Phi for All

That one always stumped me, since so many people interpret it to mean God looks like us. I think the operative word is "image", or tselem in Hebrew. It's the same word used to describe the idols the false worshipers in Genesis made to other gods. It implies an inferior copy, a shadow, a reflection, a replica. But tselem is also used to describe offspring, so it has that context as well. There are instances where tselem is used where the implication is more of an ethical image, implying that we're akin to God on a moral level. In any case, evolution is so much a part of the life on this planet that it could be implied that God is affected too, or would be if he chose to pass his genes along to offspring.

Was there anyone besides the now-banned troll who claimed sexual preference is a choice?

Truth is subjective. Your "true" world sounds extremely fake to me, since it attempts to drag our development backwards with no good reason other than your vague and defeatist leanings. I see people living, loving, taking care of each other and progressing, while they try to do their parts to make our environment safe and healthy. I'm sorry you only see the bad and want to destroy all we've accomplished in your blindness. You don't know me, so you don't know anything about what I consume or not. I'd appreciate it if you could avoid declaring things you know nothing about. You say you're not thinking of yourself, but I can't help wonder why you want such a drastic change for people who obviously don't share your sentiments. That sounds pretty selfish, pushing your agenda on folks who love living in these times. Obsessive, I think you called it. Perfection is a good goal, as long as you realize that a lot of good happens along with the bad when you strive for perfection. The key is being able to accept that bad things can happen right alongside the good, can even be caused by good things. Your view is far too black and white to appreciate all the nuanced experiences that our modern life is offering to those who don't just slap it away because of oversimplified labels.

False dichotomy. You assume we can't advance together as a species and advance with Earth in mind as well. Again, as with some of your other threads, you place your stance in direct opposition to mainstream societal norms and declare them all somehow wrong, and that your solution is the only obvious and viable one, yet have no reasons why except some vague hand-waving about words being evil. Quite frankly, and I don't mean this personally, your stance sounds like "sour grapes". Perhaps you haven't found the success in life you feel you deserve, so you blame the system for being stacked against you and holding you back. Words have been used to hurt you, so you target them as bad, ignoring how they are a tool and can be used for good as well. You claim we should all give up technology and revert back to pre-civilized methodologies, yet give no viable mechanism or psychology for such a backward, counter-intuitive action. You just don't like modern society, so you think it should change to accommodate you. What kind of survival skills do you have? Is this going to turn out that you've never even been camping, but you want everyone to give up their homes and live in "the wild" with you?

Do you have a magnification function on your camera?

Let's not get distracted. This is an important point and it shouldn't get dismissed like this. Sexuality simply isn't a choice. If you think back on it, it was never a choice for you, Peter. It was never a choice for me. Heterosexuals are attracted to the opposite sex for whatever reasons, and homosexuals are attracted to the same sex for whatever reasons. If it were a choice, there would be something I could offer you to choose differently than you already have. To get you to start dating men, if you could choose to be attracted to them, I could offer you a million dollars, or to pay for a loved one's vital operation, or to work for you for free for the rest of my life (just examples of extraordinary rewards, pick anything you find ultimately tempting). You might be able to fake it for the reward, but could you truly choose to go against the sexuality you have? Why should it be any different for anyone else?

Let's set the bar realistically, with some natural limits. Unlimited age isn't really rational, we know of nothing else that lasts forever. So let's say "immortal" for a human means we've cracked the embryonic regeneration code and we regrow new cells, including teeth, lost limbs, etc. Is it realistic to think we could live 1000 years instead of 100? Ten or twelve lifetimes seems like immortality at this point. OTOH, if we could regenerate tissue, how would we die a "natural" death? Immortality while restricted to Earth = BAD, imo. Either it's the "elite" who get to live forever, or everyone does so you have to either stop having children or do something with all those extra people. Start investing in growing cultured food, all those folks need to eat and we can only raise so many animals given limited land. Immortality coupled with <C space travel, this has real possibilities. If we gathered our resources off-planet, we could send colonizing ships out as floating universities, figuring that everyone on board will have a few hundred years to learn everything they can before landing on their chosen planet.

All humans who don't have children, including homosexual couples, become part of the pool of caregivers modern human society needs. Our intelligence, along with animal husbandry and modern agriculture, has allowed us to specialize in task generation for the good of the society. We're no longer so focused on hunting/gathering, procreation and survival since our needs can be met by others (I don't have to farm because the farmer does, and he doesn't have to make lamps to light his barn because I do that for him). Raising children requires a lot of resources. Those who choose NOT to raise children are able to help society in many other ways. Some homosexual couples fill the void not having children leaves by volunteer work with schools and other organizations that benefit kids. Others are just handy baby-sitters with more time than most because they don't have their own kids. I think we need to recognize all the benefits certain groups bring to society and not just key on the ones we belong to. If we all thought the same way, none of the rest of you would be necessary.

