciousness is eternal and death is an illusion of sorts - this experience we are having in this universe in these forms on this planet is not meant to be eternal - it is more of an opportunity to learn under extreme suppression, which our position in the universe in our forms, provides.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to stevevw]
Axe is on a fool's errand: http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2 ... uglas-axe/

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 180 by William]

People naturally believe all sorts of balderdash. Such mistaken thinking can be corrected by open and serious inquiry and the examination of actual evidence.

[William]

[Replying to post 182 by H.sapiens]

Irrelevant to what I posted.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 182 by H.sapiens]

Irrelevant to what I posted.

No, it is eminently germane.

Balderdash such as: "Some people even have experiences of this separation - commonly referred to as Out of Body Experience (OOBE) and I am one of those who have experienced this on several occasions. Such experience adds to the innate - the intuitive knowing - that there is more to 'life' than what we are presently experiencing."

You are making the presumption that a chemical imbalance in your brain has some cosmically important purpose.

Evidence please.

[William]

[Replying to post 182 by H.sapiens]

Irrelevant to what I posted.

No it is eminently germane. Balderdash such as:

"Some people even have experiences of this separation - commonly referred to as Out of Body Experience (OOBE) and I am one of those who have experienced this on several occasions. Such experience adds to the innate - the intuitive knowing - that there is more to 'life' than what we are presently experiencing. "

You are making the presumption that a chemical imbalance in your brain has some cosmically incitement purpose. Evidence please.

Chemical imbalance is a theory I am aware of yes.

However, I didn't know that it was a proven matter of fact, irrefutable for that.

Fortunately I do know that all things related to biological lifeforms are indeed 'chemical' and that is something we have to deal with as conscious self aware beings experiencing such forms.

Such as is the case, it is important to know what constitutes 'chemical imbalance' (implying abnormality) and 'chemical balance' (implying normality) and in that, what constitutes normality.

When one - for example - looks into depression, one is told that it is a 'chemical imbalance' (implying abnormality) which is the cause of the depression.

Drugs are prescribed to 'fix' the problem so that the individual no longer feels depressed and can function within a society which operates within the dysfunction of disparity.

Furthermore, those who are doing well in relation to these systems of disparity are the very ones producing these theories in a manner which implies fact.

Thus, the underlying reason for why an individual might be depressed can be considered normal and natural enough for that.

So back to the notion of being born with the innate intuitive understanding and this being prevalent in children but the way society expects the individual to conform acts to suppress this innate understanding and thus it can be argued that therein is the 'chemical imbalance.'

Thus the arguments contradict each other and we are left to our own subjective experiences in congruity to piece the truth together as we each deem necessary, taking care to make sure we don't take the word of professionals just because they are well positioned within said societies and therefore can be trusted with the task of speaking the truth.

Especially when they tend to turn a blind eye toward the unnatural acts of human societies and in doing so, fail to factor in the detrimental causes of chemical imbalance as one possible reason for why they choose to turn a blind eye.

iow - they presume they are 'normal' and there is nothing problematic with their brains and their way of thinking. They concider their own brains to be chemically in balance.



Those who speak well of and support these systems of disparity and are finacially rewarded for their loyalty are also those claiming to not be suffering any abnormality of the brains. Go figure!

It is an easy enough mistake to be making too. Dress a person in a well tailored suit and people tend to trust them just on the visual!

All in all, a symptom of a suppressed natural innate intuitive reality most are disconnected from=chemical imbalance of the brain.

Sorry H.sapiens, but your comment (lets not call it an 'argument') doesn't wash. I trust my experiences far more than I could ever trust those who make statements which so obviously are designed to uphold their sociopolitical agendas.

I stand by what I said;

Those who have cast off and otherwise rejected ideas of GOD and afterlife can often be seen using science to argue that these experiences are brain malfunctions (which are combated with drugs for those unable to understand or cope with such experiences) but as the saying goes 'seeing is believing" and I have yet to see any direct evidence which might convince me that such explanation is actual truth.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 185 by William]

chemical imbalance is a lamens term to help people understand what a drug does in the brain. Nearly all brains are "imbalanced" in some way or another there is just simply acceptable ranges.

ADHD for example is a "chemical imbalance" related to dopamine production and/or reception people classified as ADHD fall outside of a healthy range of said production and reception and are given said diagnosis. With this perspective you could say that everyone experiences some of the symptoms related to a lack of dopamine production reception to a certain degree. Those who are diagnosed with it simply experience the symptoms to a greater degree.

