Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

Still sore eh. Lol.

Huh - I simply wanted to read one or two of your research papers!

See, there you go again - attack with no substance. You accuse me of not reading about the Cambrian Explosion yet you are wrong - I have and I find it interesting. But you don't answer my question: you think you know the truth about it so what is that truth and why is it true? Explain yourself instead of merely attacking. I suspect that you can't but please - go ahead and prove me wrong. Show us that you actually know something about that which you accuse others of being ignorant. I doubt that you know much at all or have read the material you accuse others of avoiding but, yet again, prove me wrong. Start, at long last, to add some substance to your argument instead of empty assertions.

Though we speak and write the same language it seems you don't understand  what the word "suggests" mean. It's a qualifier to indicate uncertainty of something, in this case, if you've read about the Cambrian Explosion (henceforth abbreviated C.E.) which you've done just as the word "seems" is also a qualifier. I've noted on several occasions you've misread what fls has written. Specifically fls was not stating anyone is stupid only not as informed as one thinks. Something you've pleaded guilty to in the past and very recent past.

 I had a reply written out for the above about the C.E. that is until I read this post of yours quoted below and realized it would be pointless to explain in detail why I value facts over beliefs. Contrast that to your way of thinking which is certainly emotional and intuitive. Your approach I doubt will ever lead to revelations. Perhaps that's what wrong fundamentally with some maybe all of psi research. I've bolded the appropriate text to illustrate that intuitive thinking.
You might argue that all of the bolded text are just qualifiers too, but no, you've created a provenance via many prior posts. I won't comment on whether you make assertions.

P.S. I would edit the last paragraph before posting, but it's not an operation allowed using my mobile. Perhaps I'll do so on my pc.

Polls apart (ha!), I think you have presented us with a compendium of controversies which would be difficult to do justice in a single post. I'll have a crack at it though.

 "- Whether mind=brain is true..."

No surprise that I think that mind and brain are categorically different and generally agree with Bernardo except for that last part: merging with the One is unnecessary because we are already merged - there is no separation other than a narrowing of focus which seems to persist into the afterlife, according to the evidence we discuss here.

"- Free will."

I believe that humanity is free to experience and make mistakes without judgement or interference from some capricious god-figure. I don't hold with determinism and one reason for that is because I don't think that in the big picture, there is any such thing as linear time. So cause and effect are somehow local and bundled with experiences and events. Again, this is a BIG subject.

"- Evolution. Is there an Intelligent Designer (or more than one such entity)? "

Yes to that except that I believe that all of creation exists within the creator and that the created become co-creators. It is a distributed process, I think, but I am probably not intellectually equipped to elucidate.

"- The "ism" of the Real."

I believe that realism is THE major attraction for skeptics, atheists and materialists - what we see, touch, smell, etc. is all there is and the fact that science is limited to investigations of the materially accessible supports the appearance of a purely materialistic reality.

"- What does parapsychology have to say about religion?"

I suspect that parapsychology is a threat to religion rather than a confirmation. That reality may be essentially "spiritual" should provide support for the religious-minded but the fact is that religions are designed to control and to mandate mediation between the mundane and the divine. As soon as individuals start to explore spirituality for themselves, without the need for priests, scholars, myths and doctrines, religion is certain to feel threatened

I value facts over beliefs. Contrast that to your way of thinking which is certainly emotional and intuitive. Your

Yes jumping into threads to call someone a "damn fool" and never explaining yourself...telling people they lack the "testosterone" to share your beliefs...not emotional at all.

Yes, I think the origin of the sort of biological systems being discussed necessitates not only intelligence such as in machine intelligence (as apparently being suggested by Max B), but crucially, mind and intentionality and the creativity that can only come from these things, which are properties of a sentient mental entity or entities. I can only repeat my response to Max B:

"It seems to me that the kind of complex evolutionary innovations concerned (intricate irreducibly complex machines) inherently required intentionality combined with mind, and you don't address my arguments that data processing cannot constitute mind. Look at some of the steps in the creative process as we know it:

Identification of the problem
Understand the problem using insight from collecting information
Achieve insight into a possible solution
Explore the prospective solution, implement, test and revise it into something workable

You (Max B) apparently are suggesting that data processing bacteria or other cells and/or their organelles (having no mind or intentionality) can and did achieve creative problem solutions. If not by the above means, please specify by what means."

Hmmm...I think you guys might be thinking of "computation" differently?

But more to the point, I suspect my layperson expertise doesn't run deep enough here... I do have a question though about the "implement" phase - is this where you would cite the appearance of evolutionary novelty at certain time points?

Also, if this is an intelligence, does this creative process suggest something closer to mortals than "God" as in Ground of Being?

Though we speak and write the same language it seems you don't understand  what the word "suggests" mean. It's a qualifier to indicate uncertainty of something, in this case, if you've read about the Cambrian Explosion (henceforth abbreviated C.E.) which you've done just as the word "seems" is also a qualifier. I've noted on several occasions you've misread what fls has written. Specifically fls was not stating anyone is stupid only not as informed as one thinks. Something you've pleaded guilty to in the past and very recent past.