I understand where you're coming from on this, but working with infinity in this way is really no different than claiming a single, omnipotent god is behind it ALL. You get to claim that anything you can imagine is possible, including universes where our physical laws don't apply. And then you're really out there in the weeds, since you have nothing to support any of it. Your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine type of situation. Possibly fun but nothing really meaningful, do you see what I mean?

None of that is logical. In fact, it's so ill-logical, it makes it seem like you're trolling for a reaction by saying it is. Comparing lions and computers with humans and words is ridiculous, nothing about the comparison makes any sense. While that dovetails nicely with your overall stance in this matter, it makes discussing the issue with you a low-yield endeavor. You make a mistake assuming you know what I'm thinking beyond the words I've posted. I think this is how things will turn out. You will decide to be true to your stance and sell everything you own, hitch a ride to a national forest, lose yourself in its vast and pristine wilderness, give up speech, and start living the way you think humans evolved to live. We will honor your commitment by saying nothing. I, being extremely optimistic about the human ability to progress using every advantage evolution has given us (like all animals do), denying NOTHING that our natural abilities have discovered in the absolutely staggeringly beautiful and awe-inspiring universe we're very much a natural part of, will continue to learn and explore in a more FORWARD fashion. I'm convinced we are destined for space, and that this destiny will unite humans as a species, and focus our actions more wisely and efficiently, using our high intelligence, our opposable thumbs, our tools, our words, our cooperative nature and a sustainable approach to resource management to reach a reasonable balance in Earth's biosphere. I'll be using my voice to pattern words that will inspire others to use their critical thinking skills, and help to further the very best that humans have to offer Earth. At the same time, I'll be working diligently to mitigate the worst of what our efforts create, in terms of environmental impact and unethical social practices. I'll be using scientific methodology to test every explanation for sound foundations and testable predictions. I will continue to revere intelligence. I will continue to love learning. I will continue to be amazed at the resourcefulness and ingenuity and compassion humanity can muster when we try. I will continue to try.

! Moderator Note zidzad1, in this section, the rules state that you must defend your idea with at least a minimum of rigor, answering questions and providing as much supporting evidence as you can. This minimum standard has not been met. Look, you can't just wave your hands and declare established science wrong without some very extraordinary support for such assertions. Just making the assertions comes off as arrogant and ignorant, since so many people are willing to show you where you went wrong (short of teaching you Relativity, which isn't their job). I'm closing this thread and ask that you NOT start another on this topic, unless you can come up with extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary claims,

I don't want to derail the topic, but I have to take offense at this statement. Were YOU offered a choice of sexual preference? Because I wasn't, I was born with an inborn trait to be drawn to a certain gender. Study after study has proven this. Being gay is not a choice. If you want to talk about this, I'll start another thread.

I normally don't like the reductio ad absurdum argument, but it may help you see how non-viable your position is. You claim "words are not a natural because they are a human creation". OK, wow, that's horrible, let's do away with words then. This removes most of our fine control over cooperative efforts, and completely destroys our fantastic communication skills (which seems unfair now, since other animals can communicate using their version of words, but what the hey). So we'll have to scale back on population, but those folks were going to die anyway, since without words and intense cooperation, we can't produce enough food to support them. That's also OK, because they won't be able to eat the same food anyway. Nothing can be cooked. Since other animals don't know how to create fire, I'm assuming you're taking that skill away as well. Now we have some big problems. We've evolved a stomach that needs to have our foods cooked to digest them properly. Without that, we can't get enough of our dietary requirements to support this really big brain we have. You probably could have just banned cooking, and then eventually we'd all die off or become just another dumb animal. Ignorant, savage, and doomed to extinction since we have no natural weapons to compete with and you've taken away our tools, cooperation and communication skills. Humanity is dead, because s1eep thinks evolution is wrong, or at least got it wrong with us. The one species that might have carried Earth's diversity to other planets is gone, because one guy didn't entertain the possibility that we're reaching for the potential the planet needs us to have. If evolution did have a goal, what if it was to develop a species that could protect the planet from meteor collisions? Isn't that the ultimate in environmental consciousness, protecting the whole planet?

Perfect example of a market that went too far in its quest for outrageous markups. We all know those chargers are marked up by an order of magnitude like every other accessory, but I don't consider it one. Everything else is an option, but chargers are a necessity if the phone is going to work. Good move by the EU, let's hope they don't standardize the charger you DON'T have.

If this were exclusively true, I wouldn't be able to make up words, would I? Yet I can, and not nonsense words like glarple, but words that create images that haven't been used before. For instance, your philosophy seems a little borderloony to me, since it seems to say we should scrap all our progress and live like any other animal, and maybe over time we'll become stupid again and finally get some happiness. A word, not rote-learned, a part of speech now because the message was successfully transferred from one person to another. "Upper-converge"? For someone who thinks words are evil, you're able to put them together to suit your purposes fairly well. Please explain what the verb "upper-converge" means, and why you think I love doing it.