The thing is like depression and ADHD and sociopathy and schizophrenia we can actually compare brains of people who are suffering negatively impactful symptoms to those who are not.

While brain science is relatively young and we are just now getting the tools to really study the brain which is incredibly complex. There are a lot of things we don't know. What we do understand points not to some existential concept of consciousness but points simply to a biological mechanism. Given that all of our perception of the world around us flows through the brain it's not surprising that any damage or complication can drastically effect our perception.

[stevevw]

[Replying to post 170 by William]

I noticed you used the word undeniable a couple of times for recognising design in nature. This brought to mind a book written by Douglas Axe called Undeniable. He is a molecular biologist and though his book does go into some detail about how life is designed from a biological point of view he has written his book for the layman so that they can also understand the logic of why he believes life has to be designed. He calls this the design intuition that everyone has even as children we perceive design in the world. We are all common scientists who can decern design from non-design and this is within all of us.

Rather than children being deluded and having to be taught how to grow out of this design intuition as many have said, it is the other way around. As adults, we try to suppress this design intuition but it is hard to deny. Those who deny design in life have to continually tell themselves that there are other reasons for how life came about and exists and this takes some effort. That is why Mr Axe calls the book undeniable in that we cannot deny that life is designed. There has been studies and research which show that belief in dive concepts comes naturally for children and they have a natural tendency to see design in life. Even as adults the studies show that we naturally will believe in the idea of something that is beyond our material existence which is behind everything.

http://www.undeniabledesign.com/about/

Matthew 18
3 “Truly I tell you, He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Yes - it is something which has been more of a subconscious realization than a conscious one for me until recently where the opportunity presented itself and I was able to bring that into the conscious aspect of consciousness and commit it to writing and sharing that.
Then, just randomly perusing the threads I came across a head to head debate between a former member of this forum and otseng here [link] and otseng makes the same argument within that debate...

From the thread - in this post: [Link]
From all our experience, we only see intelligent agents having the capability of creating novel and complex things. We never experience non-intelligent agents with the ability to create, esp from nothing. So, a non-intelligent agent does not conform to what we experience to be true.

Here's an example. Suppose we receive a signal from outer space of prime numbers. We would automatically deduce that an intelligent agent was behind it. Nobody would be arguing that it came from a non-intelligent agent.

It could be that the intelligent agent created something to create the universe. But, ultimately, the intelligent agent created the universe, whether directly or indirectly. We can at least attribute responsibility of the creation of the universe to the intelligent agent.

I understand the logic of this argument. As you say, we inherently know this to be the case, so any rejection of GOD will primarily have to do with other things - things which suppress that inner knowing we are all born with.

Axe mentions in his book that everybody engages in “common science.� People are innately observers who make mental notes of observations, then build conceptual models of how things work, refining as we learn more. Common sciences appear in infants and toddlers as they learn about gravity, friction, shapes, colours, categories, cause-effect relationships, and much more. As children, we learn to detect whether things were made or done purposefully. Dr Axe calls that the “universal design intuition� “Tasks that we would need the knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge.�

It is interesting you say that an intelligent agent could have created something to create the universe. That it may not have been a direct creation and that something was set in motion that has the ability to produce the natural world and life. this is just like a computer program where designers make the program and install all the binary information. That program has the ability to become something else because it has the codes that can allow it to produce more design. This is similar to Theistic evolution in that evolution is not totally a self-creating naturalistic process but has embedded codes that can allow life to evolve. The point is even if those who support evolution through theistic evolution they are not taking an entirely atheistic view and saying that there is no guiding hand behind evolution.

Some people even have experiences of this separation - commonly referred to as Out of Body Experience (OOBE) and I am one of those who has experienced this on several occasions. Such experience adds to the innate - the intuitive knowing - that there is more to 'life' than what we are presently experiencing.

Those who have cast off and otherwise rejected ideas of GOD and afterlife can often be seen using science to argue that these experiences are brain malfunctions (which are combated with drugs for those unable to understand or cope with such experiences) but as the saying goes 'seeing is believing" and I have yet to see any direct evidence which might convince me that such explanation is actual truth.

I didn't initially directly ASK for the experiences, but I had them anyway - and all these years later I can identify with hindsight that in my own way, yes, I was asking...only I didn't comprehend that at the time.

Essentially what I have come to see is that Consciousness is eternal and death is an illusion of sorts - this experience we are having in this universe in these forms on this planet is not meant to be eternal - it is more of an opportunity to learn under extreme suppression, which our position in the universe in our forms, provides.

