When You Do Things Right
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
So says God in the Futurama episode "Godfellas."
I wonder if what seems like random evolution and events in our lives is actually a very subtle unfolding of a cosmic plan.
What do you think?
"Random" is NOT an accurate description of the traits that are passed on in the evolutionary process. Either the organism is physically capable of surviving in its environment, or it moves to another environment, or it dies. If the first two options occur, then chances are this organism will find a mate, breed, and produce offspring. If the third option occurs, then it will not find a mate, breed, and produce offspring. If it does produce offspring, then its traits will be passed on to the young. Then the same rule that applied to the parents will apply to the offspring: if they are suited to survive, they will and they will pass on their traits, and if they are not, they will die and not reproduce. There is a big difference between randomness and probability.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
My new position: Some humans had donkeys for ancestors and some chickens.
Either there's a joke I don't get or my troll-dar just exploded.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
Just kidding around mi compadre. :) No trolls here, or elves for that matter.
Dawkins has said before that he doesn't like the word "random" as evolution is driven by the process of natural selection. His stance has made me wonder if anything is truly "random".
If I take a pair of dice in my hand and throw them onto a table, the numbers that come up aren't really random if we take Dawkin's definition. The direction the dice face when I release them, the force I put into casting them away, the trajectory with which they hit the table and the force of friction that brings them to a stop all determine the outcome. If somehow you could have perfect knowledge of all these factors, you could accurately predict the numbers every time. Dawkins seems like a determinist so he might agree.
I think it's important to distinguish between true randomness and layman's randomness. In true randomness, every possible outcome is likely to occur with an equal probability. Let's say I was driving and I came to an intersection. In true randomness, I am just as likely to turn left as I am to suddenly fly away to Oz. Now, layman's randomness, which I have dubbed, for lack of a better term, "plura-possibility", includes every possible outcome, since technically anything is possible. However, in plura-possibility, certain outcomes are much more likely than others. For instance, to use your example, you're much more likely to roll a seven than for the atoms and quarks that make up the die are to re-arrange themselves mid-air, transforming into a conscious pot of petunias and shatter on the casino table.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
Poor word choice on my part.
I didn't mean an absense of cause and effect in evolution. Rather, I meant "random" as in the factors driving an individual lifeform's evolution not being pre-ordained, as some religionists think. I'm thinking along the line that the environmental factors that drive evolution ar not all predictable.
So, yes, I know the basics of evolution and I already agreed with what you've written. You'll have to bear with me as I'm not a scientist but a layperson who does the best he can with the knowledge I have and the knowledge I'll aquire. I don't pretend to grasp even a tenth of science, but I do the best I can with the bits of information I have.
I simply find pleasure in the connection of God and logic.
What I meant before is perhaps, maybe, what looks like "blind" (metaphor) nature is somehow part of God's plan, but the plan is indistinguishable from the scientific processes that drive nature. It's almost as if we were not meant to know or do not need to know the plan apart from what science tells us.
I need to see the whole episode sometime. It does seem to address these questions about whether God has any role in unfolding events (ironically, isn't the author an atheist?). The very last part discussed something I'd thought about before, that a heavy handed god would foster dependency. On some level, I think we all understand that for a creation to have meaning, it must have a life of its own. In both engineering and artwork, it's considered bad design if the designer/artist has to be heavily involved at all times.
What convinces me that God isn't involved in our lives and we have to make the best of what we have is the existence of Islamo-Christianity. While I can dismiss the problems of evil and suffering, I would expect that a universe closely monitored by God would have only one religion and this religion would be far more moral, logical and helpful in its guidence for our lives. It's ironic but it's the Christians and Muslims who've convinced me that there is no personal god.
Maybe I'm wrong and God is just being very subtle but I'm with Bender when he said something along the lines of it's up to us to set things right.
Bender did indeed say we can't rely on God for anything. Here's the twist, though, as I see it -- by getting Bender upset about divine inaction, God motivated Bender to do honest work, i.e. freeing the monks Leela locked in the laundry room (lol). That's how the initial quote is practically applied to life, which means God must like freethinkers.
I agree with your "scientist in the sky" analogy. I don't think God knows or cares for us individually. Like the Animaniacs said, "We're just tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney." But the alleged Plan could involve us in the sense of being organic or mathematical components; thus, everything's part of it. The outcome of this Plan probably doesn't benefit us. It just satisfies God's reason for putting it into action, like a science experiment.
It's kind of like the mice from Magrathea building the Earth to get the question to the answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
However, we do benefit individually and as a species by getting to live in the first place (though many people would disagree this is a benefit).
But who knows? Maybe God does know about humanity as a whole. I sometimes think in the Hegelian sense of history unfolding for some purpose that does benefit us, but not just one person or group of people, like Hegel's concept of industrial Germany as the end-all-be-all of human civilization.
