Huh? So they couldn't complete his Works even given enough monkeys and time?
I'm of two minds of this...on the one hand, shows how special those works really are, and yet, on the other- where am I going to get someone to re-type "Cardenio" for me! ;)
@warspite:
I'm familiar with that video, my answers to The Five Questions (with the disclaimer I'm NOT an atheist...I'm a theist, believing there's something somewhere that works someway- and we don't have hardly any of the answers, let most or all, and certainly not to the extend we have a manual to the secrets of life in one two-volume book written thoudands of years ago):
#1: I don't care for a word Dawkins spews, and that includes "God of the Gaps," so I'll go ahead and say that's just as ridiculous as "Chance of the Gaps" but also say that neither are valid points here for me; when faced with an unanswered question I don't use a neat little term like "God did it" or "Chance," but rather, the wise saying of a certain Mr. Hume- a miracle is merely a phenomenon we have not yet figured out, but someday, if we study and try and figure it out logically and otherwise, we WILL figure out the answers. No chance, no divine spark to solve all...we CAN learn all the mysteries, we just have to sit down and try, and not give up if something doesn't reveal its answers in the first couple minutes or first couple thousand of years...
#2: "Why should there be something instead of nothing?" If I interpret this correctly as a questioning of why anything should exist at all, and the meaning behind it, I would respond that seomething and nothing define each other as opposites; black can be defined (at least in a certain manner of thinking) as being in opposition to white, good is generally conceived to exist in opposition to evil...these things define each other. Without one, the other either cannot be or, if it is, is not somethingness or nothingness...it just is, and nothing more. Nothings exist to give worth to the somethings, and vice versa, like 1s and 0s in binary code. That being said, I AM also of the opinion that there was a First Cause or a First Force, and so I can freely admit to saying I believe that there can be a Power, and that power might be the reason WE are here, that we exist as somethings; however, asgain, we CANNOT assume that we know this, and so this is so far only speculative thought and while it is in my view logically plausible and should be explored further in thought, it cannot be taken as the answer in itself. Before I leave this question, however, I would like to adress another point he raised, that being the notion that life on Earth bears the mark of an intelligent design, whether or not there was actually an intelligent creator. However, as we are terribly flawed (we feel pain, thirst, our bodies are not nearly as strong or resiliant as it could be, anumals die out as a result of over-hunting, when we die we lose all knowledge we have gained and so if life is a "test" then what's the point if our answers get erased in the end) I do not believe there is sufficient evidence for an intelligent design, merely for a design and a creator, and that the fact we have those attributes we do have can be attributed to a creator who either through his own error or through his own ommission left us short of what would seem to be our fuller potential biologically, or else we received what we did through other forces that are not yet understoood, but given enough time, we can learn to understand them. In any case, however, the case for a creator is compelling; the case that such a creator must ahve been intelligent and perfect and perfectly omnipotent- less so.
#3:Again, I am not an atheist and so cannot give morals on behalf of them. However, if asked where I get my morals from, I would respond from The Foundations of Huamn Understanding, and elaborate on that. The Foundation (my own idea here) is like any other Understanding. to fully understand anything, you must have 1. Experience of the thing in question and 2. Wisdom of Occurance (NOT merely Knowledge of the Occurance.) To explain, take cooking a turkey. To understand how to do so, to fully understand, I should have to cook one for myself, to gain the experience, for without that all is merely a mental image and thought with no grounding...and a Foundation with no grounding is absurd. I should also have to come to learn why the turkey must be cooked a certain way (ie, in the oven and not in an open, boiling pot) and how the process works logically; without this, I might cook the turkey but have no concept of what I am doing, and even if I cooked a turkey by just going instruction-by-instruction, I STILL wouldn't truly have an understanding, as that's not knowing and learning the why, it's merely going through the motions. So both are needed for an Understanding. Now take morality. I first need experience in the human condition- done, I've lived for a decent period of time. I also need to know why things occur- this will always be, for everyone, accomplished to varyting degrees in varying fields; I know a great deal about the whys and hows of literature and compositiona dn philosophy and theatre, a good deal of history and a fair deal of science...but ask me anything but the most simple of math equations and I flounder, despite my experience with them. Apply that to the ethical situations of today and of mankind. Each situation is different, and so ideas from the past must be used as a reference point. For example, five people, all equally sick, four shots of my Super Duper Fix-Ya-Right-Up Medicine...who gets it? Well, of those five, four of them are my friends, one is a toal stranger I have no knowledge of. As I know that the greatest possible happiness for me is to save the four and that I have no frame of reference to rationale sacrificing one of my friends for a stranger, the four friends get the medicine. However, say I had foreknowledge of the future- three of my friends will go on to do great things and help mankind, one will just marry me and do nothing to affect many others excepot our circle of friends, and the stranger will invent warp drive and let human beings explore the galaxy and enter a new age of discovery and freedom. In this case, as much as losing my future wife would hurt me, I would sacrifice her for the other friends and the warp-drive scientist, as that would produce the greatest possible good for the greatest number...even if I'm slightly hurt by this as I've lost my love. (As if I'd ever HAVE a love, but whatever, this is hypothetical.) So my morals would come from Foundations of Understanding applied to life experiences, and these all are different but should be handled in the Utilitarian fashion, greatest possible good for greatest number; however, I use that as a guide, and I am not a slave to it. As you noticed, when all were the same except four made me happy and one I didn't know, I will act out of MY interests, as something must break the moral tie. Further, there are cases where someone should take priority as he/she is more valuable to have alive, case in point, the wapr drive creator agains tthe wife who, despite being a great person I'm sure, would be comparatively valueless. Assigned values thorugh Understanding, responding to circumstances, evaluations of importance based on all I know and what will benefit the greatest number (and then if it's "tied" what will may ME happiest) and what can lead to the best outcome- THESE are my morals, and where I get them.
#4: "How did morals evolve?" I really just covered this, but to re-hash a bit- we develop an Understanding (or if you want to take this on a "from the start of time" scale, mankind has developed an Understanding) and respond to all moral dilemmas in this manner; different cultures had different Understandings, these often rising from different valuations, and so we get the different moral systems we have today. To examine this, if you're a Hebrew and you're enslaved in Egypt your whole life building monuments under cruel conditions, and one day you're freed, chances are if someone says "Killing and brutality in general are bad things" you won't have a hard time agreeing; if you were the Egyptian pharaoh faced with that message, you're more likely to be dispassionate to such sufferings, as you've never endured them (and thus never gained an Understanding of them) and instead respond that the higher class should be served and glorified by the lower class, as that is what you have experienced and what you have, thusly, an Understanding of. In this manner did morals evolve.
#5: I have already stated I believe in the idea of a First Cause, therefore rendering a question asking me how life could have arisen otherwise irrelevant for me.
We need 2 in a live game starts @ 9:20am(PST)
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