(February 16, 2016 at 8:12 am)bennyboy Wrote: Harris, given ANY thing, we expect it to exist in the context of framework. If you look at the framework in turn as a thing (which it is), then you'd expect it to be part of another framework. In comes infinite regress, right?
You say that chance does not produce information. This is fair enough, because no state is "information" unless someone is around to make use of it. However, your mistake is a misunderstanding of the philosophical implications of evolution. Evolution is the creation of patterns through chance crossed with the variable persistence of those patterns in their environment.
It is fairly clear that everything in our universe is as it is because of the interactions of the stuff in the universe. So we are left to ask-- why is the universe such that it arrived at me, sitting here typing this message?
The correct answer to this is "I don't know." Anything beyond that is speculation, and in the case of a religious academic, pedantic speculation. We can all try to extend what little we DO know into the unknown and see what ideas it brings. You know something about intelligent life, information and patterns. Others know something about physical properties, scientific principles, etc. But BOTH sides, when attempting to look beyond the bounds of the observable, are just making shit up. And that goes for the physicalists, here, too, not just you.
The scientific method as it is understood today, placed a great deal of emphasis on systematic observation and experimentation. These methods were constantly updated, with scientists checking and correcting the work of previous scholars. Such practices provide us with universal model of concepts. Any conceptual framework is built upon the semantical characterization of any framework’s observable behaviour. Universals came out of practical and experimental work; theories are formulated after discoveries. Said all that the natural sciences increasingly find unity, order and harmony in nature.
“The role of the form in determining the persistence of an organism results from its role as the SOURCE OF UNITY. The form, including the organisms vital functions, makes a heap of material constituents into a single organism.”
(Metaphysics VII 16)
However, what is this SOURCE OF UNITY that holds the elements of anything into a specific order?
Coming to EVOLUTION, I can say to me EVOLUTION seems to be an alternate of God in atheist world. I had rigorous debates over this phenomenon in the past. I really feel pity that no atheist (including Richard Dawkins) has come up with a precise and clear scientific definition of this term yet almost all atheists are following this term inconsiderately.
