Is Life a Dialogue or a Monologue?

[Quantum Quack]

I don't think that is a logical conclusion. What if we use the example of species that did not survive? Was there a grand plan at work for them? How about the Neanderthals?

As you correctly indicated "but merely cause and effect yet it is causes and effect " (i.e. constant change) from which an Implicate Order emerges. Some things die, some things live. No plan.
It's as simple as that, IMO...

If we were dealing with humans only I might tend to agree.

But we are not and no creature except humans will consciously choose to live in inhospitable environments and be forced to "strive" to survive. For all animals except humans and their pets survival in any kind of environment is hard enough. When it gets too hot, there is mass migration to cooler areas, when it gets too cool there is mass migration to warmer climates. And soon we may see a human migration away from coastal plains due to rising sea-levels. That is also part of striving to survive.

Only humans and a few insects can manipulate their environment to make inhospitable areas
survivable. Ants and Termites have practised agriculture for a hundred millions of years, long before humans appeared on the scene. In fact, some of the labor force of a termite hive never gets to see daylight. They are confined to underground gardens for their entire lifespan. Of course they do have plenty to eat...

Thus while it may seem there is a grand plan, there is no such things, but long term probabilistic events. If you play the lottery long enough you're bound to win something. That does not count as a prior existing greater plan. It's just luck spread out over trillions of natural tries over a span of millions or even billions of years.

All this may seem like a plan but in reality it is just a hierarchy of natural mathematical physical functions which behave in a pseudo-intelligent consistent manner.
ions.

of course it comes down to the age old question of chance vs intelligent design. One that will see no conclusive answer regardless of how ever long it is debated.

The word "evolution" in itself implies something. Something consistent and persistent.
It is not chance that things evolve nor is it chance that the future exists.
The word change implies neither improvement nor degradation however the word evolve always suggests improvement regarding sustainability.
Is it chance that evolution exists?
Can you define the word chance and scientifically prove that randomness actually exists?
Can you prove randomness as "real" using the scientific method?
Or is it just humans egocentric way of accommodating that which it can not pre-determine?

I don't think that is a logical conclusion. What if we use the example of species that did not survive? Was there a grand plan at work for them? How about the Neanderthals?

I believe the current thinking suggests that the Neanderthal evolved into Homo-Sapiens and it is suggested that Homo-Sapiens (HS) may yet evolve into something else again depending on how HS deal with evolutionary challenges to achieve sustainable success as a species. Especially now with the issue of climate change. Either we achieve a more environmentally sustainable position or we will become extinct as a race.

As you correctly indicated "but merely cause and effect yet it is causes and effect " (i.e. constant change) from which an Implicate Order emerges. Some things die, some things live. No plan.
It's as simple as that, IMO...

...and of course you are entitled to your opinion....constant change over eons but always towards sustainability like the arrow of time always in one direction.
Is the direction of time considered chance?
Also,

Is their any evidence of devolution? Not that I am aware of...so I ask: why not if only chance was at play? Surely if only chance, we would observe sustainable devolution in nature?

We have an arrow of time, always forward and like wise with evolution towards sustainability.

All this may seem like a plan but in reality it is just a hierarchy of natural mathematical physical functions which behave in a pseudo-intelligent consistent manner.
ions.

There are a number of problematic issues with this approach IMO
Mathematics is a Human mind game only, seeking to imitate the innate intelligence of that which we observe and what surrounds us. Chance is also a mathematical enigma of an egocentric mind.

There is a question and answer riddle that can be used to demonstrate egocentricity and delusions of grandeur.

Mirror mirror on the wall

Q. Who or what is by far the greatest artist of them all?
or, regarding your post,
Q Who or what is the greatest mathematician of them all?

When seeking an answer to the above we may start to realized that our claim to fame is merely due to plagiarism, mimicry, imitation and when you look at ourselves with the humility the answer inspires you start to realize a greater truth about who and what we are.

 

[Write4U]

Can you define the word chance and scientifically prove that randomness actually exists?
Can you prove randomness as "real" using the scientific method?

