The Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Wed Sep 23, 2026 1:40 am**

osgart wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:40 pm And how can the existence of meaning be accounted for? If I were a physicalist I'd feel as though I was missing much of what is real and important about being human.

Or, for that matter, how can the fact that we ourselves are composed of a kind of meaning, a kind of information called "DNA" be accounted for? The very "building blocks" of our own existence are meaning-specifying sequences.

How does a random and accidental universe, if that's what we are supposed to have, suddenly start producing coded sequences specifying very definite meanings? Yet this is how the human body is built.

Posted: **Wed Sep 23, 2026 2:34 am**

I would say from the mRNA that is being sequentially read by the ribosome so that amino acids can be made into specific proteins there must be semantics involved in the messaging so that the ribosome definetly knows what to produce. It's not mere chemical affinities blindly doing things where semantics is blindly dismissed as ridiculous. Something so well orchestrated is not blind chance.

And now there is the matter of bioelectric fields and networks of ion channels that coordinate and command the DNA as to what top down causation function to perform. It seems bottom up causation and mutation is not doing the job they thought it was doing.

Posted: **Wed Sep 23, 2026 2:53 am**

osgart wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 2:34 am I would say from the mRNA that is being sequentially read by the ribosome so that amino acids can be made into specific proteins there must be semantics involved in the messaging so that the ribosome definetly knows what to produce. It's not mere chemical affinities blindly doing things where semantics is blindly dismissed as ridiculous. Something so well orchestrated is not blind chance.

And now there is the matter of bioelectric fields and networks of ion channels that coordinate and command the DNA as to what top down causation function to perform. It seems bottom up causation and mutation is not doing the job they thought it was doing.

That's right. For something to be a "meaning," it has to have two ends: an intender, who encodes a message, and a receiver, an entity that can decode and perceive the meaning...and then execute the specified function, or respond to the information, or relay the next stage in a new form, perhaps.

The fact is, our universe is full of such "meaning." Its presence is a huge surprise to those accustomed to thinking of the world in the paradigm of "materials." What's even more surprising is that we human beings appear to be uniquely "tuned" to achieve the decoding of these "meanings," and to applying them to situations and applications we wish to make.

We are "universe-interpreting" beings, who find ourselves to be in an "interpretable" universe. For those who think this place is random, that's surely very unexpected indeed. What are the chances that our cognitions would just happen to be ideally suited to the task of "solving" the universe into which we are placed? No other animal can do it, even a little bit. So how did we get so privileged?

Posted: **Wed Sep 23, 2026 4:16 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 2:53 am What are the chances that our cognitions would just happen to be ideally suited to the task of "solving" the universe into which we are placed? No other animal can do it, even a little bit. So how did we get so privileged?

B....S...... What animal do you suppose to be unable to interpret its surroundings to the extent necessary for it to survive?

Please, I do not care that you do not believe in evolution, that you believe a god created us humans essentially different from other animals. But I do care (and resent) that you proceed as if this were something you can expect the rest of us believe.

Asking HOW we get so privileged presumes acceptance that we ARE so privileged. You don't have that acceptance from me. Allow me to point out that you are a poor mouser.

Posted: **Wed Sep 23, 2026 4:23 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 4:16 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 2:53 am What are the chances that our cognitions would just happen to be ideally suited to the task of "solving" the universe into which we are placed? No other animal can do it, even a little bit. So how did we get so privileged?
B....S...... What animal do you suppose to be unable to interpret its surroundings to the extent necessary for it to survive?

To survive? Well, instinct will do that, with no understanding of "meaning" at all. They all operate by instinct, and that's plenty for them. Only human beings engage in matters of meaning. Only we have science, philosophy, art, literature and all the other ways we engage questions of meaning. Only human beings know WHY this or that is the case. Only they can decode meaning.

If it were otherwise, then given the timespans posited by gradualists, if any animals had even a modicum of it, we would have wombat philosophers, or dolphin scientists, or Shakespeare-level gooney birds. Even a tiny potential, plus billions of years, should equal a whole lot. But we've got zero from them.

Lots from us, though.

Posted: **Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:51 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 4:23 pm
To survive? Well, instinct will do that, with no understanding of "meaning" at all. They all operate by instinct, and that's plenty for them. Only human beings engage in matters of meaning. Only we have science, philosophy, art, literature and all the other ways we engage questions of meaning. Only human beings know WHY this or that is the case. Only they can decode meaning.

If it were otherwise, then given the timespans posited by gradualists, if any animals had even a modicum of it, we would have wombat philosophers, or dolphin scientists, or Shakespeare-level gooney birds. Even a tiny potential, plus billions of years, should equal a whole lot. But we've got zero from them.

Your disbelief of evolution more or less requires you to consider humans different in kind from other animals, not just different in degree. It blinds you from even observing other animals. It blinds you from certain observations of our own species. It gives you false notions about how "gradualism" culd be expected to behave (and so not observing that behavior, evidence against gradualism)

THINK --- how many species similar to humans (occupying the SAME NICHE) does "evolution" suggest would exist? Is ONLY ONE the expectation?

