Beauty in the World Argument vs Atheism - Page 2

David Sklansky · #11 03-11-2007, 04:05 AM

Except for David Steele. The point that some things are ugly is irrelevant. The point that we assign beauty to things we like is irrelevant. The right answer is that processes that are virtually random or that are following a very simple rule often do create beauty. Mountains are good examples. There are 100 million people out there who know about Mandelbrot, Lorenz and Feigenbaum. How come you guys don't seem to?

Phil153 · #12 03-11-2007, 05:31 AM

Yeah, the random forces of nature are bad at producing patterns that look appealing:

BTW, the only thing in your original picture that isn't indisputably produced by blind, random forces is the vegetation. (Of course, the vegetation was too, but some here dispute that.)

Phil153 · #13 03-11-2007, 05:43 AM

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evolutionarily we find certain things beautiful because they are beneficial, certain features in women, men find attractive because they display better genetic traits. obviously that is a vestigial concept and a lot of things we see beauty and take pleasure in are left over from when they were crucial to survival.

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Where do you guys get this stuff from? There could be a million reasons we find things beautiful. Because it invokes memories of childhood happiness. Because they remind us of adventure or romance or freedom or peace. Because it causes our brains to use unique pathways, producing pleasure chemicals in the process, like stretching of the muscles produces a feeling of wellbeing. Because our brains are attuned to symmetry, or structure, which may have helped us find food or avoid predators when we were worms or scurrying creatures with poor eyes. Because a chemical reward system for pattern and symmetry awareness may be a fundamental part of our brain architecture that allows us to stay sane and functional. There's no reason such a thing is "vestigal".

Who the hell knows. To claim such a narrow evolutionary reason for a human psychological trait is on par with religious thinking IMO.

thylacine · #14 03-11-2007, 06:33 AM

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........... and most importantly randomness in the creation of the world as it stands today. The scientific athiest believes that there is no purpose behind events and processes, .........

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This part isn't `scientific' atheism. It is `STRAW-MAN' atheism. This `STRAW-MAN' version of atheism is a fiction of your sunday school teacher's imagination. You first need to understand what atheists actually believe, and you also need to know what science actually claims.

CallMeIshmael · #15 03-11-2007, 07:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
evolutionarily we find certain things beautiful because they are beneficial, certain features in women, men find attractive because they display better genetic traits. obviously that is a vestigial concept and a lot of things we see beauty and take pleasure in are left over from when they were crucial to survival.

[/ QUOTE ]
Where do you guys get this stuff from? There could be a million reasons we find things beautiful. Because it invokes memories of childhood happiness. Because they remind us of adventure or romance or freedom or peace. Because it causes our brains to use unique pathways, producing pleasure chemicals in the process, like stretching of the muscles produces a feeling of wellbeing. Because our brains are attuned to symmetry, or structure, which may have helped us find food or avoid predators when we were worms or scurrying creatures with poor eyes. Because a chemical reward system for pattern and symmetry awareness may be a fundamental part of our brain architecture that allows us to stay sane and functional. There's no reason such a thing is "vestigal".

Who the hell knows. To claim such a narrow evolutionary reason for a human psychological trait is on par with religious thinking IMO.

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His thinking is also on par with that of biology professors!

Phil153 · #16 03-11-2007, 07:41 AM

I agree...and like psychologists they overstep the boundaries of their ignorance.

But I agree that his comments are reasonable for "beauty" in terms of sexual selection (it's more or less given that's loosely correlated with biological quality). But it's a far broader question than that. The experience of beauty is about a lot more than how animals select a mate.

chezlaw · #17 03-11-2007, 11:20 AM

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I agree...and like psychologists they overstep the boundaries of their ignorance.

But I agree that his comments are reasonable for "beauty" in terms of sexual selection (it's more or less given that's loosely correlated with biological quality). But it's a far broader question than that. The experience of beauty is about a lot more than how animals select a mate.

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and the experience of pain is a lot more than about avoiding harm...

The evolutionary point of view in these type of discussions is not that we can always explain exactly how these things came about but that explanations are easy. So easy that to claim evidence of a designer is risible.

How its possible to experience anything is the only mystery.

chez

Phil153 · #18 03-11-2007, 12:31 PM

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The evolutionary point of view in these type of discussions is not that we can always explain exactly how these things came about but that explanations are easy. So easy that to claim evidence of a designer is risible.

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It's only easy because they're circular arguments that are so general they can't be refuted. They have no explanatory or predictive power, so why make them?

chezlaw · #19 03-11-2007, 12:52 PM

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The evolutionary point of view in these type of discussions is not that we can always explain exactly how these things came about but that explanations are easy. So easy that to claim evidence of a designer is risible.

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It's only easy because they're circular arguments that are so general they can't be refuted. They have no explanatory or predictive power, so why make them?

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they're made to show that the argument for god is wrong.

chez

Subfallen · #20 03-11-2007, 01:10 PM

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The scientific athiest [sic] believes that there is no purpose behind events...

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Please define the "purpose" of an event in a way that does not require reference to a "Great Purposer." Otherwise you're just begging the question by assuming reality needs god. That is, the old ID argument:

The events and processes of reality have purpose.
But purpose requires the existence of a purposeful god.
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Therefore, god exists.

If you find yourself unable to define "purpose" in such a sense, consider the possibility that you're misapplying a logical category (purpose) in a situation where it doesn't have any real meaning.