(September 13, 2026 at 2:18 am)Jal Wrote:

(September 13, 2026 at 2:08 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Yes, Jal.  By the 100 or so pages you've already spent arguing to the contrary...it does seem like your theodicy is threatening by the world as it is, and that you know that it is.........

All those pages of you responding were indicative of feeling threatened by an alternative world view.

See? Two can play your stupid game.

Quote:............?

You're a bad witness.  Does that matter to you or not?

Will you never outgrow that stupid oxymoron?

If Patton was alive, he'd slap your face.

Boru

(September 12, 2026 at 8:53 pm)Jal Wrote:

(September 12, 2026 at 7:50 pm)Nay_Sayer Wrote: Evolutionist isn't a thing.  Your slip is showing.

May FSM unharden your heart

evolutionist
/ˌevəˈlo͞oSHənəst/


An evolutionistis a person who accepts or supports the scientific theory of evolution—the process by which populations of living organisms change and develop over generations through mechanisms like natural selection. [1, 2]

Dictionary Definition

• Meaning: A person who believes in or supports the biological theory of evolution.
  
  
• Status: It appears in standard references like the Oxford English Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary.[1, 2, 3]
  

Why Scientists Avoid the Term

• Not an Ideology: The suffix "-ist" usually implies a follower of a political movement, artistic group, or religious dogma.
  
  
• Scientific Fact: Evolution is a branch of science and an observable natural process, not a personal philosophy or belief system.
  
  
• Redundancy: Biologists just call themselves scientists, biologists, or evolutionary biologists.[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  

Why the Word is Used

• Creationist Debates: The term is most frequently used by creationists to frame mainstream science as a competing religious worldview or belief system.
  

Continued thoughts and prayers.

(September 13, 2026 at 8:16 am)Nay_Sayer Wrote:

(September 12, 2026 at 8:53 pm)Jal Wrote: evolutionist
/ˌevəˈlo͞oSHənəst/


An evolutionistis a person who accepts or supports the scientific theory of evolution—the process by which populations of living organisms change and develop over generations through mechanisms like natural selection. [1, 2]

Dictionary Definition

• Meaning: A person who believes in or supports the biological theory of evolution.
  
  
• Status: It appears in standard references like the Oxford English Dictionary and Cambridge Dictionary.[1, 2, 3]
  

Why Scientists Avoid the Term

• Not an Ideology: The suffix "-ist" usually implies a follower of a political movement, artistic group, or religious dogma.
  
  
• Scientific Fact: Evolution is a branch of science and an observable natural process, not a personal philosophy or belief system.
  
  
• Redundancy: Biologists just call themselves scientists, biologists, or evolutionary biologists.[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  

Why the Word is Used

• Creationist Debates: The term is most frequently used by creationists to frame mainstream science as a competing religious worldview or belief system.
  

Continued thoughts and prayers.

So the term "evolutionist" is avoided because macro-evolution is an indisputable scientific fact and therefore not just a belief system.  Got it.

Correct. Macro evolution is a fact, we've observed speciation.

It seems abandoning young earth creationism hasn't cured you of your anti-evolution crackpottery.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote:

(September 10, 2026 at 4:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I think I see the issue here.  You imagine that in determinism, the hunger signals the free will of my self to initiate an action.
 But in most forms of determinism, there is no self with a will independent of things like the desire to eat food -- in determinism, the desire to eat food is part of the 'I', there is no 'desire to eat food' and an 'I '; the desire is a part of my willing process and causes me, to initiate actions consistent with that desire.  There is no 'I' independently existing that reflects on hunger, the hunger itself is a component of the determined 'I'.   Otherwise the passage highlighted in blue is just a bare assertion because according to determinism, the opposite is true, the hunger initiates the action because the hunger is a part of my self...

The cat as a willful thing does not exist apart from the desires that move it according to typical determinism.  The desire to go outside initiates the cat's journey toward the door, and when it gets to the door and perceives inclement weather, the desire to go outside is replaced with a desire to avoid going outside, and that desire, being a part of the cat's self, initiates the appropriate actions.  There is no 'cat' and a 'desire' -- there is just a bundle of desires that we call a cat.

