This is the first part of the what I do series. It is the edited down version of long email discussion i had with a friend. It would have great if i could claim that i wrote it all myself. You can start at the beginning and read up or you can start and the end and travel backwards to see how you got there. Look for a little bit of everything to be included in the series, from science to pop culture and everything in between....
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
First off 2001 is brilliant. In many ways it is dated and bit slow, but still there is something incredible about how the movie is filmed then again it is a Kubrick film and almost everyone of his films are incredible. also ac Clarke who wrote 2001 is one the best sci-fi writers of all time especially with his ability to mix science and fiction. Man i like starship troopers, but the truth is that movie was a satire. sorry for that but that is my daily movie tirade. I have not posted much on RG in while, partly because i have been busy and partly because their topics have been pretty boring or at least not something I do not want to write about. I figured you would mention the part about were did the aliens come from did they evolve or what. who knows i figure at that point we could just ask them. but you are right it does not change the question just the context of the question. If you just removed religion from the equation things would be simpler but i think that is not possible. the problem is you see religion as this kind artifice of history, while i see religion as artifact of history that some how hints at things of the past and i don't mean that there are gods in Olympus, but that if every religion carries a story of great flood, then odds are there is an historic basis for this event. As for the topic at hand i figure there is 90% chance that we just evolved from goo, 5% chance that some kind of outside forced helped the process of evolution, be it gods, aliens, asteroids..., and 5% chance of other (something beyond the 1st two). back to the movies topic you seen any good movies recently? i saw the new Rambo oh man is that movie beyond ridiculous...also any new good music?
JIM
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
Wow, I'm impressed. You are thinking out meaningful replies, taking the time to write them up, and saying interesting things. The RG boards are probably losing out because I'm getting all this good stuff. OK, you mentioned 2001 in response to my comment about Creationism being hopeless. Believe it or not I just saw 2001 for the first time a few weeks ago. I see your point, but remember this: if our civilization was begun by aliens, something created them as well. And if it turns out that "God" is actually an alien of some sort, well that sort of blows a hole in Christianity's focus on omnipresence, omnipotence, and all of that. At heart I'm just a religion-hater, Colee. You know that! By the way, I liked Starship Troopers way better than 2001. I suppose in the context of the time it was made, 2001 was brilliant or whatever. But compared to Alien, Event Horizon, Total Recall, Star Wars, or an endless parade of Sci-Fi films that don't happen in space (The Fly, Jurassic Park), I think 2001 kind of stinks. Very mediocre ending. I like the 3rd possibility you mentioned. That is wholly and diametrically different from Creationism and Evolution. Nice example. How strongly do you feel about it one way or the other? How likely does it seem to you? Maybe it's just the way my mind is hardwired, but it seems very unlikely to be the solution to me.
Erik
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
By third choice i mean something that is outside creationism/evolution paradigm or the combination of both. It is just that we are so hard wired they become nearly impossible to see. As for creationism being so unrealistic think about it this way one the best sci-fi movies of all time is about creationism, 2001. Just think 100 years from now creationism will be revisited because once we make life out of nothing, what does that say? With that said I do actually have a 3rd possibility, it is something that came up in a discussion about a movie i had just seen and that is concept of things just are. things occur in the fabric of time that have no beginning or end they just are. for example the idea of monkeys typing infinitely they would at some point create all works of ligature, now lets assume there are infinite universes if things occurred randomly you could in theory get anything including us. we could be a product of randomness mere errors in the process.
JIM
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
OK, that's kind of what I said in my e-mail. That's what I thought you were getting at. Are you saying you think there could be a third possibility? To me it seems pretty clear that some extent of creation or evolution or BOTH had to take place. I can't even fathom a third possibility. We've regressed? Like, de-evolution? That's still evolution, just in a different direction. Anyway, fascinating topic. That's why I occasionally take a plunge and read about it. Creationism seems so hopeless to me, because it assumes a premise that is unprovable. Unless God suddenly decided to show his face (and I don't mean on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich or an overpass in L.A.).
Erik
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
oh man i missed that one, though that seems more likely than the insanity that story was real. What i am suggesting is an idea that creationism and evolution are both hard wired into our heads though especially creationism. i mean think about it, you just make things you never think how they came about. when you plan something you make it happen. While the concept of evolution is a large scale idea. In general to large for an individual to see, while creationism is local it is the result of what you see when you do not have enough information and since we evolved in a world with not much information the idea of creationism would be the result.
JIM
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
A manifestation of human nature? Does that mean that you think we're built/hardwired to understand things in one of two ways (something is created the way it is or it became the way it is), and so we view basically everything from that slant? Did you see the Yale art student thing seems to be a hoax? Yale Student Insists Abortion Art Project Is Real, Despite University's Claims of 'Creative Fiction'
what the ivy league calls fun
Dumb beeotch. I knew this was too incredible to be true. She seemed too eager to absorb the spotlight.
Erik
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
the article has 3 parts i thought it made some pretty good points and some pretty bad points. I think doubting science is good but doubting everything is bad. on a kind of a side note it is interesting that all this doubt on science has seem to spring from the creationist/evolution debate, because i think a 100 years from now they will look back at this point in time and see that this where man transitions from the Darwinian period of science to creationism period of science. what i mean by that is that science of nature has been looking at ways in which things evolve and how they can control this and from now on they are going to look more at how they can create nature....which goes back to my argument on creationism and evolution; that this debate is hidden in religion but in reality it is merely a manifestation of human nature. In all honesty i mean the odds are that both are wrong it is just a matter of what theory fits the data better.
JIM
Subject: RE: is it doubt our just dumbness
I hadn't gotten around to reading that one yet. I'm interested now, though. That guy Berlinski sounds like my brother. He's a contrarian to the core-takes no stand except that you are wrong. Talks out of both sides of his mouth at once. The Slate writer clearly doesn't like Berlinski. He cited an example of another contributor at the same website however, who does like his work. More reading required, I suppose
Erik
Subject: is it doubt our just dumbness
doubt or just dumbness
i think you should have been sending this to me...
JIM
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