NO! Stop dodging the parts of questions you don't want to answer! I'll make it even more specific. You see apes building shelters in trees, using vines to lash together other materials. There are no nearby humans they could have learned this from, they have discovered it on their own. It can probably be traced to an individual ape who tried it, found it useful and showed others how to do it. Similar to how we probably learned to build shelter. That's the given scenario. Don't touch it, don't mess with it, leave it as it is. Now. How do you treat this under your philosophy? They're apes, so everything they do is natural, right? But they're doing something apes don't normally do, so should you stop it or see where it goes, no matter how it affects the apes and the environment around them?

You've also been told that survival is NOT the primary function you think it is. Procreation is a much stronger evolutionary pressure. Why do you insist on being so close-minded about this? You do realize, I hope, that YOU are the one who is reducing this problem down to a single, narrow, untenable explanation with no room for interpretation? You've determined that everyone else is wrong and you are right, based on some criteria that's been shown to be faulty or outright wrong. I've had my ideas picked apart before. They always make sense to me until people show me the points where I made a hasty conclusion, or my information was flat out wrong, or I misunderstood the relevance of other data. It's tough to let it go after you've put so much thought into it. In this case, I think a lot of people grow up feeling slightly guilty about animal husbandry, or bad ecological decisions made by their communities, or any of a number of problems we haven't quite mastered, and they get the idea that humans are on one side, and the rest of Earth's species are on the other. THAT'S what's unnatural, and I think we're getting better at integrating ourselves with our environment, but we still need to work harder and smarter at it. We have this weird meme that "chemicals" are unnatural, and that should change too. "Chemical" shouldn't be synonymous with "caustic" or "poisonous" or "man-made".

I don't think I'd be happy at all killing things with my teeth. They aren't very good at it, and they're not designed for replacement if I break one, and my dentist will be too busy trying to feed his own family to help me out. And we haven't established this distinction between natural and unnatural. You make the assumption that what humans are doing isn't natural, but you can't tell us why. You make this fallacious special pleading case that humans doing things other animals do isn't natural, and it sounds downright silly. You claim our problem is "rote" education, but when shown that our system is not completely rote, or that rote education hasn't been around that long, your explanation fails and you have no answer but to repeat yourself. I asked you a question on the first page that you ignored, so I'll ask again. What would be your reaction if we started observing great apes building houses in the trees? Should we stop them? Should we blow up that evolutionary bridge? Should we assume that's not natural or do apes automatically get a pass because... well, they aren't human?

Let's include reading. Reading what's been written would be good.

I think this is one of those issues where science doesn't go about things the way a lot of people think it does. Just like we use theory instead of proof, we look at the preponderance of evidence in the case of fingerprints and state that we've never found two people with identical fingerprints, which leads us to conclude that fingerprints are most likely unique to the individual. Pop-sci and the entertainment market often take that as "proof", Then someone finds two identical snowflakes, so the whole idea of fingerprints being unique is thrown into question.

I like this. The problem seems to be getting people not to jump on the question and start discussing it here. Perhaps we should be starting each one of these topics on our own, or would that take these topics out of the "topics that might not be normally covered in philosophy" category?

! Moderator Note You have now taken on a seemingly impossible task, that of disproving all mainstream scientific models. To date, your arguments have fallen short of the minimum rigor we expect in the Speculations section. Hand-waving and denial aren't working. Please go back through the thread and try to address some of the questions being asked of you, and review the evidence presented by others. That one paper proves a world-wide conspiracy is an extraordinary claim, so you must provide an extraordinary explanation. Report or discuss this modnote elsewhere, please. ! Moderator Note Attack ideas, not people, please.

Where did you read this? Did you read some author who made sense about one thing so you chose to take this to some absurd degree and suggest that it's OK for animals to invent sounds for communication, but if we do it it's unnatural? I don't know why you've chosen such a harsh, unequivocal denunciation of human talent and evolutionary capacity. I honestly find your stance to be unimaginative, untenable and uninteresting. You won't be happy unless we're all roaming naked and killing things with our teeth, fated to do so until the sun expands to burn us all away. Meh.

Maybe a bit lowbrow, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. In traffic, when they close a lane, they give you a few miles notice. Inevitably, as traffic approaches the point where the cars in the lane that's being closed are supposed to merge with another lane, you have that space that opens up because people are merging early. Now the State Patrol (and physics) will tell you that you should wait until the traffic signs force you to merge so that more available road space is used to funnel the traffic. But we all hate the guys who go whizzing past us as we merge early (because the signs told us about this a couple of miles ago!) and then demand to be let in right at the merge point. It's not really a legal point; you won't get a ticket either way. It's just that one way is the correct way but it doesn't feel like the right way. But if you do it the other way, it also doesn't feel right. So who is right, the person who uses the road most efficiently but makes people angry or the one who thinks he's being responsible but is actually making traffic worse?

Grunt grunt grunt grunt TROLL grunt?