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Sand
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08 Nov 2010, 11:22 am

wornlight wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Sand wrote:

The technological edible substances are not in any way comparable in quantity to the plant and animal matter consumed.


True. Humans have not outdone Nature. Nature has had about 4 billion years to craft our current biota with all of its capabilities. Humans have had technology based on electromagnetic radiation for maybe three hundred years. Humans craft their technologies in a teleological manner. Nature works using Darwinian evolution which is a combination of mutation and culling. It is not as efficient per unit time, but nature has had billions of ears to do its thing.

ruveyn


it seems absurd to me to speak of humans as competing with nature when they consist entirely of natural process themselves. we could not step outside of nature and outdo it. if "Humans craft their technologies in a teleological manner," then so does nature, through them. so technology is not separate from nature. i am probably missing the point.


Humans work teleologically because they have a conscious mind. Nature does not.. Teleologic requires an objective to be attained. Nature has no such objective. Thinking is fundamentally a form of filtration. When a human seeks a solution to a problem he or she visualizes all sorts of abstract solutions depending upon experience and mentally tries them out and perhaps visualizes one that might be a solution. Then the solution is attempted in actuality and either succeeds or fails. If it fails the human tries again until one succeeds. In nature when an organism meets a condition that gives it problems it reproduces and produces variations of itself. Natural conditions either permit it to live or destroys it. If the destruction is not total, further reproductions produce further actual attempts at solutions and if one succeeds the problem is solved. But there is no teleology involved. There is no attempt to succeed by the organism with a goal in mind. It merely mindlessly keeps producing variations and natural forces keep attempting to destroy the variations with no sense of attempting success. Nature simply doesn't care one way or the other. Nevertheless, since solutions are produced it is a process of filtration in some relationship to human thinking.



Dear_one
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08 Nov 2010, 2:14 pm

Xenophobia is one of the instincts that keeps us safe in a tribal situation. A stranger may be an outcast criminal, a scout for an invasion, or just someone whose culture accidentally makes them prone to be offended or offensive. This hard-wired caution is often too strong to overcome logic. Racism is also taught in many families, and is self-perpetuating, leading to low information exchange and prejudiced observations. Even if someone takes a logical approach to life, there is often not enough time to evaluate people as individuals, especially if there are few exceptions to a racially based class structure.


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wornlight
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08 Nov 2010, 4:24 pm

Sand wrote:
Humans work teleologically because they have a conscious mind. Nature does not.
my mind is where in nature i can confirm that consciousness does occur. i do not know for certain of any 'external' occurrences of consciousness.
Quote:
Teleologic requires an objective to be attained. Nature has no such objective.
nature, as a whole, does not seem capable of declaring an objective, yes.
Quote:
Thinking is fundamentally a form of filtration. When a human seeks a solution to a problem he or she visualizes all sorts of abstract solutions depending upon experience and mentally tries them out and perhaps visualizes one that might be a solution. Then the solution is attempted in actuality and either succeeds or fails. If it fails the human tries again until one succeeds. In nature when an organism meets a condition that gives it problems it reproduces and produces variations of itself. Natural conditions either permit it to live or destroys it. If the destruction is not total, further reproductions produce further actual attempts at solutions and if one succeeds the problem is solved. But there is no teleology involved. There is no attempt to succeed by the organism with a goal in mind. It merely mindlessly keeps producing variations and natural forces keep attempting to destroy the variations with no sense of attempting success. Nature simply doesn't care one way or the other. Nevertheless, since solutions are produced it is a process of filtration in some relationship to human thinking.
i do not disagree. i read ruveyn's post out of context and so my post is fairly senseless in relation, but i did not mean the point that you intend here to refute.



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08 Nov 2010, 4:40 pm

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Asp-Z
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08 Nov 2010, 4:44 pm

Tollorin wrote:
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/thread