No one proposes randomness. It's all mathematical. It cannot be otherwise.
Mathematics form patterns and that's where evolution begins.
Just watch a simple fractal evolve at every iteration. Is that intelligent design or naturally emergent properties?

 

[Write4U]

Is the direction of time considered chance?

Nooooo, time is a result of change not of chance.

 

[Write4U]

Q. Who or what is by far the greatest artist in the universe?

Mathematics.

or, regarding your post,
Q Who or what is the greatest mathematician in the universe?

Nature itself is the pseudo intelligent mathematical function which produces consistent and repeating mathematical patterns and functions in nature, erroneously identified as supernatural "intelligent creation or design".

Humans and many other organisms follow specifically "efficient" patterns. That does not make us gods, it makes us human. And it makes daisies follow the Fibonacci Sequence, because it works at an evolutionary level and was a result of natural selection for efficient survivability.

Sorry, anything else seems superfluous to me.

p.s. The Fibonacci Sequence is found throughout the universe in a great many forms and practical survivability.

p.p.s. survivability is nothing more than another term for mathematically evolved structural persistence.

 

[Quantum Quack]

No one proposes randomness. It's all mathematical. It cannot be otherwise.

and thus purely a mind generated "idea" of what we observe. Yes?

Mathematics form patterns and that's where evolution begins.

Does mathematics exists with out humans to recognize it in nature?

p.s. The Fibonacci Sequence is found throughout the universe in a great many forms and practical survivability.

is existent in what we observe ...the effect/pattern and not the number.
The Fibonacci Sequence can be expressed in various bases and is more a "meaning" than a number IMO.

p.p.s. survivability is nothing more than another term for mathematically evolved structural persistence.

Survivability is observed regardless of mathematical interpretations.

 

[Write4U]

When seeking an answer to the above we may start to realized that our claim to fame is merely due to plagiarism, mimicry, imitation and when you look at ourselves with the humility the answer inspires you start to realize a greater truth about who and what we are.

I think that the notion we are somehow special in the eyes of some super natural motivated intelligence is the height of hubris and arrogance.
Man made in god's image? And what mathematical pattern would that be?

 

[Write4U]

and thus purely a mind generated "idea" of what we observe. Yes?

Yes, by scientific consensus agreement .

Does mathematics exists without humans to recognize it in nature?

Most definitely , yes. Just look at a spiral galaxy to observe a natural expression of a natural mathematical pattern, discovered and codified by Fibonacci.

is existent in what we observe ...the effect/pattern and not the number.

The Fibonacci Sequence IS the pattern and not a number. That's why it is called a sequence, a natural mathematical function.

The Fibonacci Sequence can be expressed in various bases and is more a "meaning" than a number IMO.

That the Sequence can be presented in various bases speaks of the fundamental power and range of application inherent in the naturally occurring formula.....

Survivability is observed regardless of mathematical interpretations.

On the contrary, I would suggest that the observed surviving patterns in nature confirm a sharing of a mathematically efficient "common natural mathematical denominator", which we have discovered and mathematically codified.

btw, using Fibonacci sequences yields the most beautiful musical harmonics. Phi, the number inherent in the "golden ratio".
In Nature

Detail of Aeonium tabuliforme showing the multiple spiral arrangement (parastichy)

Main article: Patterns in nature
Adolf Zeising, whose main interests were mathematics and philosophy, found the golden ratio expressed in the arrangement of parts such as leaves and branches along the stems of plants and of veins in leaves. He extended his research to the skeletons of animals and the branchings of their veins and nerves, to the proportions of chemical compounds and the geometry of crystals, even to the use of proportion in artistic endeavors. In these patterns in nature he saw the golden ratio operating as a universal law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

When Cosmologists tell us that every discovery brings a feeling that the mathematics were present long before they were "discovered", I believe them. Why should I stubbornly oppose such an objectively honest observation. This argues directly against the notion that science invented the observed mathematical patterns and functions. It was there long before man came along and symbolically codified it.