You seem to think I am segregating conscious into different component parts, namely the hungry part and the free-will part, and somehow one part signals the other. The most famous form of segregation among Christians is known as trichotomy (viz. spirit, soul, and body), which is complete gibberish and idiocy and is rejected by 99.9% of professional theologians. Among professionals, the general consensus is that each technical term for the self describes a diferent perspective of that one self, thus it's not a different component. (Viz. mind, soul, spirit, will, emotions, conscience, heart, inner man).  No, I would not make such a rookie mistake.

I am suggesting no such thing. I am merely pointing out that the intentionality of consciousness of the hunger aligns with both a view in which the hunger has a determinative effect on consciousness and a view in which the effect is non-determinative and mediated by a libertarian will. Since you assume the latter, you are unable to see that the former equally as well explains the matter without recourse to a libertarian free will. If I might opine on my personal view, consciousness to me serves as a scale upon which are weighed potential and actual unpleasant feelings and it reacts to effect a minimization of unpleasantness among them all. It is not initiative in any real sense as it is purely reactive: anxieties create the stimulus, the physician's hammer in the kneejerk reflex, and consciousness launches reactive processes aimed at handling the anxiety.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote: You say of hunger that the "desire is a part of my willing process and causes me, to initiate actions consistent with that desire." Please be careful how you use that word "initiate." In cause-effect determinisim, you CANNOT initiate anything. You're just a midstream domino. (Not to mention the unfathomability of innately unconscious particles becoming self-aware and hungry). Even if you feel desire/hunger, that's just a subjective feeling, it doesn't move your body, it doesn't take you to the grocery store.   Bear in mind that I can feel hungry and fast for a week. I'm in control. Tell me, in which of your physiology classes did they teach that cause-effect isn't needed to move the body? That arms can move without ATP due to self-locomotion driven by desire?

The word initiate has multiple senses. I believe that I used it correctly, but I will aim to be clearer in future for my reading comprehension challenged friends. You claim here that the feeling of hunger has no motive power but once again you have provided no support for your claim. According to Hitchens' razor, that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Thus I dismiss your claim. You have a habit of introducing things as bare assertions rather than claims supported with evidence. It makes the bulk of your bloviating not worth the time it takes to respond. In the case of fasting, the hunger as a motive force is overrriden by a more compelling alternate process or stimulus.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote: In other words, you're in essence trying to surreptitiously add MY metaphysics as an auxilliarly addition to science's cause-effect determinism because the latter is clearly insufficient - hence the word "insufficient" in the title of this thread. In MY metaphysics, desire really CAN move the body,  more precisely the body moves itself (self-locomotes). That's why I should be punished for assault if I punch someone in the face. Were it just domino cause-effect, no one should blame me for the punch. Subjectively I realize that I myself (i.e. my free will)  am probably the one to blame for that violence.

I have done no such thing as noted. Your lack of skill with the English language has led you to think otherwise. That is not my problem.

As to the puncher, an analogy I have heard is of glass vessels in a factory. Regardless of the cause, we should remove defective glass from any products we intend to ship.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote: whatever it wants. Clearly a deterministic domino-universe is not in control - the cat itself is in control.

Your remark here seems to have been cut off. Did you have something to say?

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote:

(September 10, 2026 at 4:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: When I look at the world, my eyes each receive a 2D image from the surrounding world.  My brain, without my willing it, presents the impression of viewing a 3-dimensional world to my awareness.  This 3D image is created by subconscious processes which take the two 2D images from our eyes and by calculating from light and dark, it calculates what 3D world would produce such 2D images to the eyes and it presents that to the mind.  We do not consciously calculate a 3D world from the 2D images presented to our eyes, the brain does it below the level of consciousness.  Similarly when we do some coordinated activity, the brain calculates the muscle movements needed to accomplish the action below the level of consciousness, so that our awareness is only of the upper level processes to perform X or Y action.  Because the brain itself exterior to consciousness is talented, there is no need for our bodies to be consciously imbued with skills.  Ponty's view doesn't align with psychology.

