The question Evolutionsists can't answer

[Colossians]

We have seen alot of bluff here. But no answers from the evolutionist camp which address the philosophical impasse.

And we have seen bluff of the kind designed to suck in naive moderators to rule against things like "trolling". (Always assign a label to the opposition's style which is ostensibly in the name of diplomacy - makes you at least look noble when you lack brilliance. If you can't beat them then by your argument, at least you can disqualify them by the rules!)



Here is a typical example of the sort of cart-before-horse thinking we get from their camp, which sums up just nicely the redundancy of their position:

Pleasure is a good incentive to reproduce. If you don't enjoy reproducing, you are less likely to be willing to invest the time and energy to reproduce
Synopsis:
I perceive a need to reproduce (of course I myself am a reproduction, but that doesn't matter here.. I'm don't notice circularity when I am presenting it), and so I have a great incentive to reproduce (afterall, if I dont reproduce, my grand children won't be able to talk about me in years to come.)

But although I have this great incentive, it is not great enough: I need to 'evolve' a pleasure on top of my incentive, which will become my incentive.
So the pleasure which evolves emanates out of my initial incentive to stay alive, but by some special wizardry, is more necessary than my initial incentive to stay alive (otherwise I would not have needed to evolve it).
And although I cannot evolve all of an [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] in my own life-time, I pass on the part I have evolved (sort of like passing on part-pregnancy) to those whom I am currently reproducing without [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], in order that they might be able to reproduce....eh...

Evolutionists like trying to pull themselves off the ground by their own bootstraps.
And then they tell you this occured because their bootstraps needed to be pulled.

 

[Jet Black]

I perceive a need to reproduce (of course I myself am a reproduction, but that doesn't matter here.. I'm don't notice circularity when I am presenting it), and so I have a great incentive to reproduce (afterall, if I dont reproduce, my grand children won't be able to talk about me in years to come.)

no no, this is a horrible strawman, we are just talking about instincts. the organism in question may have a mutation whic increases the pleasure it gains from sex, and so it will have sex more... we work from there and look at differential reproductive success.

But although I have this great incentive, it is not great enough: I need to 'evolve' a pleasure on top of my incentive, which will become my incentive.

no no, you weren't paying attention, the pleasure is co-opted from earlier evolutionary steps, which used pleasure for a more simple choice purpose.

So the pleasure which evolves emanates out of my initial incentive to stay alive, but by some special wizardry, is more necessary than my initial incentive to stay alive (otherwise I would not have needed to evolve it).

you aren'T making sense here

And although I cannot evolve all of an [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] in my own life-time, I pass on the part I have evolved (sort of like passing on part-pregnancy) to those whom I am currently reproducing without [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], in order that they might be able to reproduce....eh...

no no, again you aren't paying attention, the [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] is simply a pleasurable response to sex, nothing that special really. all it requires is for, in the final bit of sex, for the body to fire off nerves and release chemicals that activate the already present sense of pleasure. and this can indeed be a gradient. even if an organism finds sex 1% more pleasurable than another organism, then it is more likely to have more offspring.

Evolutionists like trying to pull themselves off the ground by their own bootstraps.
And then they tell you this occured because their bootstraps needed to be pulled.

lets go through it again for you.

(1) organism eats
(2) organism that has a drive to eat breeds more than one that has less drive.
(3) organism that can select between things that are good (pleasurable) and things that are bad (unpleasant) breed more than those that cannot select. this provides a rudimentary origin for pleasure. we know for a fact that pleasant is a chemical response in the brain, since we can induce pleasurable experiences with drugs, but that aside.
(4) organism that attaches sex to this previously evolved pleasurable experience is more likely to breed than an organism that does not make this attachment.

see, no circularity, though granted I am not getting into the nitty neurochemistry of the matter, but no real need, since these drives and instincts would have evolved in pretty early animals anyway.

 

[DJ_Ghost]

That means organisms on this planet have the power over they anatomy and mutate accordingly to their needs. Then why cant we mutate so that our cells dont get older? Why cant we mutate so that we may never die?

