Introducing rational thinking

Firstly, dreams aren't magic.
Secondly, just because autism is classified as a disorder doesn't mean that you aren't functioning. It just means you share a lot of commonalities with people that can't function as the majority of the population (which by definition, defines normality for better or worse).

What are they then? What is magic? Why am I able to work out an amazingly complex storyline with amazing visuals whilst I'm unconscious, and apparently do it in a split second, when it takes me hours to come up with a good story when I'm awake?

And secondly, just because we class autism as a disorder doesn't mean it is one.

xelamental, you have managed to completely miss the point of my original post, and instead have come in to bash me over the head with your "facts". I'm not telling you how it all happened or didn't happen, I'm trying to open your eyes to the notion that we really don't know, and just because we rule a thing out doesn't mean it's not involved.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by TheIrvy]

[edit on 5-10-2009 by TheIrvy]

getting back to rational thinking, evolution is just not a theory:

en.wikipedia.org...

it is simply saying that things evolve or change due to many different reasons. survival is the biggest, but not the only one.
even religion has been involved in evolution, from the early belief of the sun being all-powerful, thru the christian dogma asociated with the dark ages in europe, up thru the modern day. rational thinking is what has led our understanding of the enviorment around us, and thus a greater understanding of ourselves. the rational and spiritual self are not in conflict,or shouldn't be anyway. but there needs to be a well-understood seperation, and unfortunately, this is where conflict develops.

Originally posted by TheIrvy
We only have data from our part of the back yard. Are the laws of physics different closer to the centre of a galaxy than on it's rim? We don't know until we get there and study it. We do not understand what the laws of the universe are yet. We preceive the universe from our own perspective, and we assume that what is constant here is also constant everywhere.

Well, the only thing we KNOW is that it looks like the laws of the universe are constant, at least from our perspective. This is the only assumption you can make - if you take your position anything is possible, and that's useless. Plus, we *do* have data from all across the universe in the form of EM.

There's plenty of alternatives. One theory that I particularly like is that the physical realm is created by the spiritual. Life does evolve, but according to a pattern, it's not random. Apparently we have plenty of DNA options that haven't yet turned on. We're only just at the beginning of how complicated our bodies will be.

Okay. That's not a theory. There is no evidence to support this. That's an hypothesis, and one that's easily refutable. You are essentially saying that random processes are really non-random, and that's got no data supporting it.

Absolutely, it doesn't mean that at all. It also doesn't mean it's anywhere near right. That's my point.

just because something isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not useful. We know our model for gravity predicts the motions of planets all the way up to the movements of galaxies. At the extremes, everything becomes more complicated (e.g. 0K or C), so our models become more complicated.

The utility of a model is the only thing you seem to be missing. If a model is useful, can predict with high accuracy, it can help us understand our universe. Your assumptions about the universe make all models useless. That's not going to help anyone is it?

Again, you're missing my point. You also don't know enough about evolution or you'd know the glaring problems with the theory. Evolution just takes God out of the equation and replaces him with long periods of time and a heck of a lot of random occurances, all tying together to make an ordered planet with an interdependant eco system.

What? My masters degree was in molecular biology; searching for patterns of evolution dna. Have you ever run a monte carlo simulation? Ever played with agent systems? Genetic algorithms? Until you do, you really won't understand how randomness + time + selection produces change.

When it comes to things that happened thousands of years ago, all we have is guesses and interpretations based on our perspective. We don't know who built the sphinx or why or how, all we know is that it's there.

How do you know that fiction has existed since the dawn of time? Where you there? It's equally possible that after the invention of writing, a very powerful tool, that only true accounts were deemed worthy of being immortalised in stone. We just don't know.

You don't have a 2 foot penis? (sorry, bad, couldn't resist!)

It's not equally possible. There are literally tens of thousands of fictional historical documents spread across the world in various forms.

No, it doesn't mean it happened. The commonalities between them all make it unwise to discount them though. At best I'd say that the writers recorded either who they thought the entities were, or who they were told they were (which may or may not have been true), or they just happened to make up the same stories as so many other cultures everywhere else. Again, I'm not trying to say what did happen, just that it's a conceit to believe that we've got it right thousands of years later at a guess.

