Creation vs. Evolution

[photohikedive]

a) We are animals. Plain and simple.

b) There are plenty of options out there for life to exist. We live in a gravity based gaseous environment. Fish (you remember fish, we look at them while we're diving) live in a liquid environment where gravity is much less of an issue.
Rachel

which would explain why you don't mind kissing them....

speaking of which, I am still waiting on that avatar pic, in a size that will fit as my wallpaper

 

[wreckchick]

Why do I suddenly feel the urge to take a shower?

R

 

[Soggy]

If evolution is true as so many claim, would'nt the aliens look like us?

No, of course not. That's absurd. Why would they look like us?! Evolution doesn't have a fixed direction. Features that help animals survive tend to be retained from generation to generation and developed while features that hinder survival or are useless tend to become weaker. If you don't understand that basic idea, discussion on this topic is completely useless.

Do turtles look like us? No, but they evolved into what they are based on survival features within their environment.

 

[bwerb]

Let's throw another concept into the discussion...consciousness/self-awareneness...what is the evolutionary purpose and why has it only appeared once? Why are we the only animals who are aware of what we are...not a lot of ants, deer and tuna sitting around wondering about their place in the universe.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

How do I know the guy next to be is conscious? How do we know a tuna has no consciousness? An ant may no have no consciousness, but how about a colony of ants? After all, our brains are just colonies of electrical amoebas

 

[H2Andy]

Let's throw another concept into the discussion...consciousness/self-awareneness...what is the evolutionary purpose and why has it only appeared once?

ah ... several animals are quite self-aware, though lacking our frontal lobes, not quite as advanced as we are.

for example, chimps and gorillas show signs that they are self aware (they recognize themselves in mirrors; they can give each other names, which implies individuality, etc.)

dolphins also show signs of self-awareness. by extension, whales probably are too.

all self-awareness is is the byproduct of a large frontal lobe. we developed ours along with language, and language probably kept pushing our brains into "bigger" territory.

the hallmark is not total brain size -- our brains aren't that big -- but rather the size of the frontal lobe (where higher functions are carried out). we have slighlty over twice as much frontal lobe area as our closest relatives, the chimps and gorillas.

most anthropologists consider the development of language the threshold of what "human" is, because it led to much more sophisticated brain power, which in turn led to all sorts of advances.

that said, i think that most animals with a lage-enough brain (for example, cats, dogs, horses) are probably self-aware to a certain degree. we just don't recognize it in our arrogance.

 

[lamont]

Let's throw another concept into the discussion...consciousness/self-awareneness...what is the evolutionary purpose and why has it only appeared once? Why are we the only animals who are aware of what we are...not a lot of ants, deer and tuna sitting around wondering about their place in the universe.

I'm a Penrose-ian on consciousness. I think that consciousness is non-computable. I think its utility (and the reason why it arose and was selected for by evolution) is that the ability to break out of arbitrary patterns and loops is a non-computable operation which consciousness enables. The exact answer to what consciousness is requires a mathematical and physical framework involving non-computable physics which we don't presently have.

I also think that a lot of other animals are aware and conscious, they just don't have the circuits to form language. I actually have no idea if consciousness has only evolved once on this planet and I'm not sure exactly which animals are conscious and which aren't (imo: dogs/cats: yes, ants: no, salmon: dunno).

We may be the only animals that can sit around and mentally masturbate about ourselves and our relationship to the universe. So in that sense we may be unique in being "self-aware". But I think that consciousness and an experience of "I" is probably found more widely throughout life on Earth...

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

I read Penrose's books. As a biologist, he is a good physicist.

 

[H2Andy]

But I think that consciousness and an experience of "I" is probably found more widely throughout life on Earth...

i agree ... but we really are head and shoulders above all other animals in that respect

just think Shakespeare and Dante

pretty fragging amazing

 

[The Chairman]

Time has an interesting (if not simplistic) article this week on the variations between man and primate including the Pan Troglodyte.

You can find info about the genome comparison HERE

And another interesting read on ChimpHaven