Anyhow, I love Futurama (and its purple-haired visually challenged protagonist). I think Matt Groening is an agnostic leaning towards atheism based on quotes I've read on various Web sites, but I have no idea.
I find that a force consisting of a sort of consciousness that isn't omniscient, perhaps even unpredictable and can't possibly intervene if it had the will to do so much more likely than that of the supernatural space daddy portrayed in monotheistic dogma. Don't get me wrong though, I don't believe in any God, but Deism I can easily take seriously, whereas I can't help but laugh when there's dogma staring me right in the face while infinitely dripping with drool.
We are without a doubt the result of natural processes leading to more natural processes. As Carl Sagan liked to say, everyone and everything is made of star stuff. The question is whether there was some sort of conscious, immaterial force behind it all. Saying this I feel as though Deism borders along Pantheism quite closely, but they aren't exactly one in the same. No need for us to take seriously a supposed galactic dictatorship though.
You mean the Evil Galactic Empire doesn't exist? Just kidding. :) It's an excellent point you bring up that there's no evidence of a celestial bureaucracy.
The main difference I see between pantheism and deism is God being the totality of everything vs God who created or "shaped" the universe and isn't identical with it. However, one might say God is part of everything, and everything is the "true" sense of deity. Now that's mind-boggling!
I agree that humans are products of nature. Even if there is a greator God (or gods), science shows us that we are the result of millions of years of evolution, so "creation" would mean something completely different than the Genesis tales, for instance.
Are humans the conscious result of evolution? Considering life will always evolve, I say no. I can also name quite a few animals and plants that are better adapted for long-term survival than we are. Plus I have to wonder about a creator who personally designed animal bodies, since they break down so easily in so many ways. It's like selling a lemon vehicle and convincing most people it runs like a new sports car, which is essentially what religion does. Clerics and used car salesmen are very similar.
You should apologize ...to used car salesmen everywhere. Even the worst among them sell something that is real.
Does anyone think the universe could have come from nothing, the singularity that is? Or are you possibly open to it expanding into another universe which came about the exact same way while expanding into another universe with this going on infinitely?
This would still mean that there was no time before our universe, or other sets of time for each and every universe. Multi verse pretty much has this covered, but I don't think this has been thought of before, not this exact model anyway. It would rid us of the old question "what is our universe expanding into". It's definitely mind-boggling.
"Does anyone think the universe could have come from nothing, the singularity that is?"
Personally, I find everything's existence to be mind-boggling. It's difficult to believe that everything just came from nothing on its own. It's difficult to believe that some being just poofed everything out of nothing. It's also difficult to believe that everything has just always been. Yet, here we are....
From what I've read and seen, the way science is leaning now would allow for no creator or a sort of deistic creator. Since the expansion of our universe is accelerating, the natural progression would be entropy. Essentially, everything would freeze. As the expansion continues, matter itself would dissolve, creating massive blackholes that will essentially swallow everything, then explode into nothingness. Eventually, there will be nothing but a thin field of energy in vast cosmic emptiness. Now, where does the universe go from there? Quantum mechanics suggests that given enough time, the random behavior of particles will allow for "baby universes" to form in the universe. Essentially, universes are born and die in a sort of cosmic natural selection.
Now, these universes could develop naturally all on their own. However, it's likely that any surviving technologically advanced life in the parent universe would be searching for a way to survive. This civilization could "tweak" these baby universes and find a way to enter them in order to continue as a species while their universe of origin dies off. The question is... is that what happened with OUR universe? Did a civilization from our parent universe tweak this universe so that they wouldn't perish? If they did, deism would, technically, be true.
This is why I have no problem with deists. While I don't believe in a creator, I could see how it could be possible and how somebody could think that way. There is no evidence AGAINST it... there IS evidence against a theistic God.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
QUOTE: "Did a civilization from our parent universe tweak this universe so that they wouldn't perish? If they did, deism would, technically, be true."
Now there's a curious idea. If true, that means the "God-civilization" might be out there somewhere still. The Vorlon-Shadows of Babylon 5 come to mind.
"I have sworn upon the alter of Kosh eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man!"
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
I find Lee Smolin's concept of fecund universes compelling. If our Universe was birthed by another via the "umbilical cord" of a black hole, and so on, this might technically be deism. Or would it be pantheism? Any thoughts?
Pantheism. It would not be deism unless it is shown that some kind of intelligence in the parent universe created or tweaked the baby universe. Deism necessitates intelligence. Classical pantheism does as well, but not naturalistic pantheism.
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein
Deism is definitely not the thing to be generalizing. The views held by Deists can range from an actual intelligent being to a force that is unpredictable in nature, beyond its own comprehension, that is if it has comprehension, and isn't omniscient or omnipotent. It's basically the most logical gap-filler, though Occam's razor may not agree, but then again given the circumstances and how ambiguously I'm describing this "God", I believe we can make an exception.