Actually, since very shortly after the BB. Chaos theory explains the evolutionary progression of mathematical pattern forming.

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

Chaos theory - Wikipedia


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

 

[Quantum Quack]

When Cosmologists tell us that every discovery brings a feeling that the mathematics were present long before they were "discovered", I believe them.

So you agree with me. Thanks.

 

[Write4U]

So you agree with me. Thanks.

That depends. On what do you believe we agree?

I believe this; " Consciousness is a mathematical pattern: Max Tegmark at TEDx Cambridge 2014

 

[Write4U]

Survivability is observed regardless of mathematical interpretations.

I disagree. Survivability is founded on and fueled by the universal imperative of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction", i.e. "movement in the direction of comfort and survivability", or a universal tendency for utilitarianism and efficiency, emergent universal mathematically (probabilistic) evolutionary properties and interactive functions, such as the dynamical Pilot Wave Function, a inherently chaotic movement with emergent physical and predictable patterns.

Have you ever seen the shape of 4/3 ? Watch this neat presentration by Roger Antonsen;

https://www.ted.com/talks/roger_antonsen_math_is_the_hidden_secret_to_understanding_the_world
------------------------------------------------

Tegmark believes that it all can be explained with 33 symbolic numbers and a handful of equations, such as the Fibonacci Sequence (Phi) and the Exponential Function, to name two.

Phi is also used as a symbol for the golden ratio and on other occasions in math and science. This use is separately encoded as the Unicode glyph ϕ.

I find this extremely pleasant and harmonious to look at. An Implicate Order. A Universal formula. Natura Artis Magistra! (nature is the teacher of art)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natura_Artis_Magistra

and;

An exponential growth function graph showing the implied order and awesome mathematical power of steady growth over long periods of time.
I wonder what happens if you let it continue indefinitely

It's that simple, as it ought to be for the universe to have emerged from nothing in a hierarchical mathematical form of transition from the very subtle to gross expression in reality.

But it is not Divine in any personal sense of the word. It's definitely implacably mathematical in essence. Which means we can learn to understand it......

 

[sweetpea]

Every living thing has not only the inherent agenda (plan) to survive but to ultimately strive for sustainability as well.

I know you said ''living'', but I think I see a rawer picture of Nature than you. That is, life is a product of nature's blind forces which result in complex processes which some see as ''miraculous'' in that these processes can be continuous for such complexity. Yet, electrons will always repel electrons, Gravity will always do what gravity does. In other words, you can go on to use this ''always does'' of forces to build more and more complicated pictures or processes, such as life. Carrying on to consciousness in some forms.

You would think that having the gift of articulated intelligence man-kind would be well suited to successfully finding a sustainable solution to his existence. The problem for us is that we seem to have forgotten the need to put sustainability into our plans.

You might say we are still getting use to our ''intelligence''. Running in, please pass.

 

[sweetpea]

Planet-wide occupation of widely disparate niches at all trophic levels, for starters.
The crocs survived the dinosaur killer - and we eat crocs. https://www.preceden.com/timelines/68990-evolution-of-the-alligator

Doesn't survival depend on the size and number of rocks. Remember Shoemaker Levy at Jupiter?

 

[sideshowbob]

Every living thing has not only the inherent agenda (plan) to survive but to ultimately strive for sustainability as well.

But we can't predict which "plans" will succeed. You couldn't look at a giraffe's ancestor and predict that the ones with the longest necks would survive. We can only look back and try to figure out why some species did survive and some didn't.

 

[Write4U]

But we can't predict which "plans" will succeed. You couldn't look at a giraffe's ancestor and predict that the ones with the longest necks would survive. We can only look back and try to figure out why some species did survive and some didn't.

And some otherwise very successful species just got caught up in a natural disaster and "disappeared". Nothing to do with survival skills at all.

There are some organisms with extraordinary survival skills such as extremophiles and tardigrades.

