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Friday, May 22, 2009

Human architecture - Part III

Thought 1 (rethinking a previous thought)

I view all life infused, if you will, with potential, much of the inorganic too is infused with potential, potential in that elements can and will combine to create compounds, in physics scientist postulate that fundamental matter particles (quarks) combine to create protons, neutrons and hadrons. This 'potential' seems to be the given in the cosmos, we don't see a Big Bang exploding with a bunch of 'somethings' that forever remain separate 'somethings', but we do see a bunch of 'somethings' interacting, combining, mutating, structuring, building upon one another to create new 'somethings' that never existed before (or so we think). Darwinian evolution is all about potential. Life is all about potential. When you awake in the morning, once you open your eyes the world bursts forth with potential. Potential for what? Perhaps only our imagination can tell us that. To imagine what does not exist as if it did exist and further to exploit potential to make that imagination a reality, what do we call that? Creation?

Thought 2 (a new thought)

Perhaps 'God' is thoughtless? Of course most humans hold tight to the matter of 'thought' as if it were the nature of that which some call 'God' -- yet we are allowed to imagine -- and that in turn makes constructs within the brain -- in that something called mind -- and as every maker of things knows, the construction is normally limited by the tools and material at hand, so in our human minds we construct anthropomorphic imaginations of even that which we acknowledge is beyond the everyday stuff of the universe that we dwell within.

2 comments:

Bijhan said...

Why must the concept of creation be divorced from the concept of natural evolution? The great human adaptation is much like any other. The first bony fish conquered the seas with the first spine. Insects took off from the earth and into the sky, never to cede dominance of terrestrial atmosphere, with the evolution of a gossamer wing.

Our adaptation was to bypass genetic evolution and head straight to the meme. Memetic evolution is the evolution of thoughts, transmitted and mutable at a much faster rate than genetics. A single genetic adaptation - the human brain - made traditional evolution irrelevant to the race's survival. Any genetic shortcomings could be vaulted over by the miracles of science and culture.

Our bodies are unintelligently designed and are quickly becoming completely vestigial. The genes coding for eyesight no longer get pruned away, and the population of humans requiring corrective lenses or surgery in order to achieve "normal" eyesight has been on the rise for centuries. Were it not for our ability to create vehicles, chairs, canes, and back braces our forward-facing knees would have annihilated us as a species. Bipeds are rarely well served by forward-facing knees, as it puts undue stress on the lower back, ankles, and shins. An intelligent creator would have given us ostrich-like legs.

But we have no need for someone else to intelligently design us. Our design is our intelligence. We as a species are terrible at everything - running, seeing, hearing, fighting - except making up new ideas. New ideas for weapons, or growing things, harnessing the power around us. We don't need anything specific physiologically to do those things.

A human's creation is distinct from nature's creation, yes. A person does not intend to create shattered pieces of clay when they drop a bowl, but do none the less. This is akin to the way water does not set about creating the Grand Canyon, but does none the less. Unlike water, a human can actively sit, think, and come up with an idea of how to make an airplane.

But this creation is not spontaneous. In order to come up with the idea to make an airplane, the Wright Brothers first had to understand the laws governing bodies in motion, mechanical causality, and airflow. In order for their predecessors to have developed those ideas, they must have been armed with mathematic algebra. In order for algebra's inventor to have come by the concept, he must have had symbols to represent ideas. In order for anyone to have come up with a codified method of transmitting ideas through simple markings, they first needed a basic language system. And anyone who would invent a basic language system would first need the social constructs necessary to make them want to talk to anyone.

So the creation of new ideas is never done in a vacuum, and the very first human idea had to have been prompted by naturally occurring stimuli - whether that be a saber tooth tiger attack or the breeze in the garden of Eden. But no one stands but on on the shoulders of giants. Memetic evolution is still evolution. And human creation is both unnatural, and nothing special.

Bro. Bartleby said...

Bro. Bijhan, Interesting. I'm not sure if you are responding to this particular post, or this post has sparked your mind to write what you are passionate about, but nevertheless, interesting thoughts. And perhaps your first two words sum it all up, "why must" ... as my post mused on "potential" as being the built-in "something" of our universe, this something prompts the human brain/mind to dare think and ask "why" ... again and again and again.
Shalom, BB