Read joseph campbell.

Gravity won't likely be dispelled, but it may have a nature unlike anything we have imagined.

Seriously. Jump often?

Originally posted by TheIrvy
What are they then? What is magic? Why am I able to work out an amazingly complex storyline with amazing visuals whilst I'm unconscious, and apparently do it in a split second, when it takes me hours to come up with a good story when I'm awake?

And secondly, just because we class autism as a disorder doesn't mean it is one.

xelamental, you have managed to completely miss the point of my original post, and instead have come in to bash me over the head with your "facts". I'm not telling you how it all happened or didn't happen, I'm trying to open your eyes to the notion that we really don't know, and just because we rule a thing out doesn't mean it's not involved.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by TheIrvy]

You say we don't know because we haven't been everywhere in an infinite universe. We haven't measured gravity at every point on earth, so how do we know it's right? This is one position you can take, but entirely useless.

You need to do some reading on epistimology.

Scientists decide that if the experiment can be replicated, has a theoretical basis, fits the existing data we have collected, then a model can be assumed to be correct. Until we get new data. You seem to be confusing sciences willingess to adapt for it being wrong. Your proof line is so far from sanity it's paralysing your arguments.

Good point! With all things that require questioning the popular belief and common understanding, it is good for one to be wholly unbiased and rational. One can neither deny nor completely accept an idea until he has accurate, reliable information.

Evolution is one possible theory of how existing life forms came to be, but that doesn't make it a scientific truth... only a possibilty. Think about it, we've excavated forms of extinct life, but does that honestly prove evolution? How do we know for sure? We've never seen an animal evolve. We live for so short a time that we can't look back that far. Human kind has only recently kept written record compared with the amount of time evolution requires to actually make a visible difference between two species. Even if there was some visual proof, there is always another explanation. On the same hand, it sounds like a very good theory. I think evolution could be possible, because 'evidence' such as bones and fossils do not disprove the idea.

My point is, though science is correct until disproved, it makes little sense to just believe a common theory without valid physical evidence.

[edit on 6-10-2009 by PrudentThinker]

[edit on 6-10-2009 by PrudentThinker]

Originally posted by PrudentThinker
Good point! With all things that require questioning the popular belief and common understanding, it is good for one to be wholly unbiased and rational. One can neither deny nor completely accept an idea until he has accurate, reliable information.

This view makes it impossible to believe much; I have many holes in my knowledge; for example quantum physics. Am I to disregard it until I understand it, or trust the consensus viewpoint of the major world scientists who are experts in the field?

Evolution is one possible theory of how existing life forms came to be, but that doesn't make it a scientific truth... only a possibilty.

What more evidence do you need? Everyone is in consensus from phylogenetics, genetics, chemistry, geology, radiometric dating, physiology, molecular biology, biology, bioinformatics, ecology, anthropology, archaeology etc etc.

Think about it, we've excavated forms of extinct life, but does that honestly prove evolution? How do we know for sure? We've never seen an animal evolve.

Your first statement said you cant deny something if you don't understand it. The above statement shows you do not understand evolution. Please, read some.

We live for so short a time that we can't look back that far. Human kind has only recently kept written record compared with the amount of time evolution requires to actually make a visible difference between two species.
Even if there was some visual proof, there is always another explanation. On the same hand, it sounds like a very good theory. I think evolution could be possible, because 'evidence' such as bones and fossils do not disprove the idea.

My point is, though science is correct until disproved, it makes little sense to just believe a common theory without valid physical evidence.

Until you do some more reading, according to you, you should not be able to deny or confirm it. My position is that if you don't know enough to critique something, then you have to take the position of the experts, because you have to assume that the experiments and data across a huge number of disciplines gives many scientists confidence that evolution is a scientific fact. Otherwise why would everyone agree?

And yes, speciation has been observed in multiple species. Random mutations leading to positive functional change have been observed. All the normal claims of the creationists are easily answered, and they resort to more and more philosophical arguments because the data just doesn't support their favorite fairy tale.