Idealism Vs Realism - Page 5

Originally posted by: souro

This topic reminded me of 'If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound'.

True.

Same as asking if anything exists if there is no one to perceive it.

At a fundamental level, something does exist. There are no questions there. Whether what we perceive is what really exists or an approximation of something that exists is the question.

The added complexity is that we also perceive ourselves so we are sense data too, to ourselves.

Originally posted by: zorrro

but who has taken which stand remains a suspense--hmmm.

😆

it's not so easy.

soon as i "find out" if there was intelligence before humans, if there was intelligence before that intelligence, i will take a stand.

DNA smacks of intelligence. I am simply not buying that a DNA or even an RNA can form just like that, with no "direction", doesn't matter how many billions of years and how many different locations they say it took for it to form.

Even if we are asked to buy that energy can just exist (the toughest pill to swallow), DNA is a different ballgame altogether.

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

DNA smacks of intelligence. I am simply not buying that a DNA or even an RNA can form just like that, with no "direction", doesn't matter how many billions of years and how many different locations they say it took for it to form.

Even if we are asked to buy that energy can just exist (the toughest pill to swallow), DNA is a different ballgame altogether.

Originally posted by: charminggenie

Hmm the probability goes for both the arguments na, I mean it is possible that DNA evolved from amino acids into a single self replicating peptide and then it progressed further. Billion years, changing environment could have facilitated it. But considering the lack of fossil evidence , we cannot be sure of it. Similarly it is equally probable that DNA was inserted as it by external forces- again a probability.

We could get into the specifics of DNA but it could derail the thread a little bit.

It's not about the odds, it's about the direction. It's about the intelligence behind the direction. It's about the 21000 distinct protein coding genes. Granted, "originally" it wasn't this complex but considering it took a consortium, super computers, thousands of researchers and billions of dollars to decode a human genome,  you can't convince me that "nature" did it randomly.

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

We could get into the specifics of DNA but it could derail the thread a little bit.

It's not about the odds, it's about the direction. It's about the intelligence behind the direction. It's about the 21000 distinct protein coding genes. Granted, "originally" it wasn't this complex but considering it took a consortium, super computers, thousands of researchers and billions of dollars to decode a human genome,  you can't convince me that "nature" did it randomly.

Originally posted by: K.Universe.

I would equate mind with intelligence but more on that later.

The problem I see here is detecting which processes are directed and which processes are undirected.

Plants convert light energy to chemical energy to produce glucose and other organic compounds vital for their survival, via photosynthesis. Is photosynthesis a directed process or an undirected process? How do we tell?

If I pick up a ball and throw it at you (😊) it means I took a deliberate action, which then tells us that it is a directed process. Where as, if you are passing by a coconut tree and a big coconut falls on your head (😊), we tend to term it as an undirected process.

Point being, we are the ones determining which processes in this universe are directed and which are undirected. And since we assume (rightly so?) that we are the only intelligent life around, to us what we determine is what the truth must be.

To go back to the examples, a cell (plants or humans) or a robot or a CPU have traces of "design" in them implying that an intelligent being probably directed matter to turn them into functional "machines". This is so because we can perceive this intelligence. There is sufficient evidence, depending upon who you ask of course, to suspect that it is not all about physical processes, not all about material agencies.

Now, how much of this has a real objective existence and how much of it is perception is what I suppose we are interested in finding out.