Do you ever doubt your atheism?

[ignoramus]

what he is saying is that the religious "interpretation" only of what we are discussing is bs.

[LostLocke]

The functionality of a being's consciousness is directly proportional to the size of their brain, and the components making up that brain.
We are superior to most animals because we have developed the frontal cortex(?) which is responsible for such things as planning ahead, short term memory/working memory and other things most animals don't seem to possess.

You might want to rethink that.
Many "higher" animals (mammals and larger birds) have these functions fully formed. Not to the extent humans do, but there's no doubt they do have them.

[Little lunch]

God - Look, I've appeared before you in physical form! Now do you doubt your atheism?

Me - I guess so, but I still think your a cunt.

[The Grand Nudger]

@consciousness
"I just can't imagine how..........therefore", lol.

As far as how peculiar our faculties are - I think that maybe it's a bit of self interest spurring this one on. Plants have peculiar faculties as well, just as much so. They simply went a different way with it. We are incapable of doing what they do just as fantastically as they are incapable of doing what we do (though they may not be quite so incapable as we once imagined them to be, surprise surprise). That we think it means something in us, and nothing in them, is, frankly, beyond me. We can move around a little bit, and think about stuff - they're the masters of organic chemistry upon which our existence depends- capable of expressing what can only be called behaviors without so much as a single brain cell. They managed to figure something out that still has us, with our big, important "consciousness", scratching our heads to this day. Who's the badass here again?

[FallentoReason]

The functionality of a being's consciousness is directly proportional to the size of their brain, and the components making up that brain.
We are superior to most animals because we have developed the frontal cortex(?) which is responsible for such things as planning ahead, short term memory/working memory and other things most animals don't seem to possess.

You might want to rethink that.
Many "higher" animals (mammals and larger birds) have these functions fully formed. Not to the extent humans do, but there's no doubt they do have them.

It was implied that what I meant is we have taken the development of the frontal cortex a lot further than the rest of the animal kingdom :p

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@consciousness
"I just can't imagine how..........therefore", lol.

As far as how peculiar our faculties are - I think that maybe it's a bit of self interest spurring this one on. Plants have peculiar faculties as well, just as much so. They simply went a different way with it. We are incapable of doing what they do just as fantastically as they are incapable of doing what we do (though they may not be quite so incapable as we once imagined them to be, surprise surprise). That we think it means something in us, and nothing in them, is, frankly, beyond me. We can move around a little bit, and think about stuff - they're the masters of organic chemistry upon which our existence depends- capable of expressing what can only be called behaviors without so much as a single brain cell. They managed to figure something out that still has us, with our big, important "consciousness", scratching our heads to this day. Who's the badass here again?

Surely the species that is able to contemplate the flipping fabric of space-time will have a one up on a species whose major achievement is photosynthesis?

[The Grand Nudger]

Apparently not, if we (thinking things, whatever you want to put in that box) all went the way of the dodo most of the photosynthesizers wouldn't notice. If they all went they way of the dodo, we'd notice - right before we followed them. Their major achievment is not photosynthesis btw, that's just a side benefit of having such a vast chemical repertoire. That particular development may have been borrowed, in any case. Let me find you some info on my favorite plants.....might challenge your presumptions about what we have a one-up on.

[The Grand Nudger]

Meet the humble Dodder Vine, Cascuta Europea as shown below

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Interestingly, this vine is incapable of producing it's own nutrients. It's what we in the biz call an obligate parasite. The seedlings have roughly 72 hours after germination to find a host plant or they die. Perhaps even more interestingly, they seem to prefer particular hosts more than others. Tomatos are a favorite (and that's why they're a favorite of mine). Perhaps even more interestingly, they have been shown, both in the field and under lab conditions, to consistently "choose" a favored host rather than a quicker, easier host. They locate these choice cuts by means of chemical signatures in green leaf volatiles (GLVs). They will even choose a synthetic alternative (distilled GLV) over the actual host from which those GLV are distilled if the concentration of GLV is higher in the synthetic, or the actual host plant is inhibited from producing them (or the vine inhibited from detecting them). Let me stress this, because it can;t be overstated. They have a 72 hour death clock....and will actively pass up a food source if they detect a favored host, utilizing their built up nutrients and phototropism to spiral out until they find whatever it is they were "looking" for. Sometimes......this causes their death. More often than not, it leads to them locating and exploiting a much better food source.

They make choices (or what we can only conceive of as mechanically identical to choices), responding to environmental stimuli - gambling with data. All of this without any "thought" to speak of (or at least no mechanism that we would traditionally associate with thought) - and it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuscuta

[CapnAwesome]

I became an Atheist/Agnostic when I was around 18 and during the first few years I definitely had long periods of something similar to doubt. Although I think that doubt is perhaps the wrong word for it, doubt would make it sound as though I would come away from the doubt with a chance of believing in God.

Instead it was more of a inward self-reflection reviewing both the evidence and my own personal feelings. I would occasionally ask myself if it is possible if there was a God or not and review the whole thing. As I get older these moments happen less and less, I think because I'm confronted with less new information or new ideas as I get older and therefore more set in my ways. Sometimes I still reflect on the larger questions of where we come from or whether or not there is a point to the universe.

Again, doubt is perhaps the wrong word, but it's intellectually shallow to not reflect on your own ideas every once in a while.

[The Grand Nudger]

Consider the Sea Rocket

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[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Cakile_Maritima.jpg/220px-Cakile_Maritima.jpg[img]

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Notable for the purposes of this thread because it has been demonstrably shown, again in the wild and under lab conditions - to possess kin recognition. Animals use this ability for a variety of reasons (social, competitive, reproductive). In the case of Sea Rocket, it's competitive (more accurately, the lack of competition in their case). In the presence of it's kin it "politely" curbs root growth and cooperates with it's neighboring siblings, maximizing the overall uptake of nutrients by members of it's specific genetic lineage as a unit. In the presence of non-kin members of the same species (or other species of plants) - it shows no such regard, aggressively invading it's neighbors rootspace.

[The Grand Nudger]

Now, for something completely down to earth - and the final installment (for now..or until such time as I make a thread about this stuff...lol)- corn and lima beans.

Corn and Lima beans display a set of behaviors so impressive that it make make us stop and wonder just how impressive our own behaviors are. When attacked by a particular species of caterpillar, both of these plants begin to emit a chemical signal that lures parasitic wasps, who, upon locating the source of the plant signal, find a wonderful place to set up shop - eventually annihilating the caterpillars. They don't emit this signal when they are attacked by aphids or beetles.
http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/121/2/325.full

So, they are apparently - somehow- "self aware". They "know" when they are being attacked. Not only that, they have some idea of whats attacking them. To further compound this little mystery they then produce a signal which attracts a specific predator - that then preys on this specific predator itself. That is some mind bogglingly complex stuff right there. Now, I;ve used quotation marks in alot of this - because the words in them are useful for conveying what the plants are doing, but not so useful in that what they are doing bears no real analogue to the manner in which we do similar things. What stands out, is that the same -effect- is achieved. I don't want to insinuate that we aren't better "thinkers" - objectively, we are- however, and this is a big however, "thinking"...or the effect of thought, awareness, choice, planning, etc doesn't seem to be something that plants are incapable of. Some of them do seem to possess that ability (or something similar to a similar or identical effect- and at what point thinking, or thought, or consciousness is not considered an effect - I wouldn't know)- and all the while they possess abilities that we do not.

So no, I don't think we have a "leg up", we simply have legs (and they do not).