Douglas Axe speaks about human consciousness in his book. He cites Thomas Nagel who is a well-known professor who believes that consciousness and our mental functions and our moral sense cannot be produced by a material universe.
Thomas Nagel
he is the author of Mind and Cosmos (2012), in which he argues against a reductionist view, and specifically the neo-Darwinian view, of the emergence of consciousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel

I have also been interested in this topic. I find it interesting that when we get down to the quantum level the classic physics for cause and effect break down. Tests show that an object can act like waves and particles and therefore has many possibilities as to what it may do. It is only when an observer is introduced into the experiment that the object will act like a particle. This is called the observer effect.

This is where it can get a little out of hand as some can speculate about all sorts of possibilities. It is said that what we see with our material world may just be a hologram and it is the observer that creates what we see. There are many thought experiments done on this which are serious attempts to understand what is happening in the quantum world such as Schrödinger's cat - Wikipedia. The point is even the science is edging towards there being something beyond the material reality that may be at play. So everything may not be explained through the material world or naturalistic processes such as evolution theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

[stevevw]

[Replying to post 185 by William]

chemical imbalance is a lamens term to help people understand what a drug does in the brain. Nearly all brains are "imbalanced" in some way or another there is just simply acceptable ranges.

ADHD for example is a "chemical imbalance" related to dopamine production and/or reception people classified as ADHD fall outside of a healthy range of said production and reception and are given said diagnosis. With this perspective you could say that everyone experiences some of the symptoms related to a lack of dopamine production reception to a certain degree. Those who are diagnosed with it simply experience the symptoms to a greater degree.

The thing is like depression and ADHD and sociopathy and schizophrenia we can actually compare brains of people who are suffering negatively impactful symptoms to those who are not.

While brain science is relatively young and we are just now getting the tools to really study the brain which is incredibly complex. There are a lot of things we don't know. What we do understand points not to some existential concept of consciousness but points simply to a biological mechanism. Given that all of our perception of the world around us flows through the brain it's not surprising that any damage or complication can drastically effect our perception.

I worry when people say that all our mental disorders come down to a brain imbalance that is basically adjusted with chemicals. To me, this is not too different to taking drugs to alleviate feeling down or insecure. I think this is taking a one-dimensional view of humans and the possibilities for being a healthy and well-balanced individual. This may be an extension of evolutionary theory in that every behaviour, belief, morality, has to have an evolutionary reason. This is looking at things on the biological dimension only and there may be other aspects that humans can tap into which can help them.

I don't believe that mental disorders like depression are totally about a chemical or brain imbalance. Or at least looked upon as only being a physical problem that can be remedied with drugs. There have been increases in the rates of mental illness in recent years and there are more people depressed throughout the world. Many don't seek help and often get better and go on to lead a normal life without any medication. So it seems they didn't have a chemical imbalance or the chemical imbalance rectified itself. The fact is though despite the current approaches and beliefs about treating mental illness it has increased dramatically, so whatever the medical professionals are doing it isn't working and in fact may be making matters worse. Doctors over prescribe medications which can make matters worse and they don't take the time to deal with the causes of depression.

In some way's modern society causes mental illness with the pressure and expectations it puts on people. It promises so much but does not deliver and people lose hope and meaning in life. As you said the brain is complex and we still have a lot to learn. There is a great capacity for the brain to repair itself and maybe part of this is to do with the outlook on life. In fact, there is research which shows that humans can alleviate mental illness through spiritual beliefs.

The Benefits from Marriage and Religion in the United States: A Comparative Analysis
The studies to date are suggestive of an association between religious involvement and better mental health outcomes, including greater self-esteem, better adaptation to bereavement, a lower incidence of depression and anxiety, a lower likelihood of alcohol and drug abuse, and greater life satisfaction and happiness in general (Koenig et al. 2001).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2614329/

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 188 by stevevw]


[center]I don't know about you, but I'll take my medical advice from a qualified practitioner.[/center]

I worry when people say that all our mental disorders come down to a brain imbalance that is basically adjusted with chemicals.

I'm going to demand the very best that medical science has to offer.
I don't know what it is that you suggest we should do INSTEAD.

To me, this is not too different to taking drugs to alleviate feeling down or insecure.

There are many people who could not LIVE without medication.
We USED to lock people with mental illness in places like Bedlam.

The fact is though despite the current approaches and beliefs about treating mental illness it has increased dramatically, so whatever the medical professionals are doing it isn't working and in fact may be making matters worse.

I guess you better stay away from any doctor, then.