That means organisms on this planet have the power over they anatomy and mutate accordingly to their needs. Then why cant we mutate so that our cells dont get older? Why cant we mutate so that we may never die?

Individuals do not evolve, populations evolve, by miniscule increments. To put it a different way - you do not mutate but your children are not carbon copies of you they are very slightly different - their children are different again and their children slightly different again add infanitum. Over the course of millions of generations these small changes have amounted to big differences.

Come on man, this is primary school stuff . 11 year olds in the UK are expected to understand that much about the theory of evolution.

Ghost

 

[Jet Black]

your problem is that you are trying, as many creationists often do, to explain the existance of something de novo, and ignoring the slow build up of all the features that led to the final result. something like an [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] is the culmination of many different features which have been evolved for a slightly different purpose and then co opted into the final phenomenon which benefits the species concerned.

 

[Colossians]

Jet black.

You not only need to quote me, but to read what you have quoted as well. You have not even remotely dealt with your circularity. I think you have a perception problem: you need to study some logic.

 

[DJ_Ghost]

But although I have this great incentive, it is not great enough: I need to 'evolve' a pleasure on top of my incentive, which will become my incentive.
So the pleasure which evolves emanates out of my initial incentive to stay alive, but by some special wizardry, is more necessary than my initial incentive to stay alive (otherwise I would not have needed to evolve it).

Not more NECESSARY more EFFECTIVE. To use an analogy, a bow and arrow will kill, but a gun is far more efficient. Survival in the wild is difficult, every advantage is worth grasping. So an urge to reproduce gets us reproducing, but a pleasure stimuli related to the act will cause us to reproduce more often. in the wild the species that reproduces most is the species that is more successful. Its not a difficult concept to grasp.

Ghost

 

[Colossians]

Not more NECESSARY more EFFECTIVE. To use an analogy, a bow and arrow will kill, but a gun is far more efficient.
You are comparing apples with oranges: evolution has no perception or intelligence. You analogy is moot.

 

[Jet Black]

Jet black.

You not only need to quote me, but to read what you have quoted as well. You have not even remotely dealt with your circularity. I think you have a perception problem: you need to study some logic.

sorry I just added a few bits to it. I told you already, the pleasure response is already there. [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] builds on that (it is a massive firing of the pleasure centre), there is no circularity at all.

 

[Colossians]

The evolutionist has convinced himself that no intelligence behaves as one with intelligence would behave.

He reasons that an organism can memorize pleasure, and then change itself so that it will get more of the same in generations to come. So he has organisms with perception, who like joy-trips, and wished they'd evolved more of them in their own life-time.
I can just hear these organisms now: "If only we'd known what pleasure we could have had earlier! Now it's too late! But let's pass on what we have learned to our progeny whom we produce without this pleasure! Yeah! Great idea!"

Once again our evolution friends have our ends producing another's path to it.
In the Republic of Evolutionary, rain falls on people because cows are wearing raincoats.

 

[Jet Black]

He reasons that an organism can memorize pleasure, and then change itself so that it will get more of the same in generations to come. So he has organisms with perception, who like joy-trips, and wished they'd evolved more of them in their own life-time.

I can just hear these organisms now: "If only we'd known what pleasure we could have had earlier! Now it's too late! But let's pass on what we have learned to our progeny whom we produce without this pleasure! Yeah! Great idea!"

nobody has said anything like this. stop misrepresenting people, it is intellectually dishonest.

 

[Mistermystery]

We have seen alot of bluff here. But no answers from the evolutionist camp which address the philosophical impasse.

"HA! Those stupid evolutionists! They are so stupid. Look at them trying to awnser my query in an honest fashion, it's perposterus. LOOK AT THEM GO."

Evolutionists like trying to pull themselves off the ground by their own bootstraps. And then they tell you this occured because their bootstraps needed to be pulled.

I hope you will find your way to the real savior, before it is to late. If you keep being blind like this you will never make it to heaven.

