h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Purpose does imply intention, which seems to require conscious premeditation.

Property doesn't have to imply posession in the 'property is theft' sense, it can be taken to mean 'quality' (in the non-judgemental sense of 'quality', of course )

Exactly!

And that's exactly the problem; how do you define purpose in the absence of consciousness and does that absence prevent meaning? (Again, this only applies to things that are alive)

Quality, you'll find is also posessive. Even ideas could have a quality, but then this is a matter of interpretation. In many cases the terms propery and quality could be used interchangeably. If you mean quality in the context of 'value', then that's another issue altogether as it then becomes subjective.

In my opinion you might as well ask: "What is the purpose of rock" (not the musical genre, well maybe...).

If you follow that life as we know it came from simple self-replicating molecules made up of simpler organic components (sugars, amino acids, etc.), then life doesn't have to have a purpose.

A purpose does suggest a driving force. Of life going from somewhere to somewhere else. I propose that the idea of life having purpose is a leftover from a time whan religious thinking said that God created it all.

Again you're trying to bring it into the realm of philosophy, albeit a religious one. Why?

You're right, purpose does imply a driving force. Not sure if it was you, but someone mentioned Dawkins' Selfish Gene. He argues that driving force is not consciousness but genetic programming dervied by natural selection (evolution if you like). He clearly applies this argument to all life forms, not just humans, as with humans it becomes rather more complex (given consciousness).

Ok. I'm willing to play that game....so we have genes that move us forward; we bread, evolve, become more efficient replicators, and then what? Are they moving us in any direction? Is it a matter of the last life form on this planet wins?

Maybe I'm searching for meaning to all this or just revolving in confusion....

Don't forget, science is a branch of philosophy, just another way of thinking. What is wrong with "bringing into the realm of philosophy"?

Yeah, I mentioned the selfish gene. I don't understand what you mean by a 'genetic programming' in this sense, could you explain it to me please? If you look at life from the gene's poin of view, it all gets a hell of a lot less complex. DNA is intrinsically (yet unconsciously) selfish, this is probably the driving force behind evolution.

If there is a direction, it seems to lead in a way of increasing complexity, not perfection as some would claim. This would be due to the fact that mutations and adaptations accrue over time.

Nothing wrong with the realm of philosophy. I just see this question to be a rather practical one (the purpose, not meaning) with no need to take that path.

I agree, science is a branch of philosophy. As such, it's limits will be set by the limits of the human intellect. So perhaps unless we evolve, or somehow create additional cognitive firepower for ourselves, we may never be able to answer some of these questions???

By genetic programming I mean a set of instructions (stored by genes if you like) executed based on a a set of inputs (environment).

If there *is* an intelligent designer (codeword for god), would some creationist *please* explain why there's a fossil record out there littered with hundreds of millions of years of extinct 'mistakes'. Did the designer eventually get bored with creating all the lower life forms, play with varied mammals for a while, and then eventually tinker with hominids for a few million years more before eventually settling on us.

Personally I'm not sure I'd want to be designed by something with so much time on its hands that it could happily spend three billion years staring at a planet covered in algae before it thought of making something to start eating them.

*Tumbleweed rolls across the screen*, *door creaks in the distance*, *crickets chirp in the background*...

We're waiting for a creationist to answer this...

It *is* quiet here, maybe *too* quiet...

*Sound of arrow flying*, *body* pitches forwards and rolls down succession of roofs in suspiciously acrobatic fashion*

I don't want to pose as an expert, cause I'm not, but I do have several comments to make. I've only read what was recently said, so forgive me if I repeat something.
But under the "creation" theory, a fosil record could easily have been created during "noah's" flood. With all of the water covering the earth, there had to be a lot of change and wierd conditions.

Plus I noticed earlier that someone mentioned why the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs. There are actually some passages which refer to dinosaur-like creatures. I Job several times they refer to an animal that sounds kind of dinosaurish (Job 41:12-33).

peace.

A record could *easily* have been created??

The amount of rock is massively too large to have been deposited in a single event. There are places where just one particular type of limestone exists in beds hundreds of metres thick, with many other layers both above and below, and total thicknesses of thousands of metres

If most fossils were deposited as a result of one event, (however impossibly large that event was) :-

a) There wouldn't be a clear and consistent stratigraphic ordering of fossils found in rocks throughout the world, nor would there be stratigrahpic ordering of different rock types (limestones, shales, sandstones, etc.), again tracable over large distances.

b) There would not be a sufficient source of material to create all the sedimentary rocks in the first place. It's not just a matter of washing sand into a sea. To form a limestone such as chalk that is composed of the remains of tiny sea creatures, you need an awful lot of dead bodies. Given the density such creatures live at in the ocean, you're looking at an almost humanly unimaginable timescale.

c) Examining sedimentary rocks, we would not find fossil surfaces in many places showing that some rock had been formed, exposed, eroded, and then covered by more rock, nor would we find evidence of desert-related sediments lying on oceaninc sediments, but also overlain by other manrine sediments. However, we do find exactly that

d) Radiometric dating of rocks would not show the huge timescales which it does in fact show.

Furthermore, the presence of marine fossils thousands of metres above sea level is hard to reconcile with any known theory except Continental Drift. It's not just a matter of the odd fossil on the surface either - I've descended many deep alpine caves to hundreds of metres below the surface, sometimes over 1000m, and believe me, there are fossils all the way down, albeit admittedly often rather dull ones.


Let's not even mention the huge problems with any kind of Ark.

*sigh* I should know better than to contibute to deep discusions... but forgive me, I'm only 17...

peace.

Don't worry about it - rocks are one of my areas of particular interest, for obvious reasons.

I can tell, though to me I couldn't tell an uncut dimond from a chunk of granite...

peace.

In that case, do yo want to buy a few diamonds - really cheap?

Why do I have the feeling I'm being set up? *grin*

peace.

The marine animals on mountains is not necessarily continental drift. It could also be the Flood doing that.

Marine fossils have been found on Everest. The flood would have to have lasted longer to achieve that.

Alji

Why would it need to have lasted longer? I read that they should have found a lot of clams on Everest. And that they were closed, which meant they were buried alive. Anyone know anymore on this?

To explain sedimentary rocks hundreds (thousands) of metres thick, composed of marine fossils deposited in situ a few thousand metres above sea level in one short, recent event, (rather than their being deposited gradually below sea and subsequently uplifted) seems to be enormously difficult.

You'd have to explain :-

Where the constituent creatures came from to make such immense masses of rock stretching for hundreds/thousands of miles.

Why those creatures apparently concentrated together from other places to form seriously high areas, whereas it is usual for sediments to form at low points on the planet's surface.

Layering, with older fossils in lower layers, and newer ones in higher layers.

Variation between rock layers :- layers of sandstone sandwiched between marine limestone .

The immense amount of water required to cover the entire planet to a depth of several kilometres. Where did it come from, where did it go to. Was it saline or fresh.

Why the mountains show clear folding and faulting, indicating compression/distortion of the rock layers during uplift

How variation in local relief (valleys vs. peaks) of the order of 2-3000m can have developed in the short time since the proposed flood, which would preumably have laid down sediment leaving a surface that was essentially horizontal at a local level.
*Differential* erosion rates (between valley and peak) of the order of one metre per year would be required to be sustained year-on-year.