Meet the tardigrade, the animal that will outlive us all
Tardigrades, also known as the water bear, are microscopic animals, which can survive in many extreme conditions, including space.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/vide...b1f0ff459df_video.html?utm_term=.a97032c7e3a1

Check out this site for some more remarkable properties of Tardigrades. This creature is a marvel of evolution. But as with all really successful organisms, it's their very simplicity which provides their ability to persist.

 

[Quantum Quack]

And some otherwise very successful species just got caught up in a natural disaster and "disappeared". Nothing to do with survival skills at all.

but all to do with sustainability yes? (big picture)

Survivability is founded on and fueled by the universal imperative of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction"

and this according to your posts occurs purely by chance?
Implicate order occurs by chance?

Do you ever consider the notion of "reverse engineering"?
...and how that is all we are doing when we delve into natures (God's) mysteries?

 

[Quantum Quack]

Consider this notion:
"It only requires one absolute universal constant for order to evolve from chaos"

Metaphorically some may consider that constant to be God and that the universe with all it's chaos and order is merely a reflection of God's constancy.

In the field of Mathematics what is the universal constant? The one absolutely constant value that gives all of mathematics order? ( Fundamentally)
What is at the center of everything?

 

[Quantum Quack]

But we can't predict which "plans" will succeed. You couldn't look at a giraffe's ancestor and predict that the ones with the longest necks would survive. We can only look back and try to figure out why some species did survive and some didn't.

true... however we can conclude/predict that if an organism fails the sustainability test it will inevitably perish.

 

[Write4U]

but all to do with sustainability yes? (big picture)

No, why? There is no gardener who experiments with "sustainability".

and this according to your posts occurs purely by chance?

I would call it a matter of probability.

Implicate order occurs by chance?

No it doesn't, it emerges (over time) from a few simple mathematical universal laws.

Do you ever consider the notion of "reverse engineering"?
...and how that is all we are doing when we delve into natures (God's) mysteries?

Well, you need to make up your mind if Mathematics can exist without sentience or if God is a mathematician. Our reverse engineering has established that emergent reality is still based on probabilistic mathematical functions without requiring any emotional motivated action, other than the universal law of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction" and it's derivatives.

Note: "satisfaction" is not necessarily a personal emotional fullfillment. I use the term in context of "necessity and sufficiency", another non-sentient mathematical universal law....

 

[Write4U]

Consider this notion:
"It only requires one absolute universal constant for order to evolve from chaos"

No it doesn't. Probability is but one universal constant .

These concepts have been given an axiomatic mathematical formalization in probability theory, which is used widely in such areas of study as mathematics, statistics, finance, gambling, science (in particular physics), artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science, game theory, and philosophy to, for example, draw inferences about the expected frequency of events. Probability theory is also used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability

In the field of Mathematics what is the universal constant? The one absolutely constant value that gives all of mathematics order? ( Fundamentally)

Logic. There are several absolute constants, natural laws. To my knowledge they are all mathematical in essence.
E = Mc^2 is but one.

What is at the center of everything?

Metaphysically speaking, "Potential" or "That which may become Reality", is the ability for a mathematical function to become expressed in reality. All change requires prior "potential" an inherent self-referential mathematical value or function. David Bohm called it "insight intelligence", but I am convinced by that he meant "self-referential pseudo-intelligence".

Metaphorically some may consider that constant to be God and that the universe with all its chaos and order is merely a reflection of God's constancy.

But there are several universal constants which metaphorically may each be considered an immortal god. But it is always mathematical in nature and at best pseudo-intelligent. i.e. devoid of sentience and/or emotional motivation.

IMO, the presumption of a God merely complicates the issue. The main reason is that there is no need, nor is there evidence for the existence of a sentient and motivated being practising mathematics.
Scientifically speaking, it's just speculation.

 

[Write4U]

true... however we can conclude/predict that if an organism fails the sustainability test it will inevitably perish.

Which proves the absence of a "caretaker". Why create something when you are going to destroy it anyway? Or is it a matter of neglect? Do we now need a psychological profile of God?