 I had a reply written out for the above about the C.E. that is until I read this post of yours quoted below and realized it would be pointless to explain in detail why I value facts over beliefs. Contrast that to your way of thinking which is certainly emotional and intuitive. Your approach I doubt will ever lead to revelations. Perhaps that's what wrong fundamentally with some maybe all of psi research. I've bolded the appropriate text to illustrate that intuitive thinking.
You might argue that all of the bolded text are just qualifiers too, but no, you've created a provenance via many prior posts. I won't comment on whether you make assertions.

P.S. I would edit the last paragraph before posting, but it's not an operation allowed using my mobile. Perhaps I'll do so on my pc.

Again - yes, yet again - a string of accusations and no content. All I asked was for some indication that you understand what it is you are accusing others of being ignorant of. I'm not asking for expertise (few of us here have such expertise), just a reasonable grasp of the subject and, more importantly, why you imagine that you have access to the truth which others don't. I'd really like to see an explanation for that belief. But you run in the opposite direction with this reply ...

"I had a reply written out for the above about the C.E. that is until I read this post of yours quoted below and realized it would be pointless to explain in detail why I value facts over beliefs."

Yeah, right, Steve. One last time, what are the facts and why do you believe them to be facts? Or, to put it another way, why are the points raised here by nbtruthman and others wrong? Do yourself a favour and show that you can do more than point fingers and sneer like a pouty teenager.

Yes jumping into threads to call someone a "damn fool" and never explaining yourself...telling people they lack the "testosterone" to share your beliefs...not emotional at all.

I'm terribly sorry I  called a man you admire an idiot but,  I did explain myself rather recently, it seems you missed it. And I'm extra sorry i jumped into a thread to say that on a forum where everyone is allowed to comment at will. Perhaps skeptiko is more appropriate for someone as sensitive as yourself they do moderate threads so members delicate sensibilities are not offended. Since you have the courage of you're convictions go here where you'll most certainly be put to task defending them. The site has many subforums one is for philosophy for example. You won't I know.  http://www.internationalskeptics.com/for...mindex.php

P.S. If I earned a penny for every time I listened to one of you repudiate someone I'd be rich. And this suit of sanctimony you wear is a bit moth eaten.

Analogue computation isn't commonly used now, but really it is a collection of circuits (or some other physical system) that follow the same set of equations as the thing you are trying to study. You could use an electronic damped oscillator to mimic (i.e. compute future states of) a pendulum, for example. However, the link between the circuit and the pendulum would only exist in the human mind - not in the equipment.

The joke is that materialists normally scoff at anthropomorphic statements - "my computer doesn't understand me", and yet ultimately they try to derive the human mind from computation!

I've was thinking about this last night and revisited Lanier's You Can't Argue with a Zombie - made a thread for it here.

I'm terribly sorry I  called a man you admire an idiot but,  I did explain myself rather recently, it seems you missed it. And I'm extra sorry i jumped into a thread (just like you did here) to say that on a forum where everyone is allowed to comment at will. Perhaps skeptiko is more appropriate for someone as sensitive as yourself they do moderate threads so members delicate sensibilities are not offended. Since you have the courage of you're convictions go here where you'll most certainly be put to task defending them. The site has many subforums one is for philosophy for example. You won't I know.  http://www.internationalskeptics.com/for...mindex.php

P.S. If I earned a penny for every time I listened to one of you repudiate someone I'd be rich. And this suit of sanctimony you wear is a bit moth eaten.

It's not that you jumped into a thread, you jump into threads to provide worthless commentary, some insults, but when pressed you slink off only to troll another thread. Or worse you start going off about field effects being Psi when they are part of accepted physics, but you see a proponent posting and just react. A decade since you begged for help to argue against Maaneli and some simple physics basics (field effects) available to college students who take the "Physics for Poets" or "Physics of Star Trek" courses eluded you? 10 years and you never picked up one of those "For Dummies" books to brush up before posting?

It's been years but we're still waiting for you to explain exactly why Tallis' reasoning is so wrong he's a "damned fool".

It's odd that you mention how I missed it but can't seem to produce a link? ==>

You said Tallis was a damn fool, here's the thread for you to explain why his argument is wrong.

You said Rosenberg, a physicalist who says there is nothing mental in matter , was also a damn fool for saying thoughts are illusions. But when asked where his reasoning is flawed you balked (if I missed a reply feel free to point that out). Here's the thread, I await your reply.

Also odd you assume I don't discuss these questions with people who disagree with me just because I won't go a site you selected (note I'm discussing/debating in this very thread, just not insulting my interlocutors). I could just as easily ask why you don't go to Feser's Catholic theology blog, or Bernardo' forum? Or why you don't email Raymond Tallis or Alex Rosenberg with your arguments --> you can CC a few of us so we know the replies are genuine?

Or why don't either of us write up our thoughts and publish them on Academia.edu so academics can critique us? Or take the same online courses and see what we score? Someone can always up the ante in this fashion.

But more to the point, I suspect my layperson expertise doesn't run deep enough here... I do have a question though about the "implement" phase - is this where you would cite the appearance of evolutionary novelty at certain time points?

Also, if this is an intelligence, does this creative process suggest something closer to mortals than "God" as in Ground of Being?

Yes and yes.

Yes and yes.

You (and possibly Max, and almost certainly Stephen W ) should find something interesting in this paper on Biosemiotics I just made a thread for. Seems to relate to all your ideas in some fashion, assuming I've understood them...  

Admittedly I'm still digesting it, but ideally it might spur some good discussions.