Even on a conscious level, it would take a mathematical genious to do x-y-z calculations properly. When I do math, I REALLY have to concentrate as hard as I can. I have to function at the very zenith of conscious acuity.  You're trying to tell me that the brain of every mamamal, subconsciously, is performing calculations too challenging even at full acuity? Even animal motility functions this way?  You know that sounds preposterous, right?

I mean, how far will you science-minded people go in order to insist on a cause-effect deterministic metaphysics? Unto the deepest recesses of absurdity?

Different computational devices use different processes to arrive at their conclusions. Thus, a computer is able to perform thousands of calculations in a fraction of a second, whereas my doing them similarly through conscious reasoning would take years. Your implied assumption that your conscious mind accomplishes the task with the same efficiency that a subconscious process would is both not supported and contrary to the evidence from empirical reality. That you think this is absurd simply suggests you suck at reasoning, employing assumptions that are nowhere justified because you're too stupid to adopt reasonable assumptions.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote:

(September 10, 2026 at 4:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: The first mover is a separate issue.  It does not necessarily require free will as far as we know, so this objection is moot.  Without better evidence or argument, the notion that there is a need for free will is unsupported and like your above objections, can be rejected without cause as it is just speculation without support.

It's not like have a million options here, if a piece of matter moves without being pushed>
(A) It happened randomly/ arbitrarily/ chaotically, no rhyme or reason for that particular direction and destination.
(B) It is self-locomotion by free will.

This was already addressed in post #714, underscoring once again how you are not actually listening to the replies to your claims and queries but simply ham-fistedly hammering out repetitive nonsense that fails to account for any objections because you aren't debating as an open-minded and good-faith opponent, but rather as a blowhard who thinks that sheer repetition shall carry some weight. It doesn't, and you have once again demonstrated your true character as a dogmatic twat. Even if this had not already been shown to be wrong, the postulation of only the two options without support is an obvious misapplication of the law of the excluded middle as without deductive proof of the case, unknown options cannot be reconciled except by a fallacious argument from ignorance. I am reasonably familiar with the standard arguments which typically prop up such assertions, and unless you have something new and unheard of in the last several millennia of theological argument, I suggest you not waste your breath repeating stale and long since debunked bollocks.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote: (A) All reality is fully chaotic, all motility is purely chaotic, and everyone just spasms randomly.
(B) We typically exert some control, unless our nervous system is damaged, we freely chose our behavior.

I see no support for your position in this latest post other than to repeat your previously attested assertive posturing, so if you hoped to clarify your prior argument with further elaboration as you suggested you were going to do, you have failed. Simply repeating yourself is neither clarification nor elaboration. Try presenting actual arguments and evidence. You might surprise yourself. I know it would surprise me.

(September 13, 2026 at 10:35 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Correct. Macro evolution is a fact, we've observed speciation.

Look, I live in a mechanical body built from inanimate matter called food. 
Technically, therefore, I should just be an inanimate machine. Again, a domino that is not in control of its own navigation. 

But in fact I am an animate body, which is consistent with a soul-infused body. 
Where did I get this physical soul? And why cannot it simply detach itself from my body by self-locomotion?

My theory: I opine that God infuses a soul into the body and confines it there (Gen 2:7). 

Seems to me He is deeply involved with His creatures and, as such, likely the unseen agent of speciation as well. Just my opinion. 

I'm sorry no one on this thread wants to hear  that opinion. But to prematurely rule out that possibility strikes me as a bit presumptuous.

A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills -Arthur Schopenhauer

My theory is that you believe "souls" solve some issue that you find pressing but that others have already worked out, in detail, needing no such thing.

(September 11, 2026 at 12:02 am)Jal Wrote: It's not like have a million options here, if a piece of matter moves without being pushed>
(A) It happened randomly/ arbitrarily/ chaotically, no rhyme or reason for that particular direction and destination.
(B) It is self-locomotion by free will.

I also note that I presented a plausible alternative as far back as post #207. You're really not listening.