OH, and by the way, what percentage of the time we humans have existed have we HAD philosophers, scientists, Shakespeare? Would you consider humans 10,000 years ago any less human than we are? 100,000 years ago?

Posted: **Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:57 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:51 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 4:23 pm
To survive? Well, instinct will do that, with no understanding of "meaning" at all. They all operate by instinct, and that's plenty for them. Only human beings engage in matters of meaning. Only we have science, philosophy, art, literature and all the other ways we engage questions of meaning. Only human beings know WHY this or that is the case. Only they can decode meaning.

If it were otherwise, then given the timespans posited by gradualists, if any animals had even a modicum of it, we would have wombat philosophers, or dolphin scientists, or Shakespeare-level gooney birds. Even a tiny potential, plus billions of years, should equal a whole lot. But we've got zero from them.

Your disbelief of evolution more or less requires you to consider humans different in kind from other animals, not just different in degree.

Maybe. But you also believe the same. You don't place the demands and constraints you place on humans on lower animals -- you said so, in the other thread, remember? "We're not animals," you said. So? In what way do you mean we're "not animals"?

It gives you false notions about how "gradualism" culd be expected to behave

Not at all. It's patently obvious. If animals had one billionth portion of whatever it is we have, and had a billion years for gradualism to activate it, it would be manifest on every side. So either there hasn't been the sort of protracted timespan gradualism requires, or animals never had any of it in the first place.

Would you consider humans 10,000 years ago any less human than we are? 100,000 years ago?

Of course not. But I'm not a gradualist. They believe it.

Posted: **Thu Sep 24, 2026 4:08 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:57 pm
Maybe. But you also believe the same. You don't place the demands and constraints you place on humans on lower animals -- you said so, in the other thread, remember? "We're not animals," you said. So? In what way do you mean we're "not animals"?

Would you consider humans 10,000 years ago any less human than we are? 100,000 years ago?
Of course not. But I'm not a gradualist. They believe it.

In that other place, the context was "what would be told child".

You say "lower animals"? I don't believe in the meaning of "lower" the way you are using it. I am a very poor/inadequate mouser.

TIME FRAME --- 10,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago does not have meaning relative ti human evolution in terms of "gradualism". By 100,000 years ago we had ALREADY evolved to be essentially niche independent relative to the situation say 1 million years ago when there were still several co-existent hominids occupying slightly different niches.

BUT SCIENCE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC << "prove to me there is no God" >> Back when I was t university, if looking for a morning minyan I'd check out the Math/Physics building, not a "humanities" building. It is perhaps important to YOUR belief in God that you deny science. Not to mine. I would argue that science can not provide evidence for or against God.

Posted: **Thu Sep 24, 2026 6:45 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2026 4:08 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:57 pm
Maybe. But you also believe the same. You don't place the demands and constraints you place on humans on lower animals -- you said so, in the other thread, remember? "We're not animals," you said. So? In what way do you mean we're "not animals"?

Would you consider humans 10,000 years ago any less human than we are? 100,000 years ago?
Of course not. But I'm not a gradualist. They believe it.
In that other place, the context was "what would be told child".

Yep. Do you lie to your kids? Or when they ask "why," do you tell them the truth?

You say "lower animals"? I don't believe in the meaning of "lower" the way you are using it.

Yes, you do. We all do. If you don't, then you don't think humans have any moral responsibilities at all, least of all in caring for other "animals."

BUT SCIENCE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC

I disagree. Real science has everything to do with it. At the very least, it's a handy source of good evidence for the right answer.

Posted: **Thu Sep 24, 2026 10:01 pm**

It wouldn't be so difficult to believe in divine creation if human beings were the only organisms on erf with the treez. But because there is such variation of animal life and so many similar looking animals in groups, it seems as if they all came from a single beginning ancestor on this planet and then changed into different forms over immense periods of time. We would think, "Oh, we're just another one of those animals." Alone with the treez we would think "how bizarre we are and so different from everything else in this world. We must be some kind of special thing." That wouldn't be unreasonable, either.

Why would the work be put in to design a billion different species when only one, the humans, is important? Is all this ecologically necessary on a planet? Could G have designed a planet without a billion different species? A planet with only one species of herbivore, the humans, and plants. Wouldn't that have been easier for everyone? Imagine all the unnecessary pain spared countless creatures. 'Cause you know all animals with nervous systems feel pain, right? That means every time a frog eats a grasshopper, there is a quantity of pain happening in the world.

Plus, you can look at people like IC and almost intuit that we came from amoebas.

Zing!

Posted: **Thu Oct 01, 2026 2:48 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2026 4:28 pm
seeds wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2026 4:04 pmCome on now, Will, you know (or at least you should know) that this is more or less a battle taking place between the “Chance” crowd...

(materialists/materialism)

...and that of the “Designer” crowd...

(idealists/teleologists/creationism)
Hang on a mo, what do you understand materialists to believe the universe is actually made of?

What I understand is that materialists don't know much of anything regarding the question of what the universe is "actually made of."

