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If I understand evolutionary processes correctly you can't consider the development of any one species as good or bad. Each species is the result of millions of related evolutionary "decisions", not just one. Most of those decisions (if you consider them mutations) are not beneficial so they don't persist. Homo sapiens didn't just pop up out of the dirt as a complete, sophisticated, highly cognitive, organized being. It developed incrementally. For a very long time it was not the destructive force it is now. It was first a vulnerable prey species but eventually became better and better at defeating threats to its survival. Many of those survival techniques weren't particularly destructive. The more successful parasites "learn" not to kill off their host and they do it without the benefit of a brain.
I guess more and more I think about humans as a rather distorted, exaggerated expression of an evolutionary branch. Like other divergent, exaggerated overly specialized branches, something will come along and overwhelm it. Something it can no longer respond to well enough to permit survival of offspring. It will get eliminated, and partially because of what it became. Its own momentum. Maybe that something will be the consequence of destroying the biome it depends on. End result of a stupid parasite.
I don't particularly like being human. I don't really admire many "human" traits and don't consider us any more worthy to exist than anything else. I do not believe any deity favored us in any way. The tenet that some deity gave us dominion over anything makes me sick. But, religion is a human construct and a self-serving one at that. Sure, "selfish" is a survival mechanism but humans have distorted that beyond biological reason. We've invented all sorts of rationalizations for our worthiness. The epitome of arrogance. I don't like what we as a parasitical organism gets away with at the expense of so many other less destructive lives. If humans destroy themselves I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I can only hope we don't take everything else down in the process and leave a lifeless husk of a world. A shame (yeah, I understand that shame is also a human construct but I still feel it) and a waste.
Last edited by Parnassia; 03-21-2020 at 02:26 PM..
The human species is certainly very detrimental to the planet and other species, which would be much better off without us. But IMO we can't be a mistake because a mistake is only possible if there is a purpose. And as an atheist, I believe life is random and there is no higher purpose.
If I understand evolutionary processes correctly you can't consider the development of any one species as good or bad. Each species is the result of millions of related evolutionary "decisions", not just one. Most of those decisions (if you consider them mutations) are not beneficial so they don't persist. Homo sapiens didn't just pop up out of the dirt as a complete, sophisticated, highly cognitive, organized being. It developed incrementally. For a very long time it was not the destructive force it is now. It was first a vulnerable prey species but eventually became better and better at defeating threats to its survival. Many of those survival techniques weren't particularly destructive. The more successful parasites "learn" not to kill off their host and they do it without the benefit of a brain.
I guess more and more I think about humans as a rather distorted, exaggerated expression of an evolutionary branch. Like other divergent, exaggerated overly specialized branches, something will come along and overwhelm it. Something it can no longer respond to well enough to permit survival of offspring. It will get eliminated, and partially because of what it became. Its own momentum. Maybe that something will be the consequence of destroying the biome it depends on. End result of a stupid parasite.
I don't particularly like being human. I don't really admire many "human" traits and don't consider us any more worthy to exist than anything else. I do not believe any deity favored us in any way. The tenet that some deity gave us dominion over anything makes me sick. But, religion is a human construct and a self-serving one at that. Sure, "selfish" is a survival mechanism but humans have distorted that beyond biological reason. We've invented all sorts of rationalizations for our worthiness. The epitome of arrogance. I don't like what we as a parasitical organism gets away with at the expense of so many other less destructive lives. If humans destroy themselves I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I can only hope we don't take everything else down in the process and leave a lifeless husk of a world. A shame (yeah, I understand that shame is also a human construct but I still feel it) and a waste.
I do believe your indoctrination is complete!
You may now enjoy your chocolate ration being increased from 1/2oz to 1/4oz this month!
You can say I wear a tinfoil hat, I’ve heard all the criticism before but I still maintain that we were created and planted here on this flicker of dust floating about the universe by an advanced life form out there. All you have to do is look at what we are doing scientifically today and project what we will be doing 500 or thousand years from now and it’s mind-boggling. In fact just the stuff that’s coming over the next 50 years, will be able to create life and probably place it on other planets.
I think there’s endless life in the universe out there. For all we know We are some long forgotten aliens scientific junior high project.
Do you have any evidence at ALL to support your beliefs? I mean ANYTHING? That's a rhetorical question BTW. You don't have a tinfoil hat. You have an iron dome over your head. All I can do is laugh at your way of "thinking".
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41
The idea that 'the world' makes decisions, and thus can make a 'mistake' - or, for that matter, that evolution is some sort of process with an end goal featuring a 'net value' - is completely wrong. It's like saying the solar system 'made a mistake' by featuring an remnant objects which occasionally cause mass extinctions when they impact the Earth.
As far as the OP's question, my response would pretty much agree with this. Kind of like a drop of rainwater falling from the sky. There is no right or wrong way for it to fall, it just falls. Doesn't matter if it hits an airplane, a tree, a mountain, the ocean, your head. It just falls. Same way about evolution. It just happens. There is no end game so there are no mistakes.
1. it presumes that "world" is intelligent enough to make any decisions
2. it presumes other options out of which, a "mistake" is in progress.
World does not make mistakes. Everything is perfect by virtue of being. Anything that is wrong, simply is not. Everyhting or anything, that IS, is perfect, no matter what opinion someone has about it.
From what philosophical perspective are you asking?
In some ways humans are really pretty amazing. Imagine a simple primate species advancing enough to be able to explore space and land on the moon, produce machines capable of traveling 5 times the speed of sound, and encoding genomes of entire animals!
In other ways humans are kind of neutral. I mean, at a fundamental level, what we experience as "life" is basically just billions of electrical signals firing in our prefrontal cortex as a response to external stimuli. It's something that just exists within space and time, ultimately irrelevant in any greater way in our enormous universe.
In other ways humans are pretty awful. Like OP points out, we cling too strongly to our beliefs and in turn cause war, destitution, famine, and ecological destruction; ultimately ravaging our immediate environment of resources and destroying pristine and beautiful scenery.
Ultimately I take the point of view that the truth is some convex combination of the three points expressed above, sometimes shifting more heavily towards one or the other depending on life circumstances.
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