Evolution and natural selection ARE the gods of this world!

[IATIA]

Say what!  Can you source this for me?  Your god thing will not work without proof of a god, so what other evidence do you have for this ridiculous claim?

all I said was we were going to be here at the big bang.

You used the word "preplanned". Life was never planned. It happened only because it was possible in this particular rendition of a universe. There may be countless universes in which life did not come about. One in a googolplex chance in an eternal infinity is nothing. It was going to happen. We just know about this universe because we are here and not there.

[comet]

Reason in this instance even if we can use that term is no different than cause and effect, to assume a purpose at this point is not necessary.

all I said was we were going to be here at the big bang.

You used the word "preplanned".  Life was never planned.  It happened only because it was possible in this particular rendition of a universe.  There may be countless universes in which life did not come about.  One in a googolplex chance in an eternal infinity is nothing.  It was going to happen.  We just know about this universe because we are here and not there.

yeah, I did. Just to stir the pot a little.
We were going to be here on earth 1 second after the big bang. it may have been a planned as your body plans the next group of blood cells. That is simple enough. Your Googolplex claim is irrelevant really until we find other universes. The chances of life in our universe is a great deal higher. 100% actually.
Then when we consider what elements are used in our life forms and the fact the early stars made vast amounts of them life was going to form. The numbers just support that claim. "knowingly preplanned" I don't know about that. But the universe is a giant quantum computer so we really need to keep that in mind. They may find large scale patters.
Then if we look deeper into bounders and what particles are, it is really hard to disguise between life and non life in our region of space. I doubt there is one thing we have that the universe does not have more of. That includes the algorithms that we call life. I keep it all anchored to the standard model.
all I am saying is that evolution seems to be doing something. That claim is more reasonable than there is no reason for evolution. Also, random doesn't mean random. If things happened totally randomly we would not have physics as we know it. Physic is based on repeatable patterns not random. even QM is based on waves.

[ignoramus]

I believe in evolution, because it's what we got.  But if in 10000 years (were we to last that long) they find out that there is more too it than just randomness and natural selection, I wouldn't be shocked.  The randomness part that is.

I think you'll find that the rest of us will be shocked.
No unaccounted for events, either magical, supernatural, or otherwise are missing or needed to explain the whole evolutionary process in its entirely.
It is the randomness part which is the most natural.
Remember, there is no ID here. Mother nature blindly pushes forward, and always stumbling along the way, wherever it may lead her.
That is her grace. Please don't ever let a stupid man made "god" concept take that away from here.

[robvalue]

Whether or not we were "planned", or rather inevitable, depends on just how deterministic the universe is. If it's entirely deterministic, then yeah, we were inevitable from the start. Otherwise, almost certainly not so. If I had to guess at gun point I'd say everything is entirely deterministic, but that's no more than a hunch. I don't think anyone in the world at this stage can say whether or not it is the case with any huge confidence. Some may in fact say it isn't the case with some degree of confidence, regarding quantum randomness. I don't know enough details about it to know whether this is something that could later be discovered to be non random, or not.

[Aoi Magi]

The thing is, yeh, there might be a "reason" behind the present randomness that we see, or it might turn out to be just a coincidence, but at this point in time and our present knowledge we can only see the random cause and effect, and thus presupposing a reason or planned purpose is wrong. Saying that the universe is a giant data processor is also a bit wrong, cause yes it is made up of the same energy/matter/particles which at a certain level of combination is what we are made of, but that doesn't necessarily make all of that "data". For example if you reduce a substance to the molecular level, a single molecule would still be the basic building block of that substance and contain the "data" of that substance, but if you go one step beyond that and reduce it to atomic state, there is no "data" of the actual substance. So following this trend, at the most basic level it wouldn't be right to consider those building blocks of the universe would be possessing similar "data" as our building blocks or that the universe could be a giant living/thinking machine working on such data. Yes there is a possibility that the universe has a form of intelligence we are yet to understand, but it is just a possibility, and till our science becomes capable of looking into any such possibilities, this would be just speculative assumptions.

[comet]

Please, don't take this the wrong way, I am so happy some reasonable atheist showed up here and are participating in the boards these days without the asshole slamming everything they say.  

The universe acting like a giant data processer is a basic level understanding.  MiT, and many other top physics people, are researching that as we speak. But on a simpler level we can just look at the process of seeing the color blue.  Stating it as "simple cause and effect" is how the it works.  Not what it is doing, here, "seeing blue".  Everything works by cause and effect.   Again, we don't define "things" by "C-A-E", we define them by "what is the exact particles, using C-A-E to interact with its surroundings, is doing."  Like "a brain".  Your brain operates by C-A-E, but it still reasons.

"random" is based on what is not know about a system.  basically what statistics does is predict repeatable outcomes in a group of events where each "state" in "each" piece is not known.  but the set of outcomes is known.  A very simple example of this is flipping a coin.  We know heads or tails is the solution set. If you knew is velocity, spin rate, and weight distribution, and its "orientation" half way up on the toss leg you would predict its landing on your hand and at a much greater rate than "50/50" .  also you can think out it in terms of how insurance company calculates the number possible car accidents without knowing what each driver is doing every second.

Determinism, that a tricky one for me. The data points to it be so but I just can't accept it myself.  But that is emotional for me so I have to be careful.  So how I deal with that emotion is by interjecting logic is to make it a more valid general statement while maintaining some connection to the standard model.

For example.  When my wife and I got married we were going to have kids.  But exactly what they were going to be like was in question.  The same goes for "us going to be here at the moment of the big bang.".  Our type of life was going to be here, (carbon based) but maybe not exactly as we are today.    For example, there were about a dozen pre-humans so many years ago.  Any one of them could have become the dominate "sentient being".

again, it is not about right and wrong. It is only about if one stance seems more valid than another based on what we do know, not what we don't. And we can have more than one 'equally, or close, valid opinions.  Theist base their belief on what is not known or emotional needs.  The latter of the two is not bad per say, but we need to be careful with it.  so whats that mean in terms of "evolution having a purpose.".  "no-nothing reason " just doesn't have any observational support.  In fact, the better the machine the less chance you have of seeing "no nothing reason".  The LHC is an example.  There is no Omni dude moving evolution, that's a fact at this point for us all.  But the universe may very well be alive.  


Key word: "MAY".  Not definitely. What data would you use to say that it is not?