How 'bout we run this issue past one of my favorite oracles (some emphasis mine)...

Me:
Have any physicists, or quantum cosmologists, or astronomers, etc., figured out what "dark energy" or "dark matter" is made of?

Google AI ("Gemini"):
No, physicists, quantum cosmologists, and astronomers have not definitively figured out what dark energy or dark matter are made of. Together, they make up about 95% of the total mass-energy budget of the universe (roughly 68% dark energy and 27% dark matter), leaving the "ordinary matter" we can actually see and interact with at a mere 5%.

Me:
Well, keeping in mind that scientists don't truly know what approximately 95% of the universe is made of; the next question is,...

...other than naming and categorizing the quantum phenomena that presents itself as either "particles" or "waves" depending on the method of measurement being used, do the scientists truly know what the remaining 5% of the universe is actually made of?

Google AI:
No, at the deepest fundamental level, physicists do not truly know what that remaining 5% of ordinary matter is actually "made of"—they only know how it behaves.

Now I am not sure of what you were getting at with this question...

"...what do you understand materialists to believe the universe is actually made of?..."

However, based on Gemini's response, my initial answer seems to be pretty accurate.

On the other hand, what everyone should be able to deduce from what the physicists have indeed discovered about the universe,...

...is that it appears to be created from an infinitely-malleable, informationally-based (holographic-like) substance that is capable of becoming pretty much anything "imaginable" --> similar to the substance from which our very own thoughts and dreams are created.
_______

Posted: **Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:45 pm**

...where'd I put those monads?

-Imp

Posted: **Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:51 pm**

Regarding my work on the omnipotence paradox, I created this axiomatic structure:

Lifting capacity = ∞ → physical weight limit = ∞

It aims to show that if we take omnipotence to mean unlimited power, which can reasonably be inferred from the wording of the omnipotence paradox:

Could God [an omnipotent being] create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?

Then we can say it includes unlimited lifting capacity. Otherwise, the question is not paradoxical. I no longer discuss what the 'actual' God can and cannot do because, if it exists, it exists in a different category I cannot comprehend or speak about knowledgeably. Yet, I can discuss omnipotence conceptually because it is a concept. If omnipotence includes unlimited lifting capacity, then the physical weight limit is infinite.

In this formulation, the stone loses the property of being an ordinary stone because the paradox requires it to carry an infinite limiting property (overcoming infinite lifting capacity), transforming it from a physical object into a conceptual vehicle for a contradiction.

Posted: **Thu Oct 01, 2026 8:27 pm**

Fanman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:51 pm Could God [an omnipotent being] create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?

Doesn't an Atheist ever have an original thought? How many times has this old chestnut been dragged out? And how many times must it be answered before its proponents realize how truly dumb it is?

First, "omnipotent" is not precisely a Biblical term. And it's one that only makes sense if it's explained properly and nuanced. It clearly does not include absurd things...like that an "omnipotent" entity could make a square circle or a married bachelor. It also can't include things that are inherently contradictory to the nature of that entity, such as a "good" entity that also sins, or a "successful" entity that fails.

Secondly, Biblically, there are various things God "cannot do," which are also specified therein. He cannot fail, He cannot lie, He cannot betray Himself, He cannot sin, He cannot be unfaithful...and so on. These are not shortages of ability, but conditions created by the very entity posited. They are who He is, and only human beings do things that contradict their own characters. God never does. So any understanding of "omnipotence" that applies to God has to recognize these caveats...or it's just not positing a true picture of what "omnipotence" is being asserted.

So the question fails by way of its own internal absurdity. It self-contradicts. The first term is "omnipotent being," and the second is "could not." It fails even to make basis sense.

Posted: **Thu Oct 01, 2026 8:56 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2026 8:27 pm
Fanman wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:51 pm Could God [an omnipotent being] create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it?
Doesn't an Atheist ever have an original thought? How many times has this old chestnut been dragged out? And how many times must it be answered before its proponents realize how truly dumb it is?

First, "omnipotent" is not precisely a Biblical term. And it's one that only makes sense if it's explained properly and nuanced. It clearly does not include absurd things...like that an "omnipotent" entity could make a square circle or a married bachelor. It also can't include things that are inherently contradictory to the nature of that entity, such as a "good" entity that also sins, or a "successful" entity that fails.

Secondly, Biblically, there are various things God "cannot do," which are also specified therein. He cannot fail, He cannot lie, He cannot betray Himself, He cannot sin, He cannot be unfaithful...and so on. These are not shortages of ability, but conditions created by the very entity posited. They are who He is, and only human beings do things that contradict their own characters. God never does. So any understanding of "omnipotence" that applies to God has to recognize these caveats...or it's just not positing a true picture of what "omnipotence" is being asserted.

So the question fails by way of its own internal absurdity. It self-contradicts. The first term is "omnipotent being," and the second is "could not." It fails even to make basis sense.

So what you are telling us quite clearly there is that God cannot fail to create a rock that is too heavy for God to lift, and that he cannot fail to lift that rock. Well done for clarifying that murky old issue. Top work. Some of your best yet.

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