 

[Mistermystery]

The evolutionist has convinced himself that no intelligence behaves as one with intelligence would behave.

He reasons that an organism can memorize pleasure, and then change itself so that it will get more of the same in generations to come. So he has organisms with perception, who like joy-trips, and wished they'd evolved more of them in their own life-time.
I can just hear these organisms now: "If only we'd known what pleasure we could have had earlier! Now it's too late! But let's pass on what we have learned to our progeny whom we produce without this pleasure! Yeah! Great idea!"

Once again our evolution friends have our ends producing another's path to it.
In the Republic of Evolutionary, rain falls on people because cows are wearing raincoats.

For someone who says we aren't playing by the rules, you surely are a rule breaker here. You dishonestly accuse us of things, you make ad hom attacks, and make a numerous amount of fallacies.

Great job you're doing here. I hope Christ forgives you for your sins.

 

[Colossians]

Jet Black,

Here is a hint or 2 for you and your cronies (to help you get to the gist of things):

1. Pleasure has no utility where volition is absent.
2. Pleasure is a non-entity where perception is absent.

(Think about that for a while before you provide more of your question-begging doctrine, ad nauseum).

 

[Jet Black]

oh I see, so you are claiming that only humans feel pleasure?

 

[Colossians]

You need to think again, this time at the fundamental level.

I am logging off now - it is late in this part of the world. When I next attend this thread, I will expect a thoughtful response to the full ramifications of the 2 pointers I have provided in bold font.

And I shall expect such from you.

 

[Mistermystery]

Do you also expect it to be delivered in an essay form, and should we bring it to you on a silver platter?

 

[Nathan David]

How do you evolve desire? By reproductive success.

Take the desire to eat, fueled by an empty stomach. Those organisms that are not impelled to eat die of starvation. Same thing with sex, those that are not impelled to have sex do not pass down their genes to the next generation, and so the lineage of sexually apathetic individuals are bred out.

I think this is the best worded of the many correct answers to the questions in the OP.

I also think there is a misconception in the OP. Animals do not desire [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], they desire sex. Once they experience [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], they are likely to desire sex even more through simple Pavlovian conditioning.

 

[Nathan David]

1. Pleasure has no utility where volition is absent.
2. Pleasure is a non-entity where perception is absent.

OK, no problem.

Volition: animals desire sex, and make a conscious decision (volition) to pursue sexual relations.

Perception: animals perceive that they enjoy sex.

 

[Jet Black]

I think this is the best worded of the many correct answers to the questions in the OP.

I also think there is a misconception in the OP. Animals do not desire [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], they desire sex. Once they experience [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], they are likely to desire sex even more through simple Pavlovian conditioning.

stop ringing that wretched bell.

 

[the_gloaming]

Here is a hint or 2 for you and your cronies (to help you get to the gist of things):

1. Pleasure has no utility where volition is absent.

Depends how you define volition. from dictionary.com (if you disagree with their definitions say so):

1.The act or an instance of making a conscious choice or decision.
2.A conscious choice or decision.
3.The power or faculty of choosing; the will

If you are defining it as 1 or 2, then your first statement is incorrect. For example, give a dog some food and it will derive pleasure from it, in that the nerves from the stomach will stimulate the pleasure centre of the brain when it is digesting food, encouraging it to eat more in the future. Over time, dogs (or rather, most organisms before and after dogs existed) that responded positively (not consciously, but as a result of their genes) to either the pain of hunger or the pleasure of getting rid of the hunger would have an advantage over those creatures that didn't respond. This can be applied to the [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse].

If you define it as 3, as in, a creature can either choose to eat food or not eat food, then sure. As long as you realise the choice is not a conscious decision, merely an option, and some organisms will happen to make a choice (influenced by their genes) that will give them an advantage evolutionarily, but some will not.

2. Pleasure is a non-entity where perception is absent

Sure, but perception of something is not the same as making a conscious decision, if you define perception (from perceive at dictionary.com) as "1.To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing".