The Selfish Gene
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Why something rather than nothing then?
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The purpose of "Selfish Gene" is to argue that genes are themselves the force behind evolution, not the means of an organism to replicate itself. Thereby one can say that life itself is simply a result of small scale particles being governed by physical forces. This implies that to look for intrinsic "purpose" in life is a dialectic fallacy. If you want to call this a religion in itself, then rationality and logic must be some kind of religion.
Basically this guy sees the arguments in the Selfish Gene as an attack on religion so he's using the argument that since anything exists then God must exist, implying that God and evolution are incompatible.
To assert the danger of "indoctrinating" children in reason and science, you can try to sum up the number of people murdered in the name of natural processes, and how many have been killed in the name of metaphysical beliefs.
Nihilism need not follow from understanding how things work.
All science tells us is that the world seems to be the result of natural processes, and that the universe doesn't owe us any purpose no matter how much one craves it. But that is a good thing. It allows us to really consider how we can live fulfilling lives, what constitutes happiness, what goals we should set ourselves, both as individuals and as a species. To find life meaningless because we have arrived at this point by natural processes, is a great mistake. Btw, concerning the issue of something out of nothing, I recommend reading Lawrence Krauss' "Universe from nothing"
Biruk, If you've read the book, I don't see how you can refer to Dawkins' position as Nihilism. He says, over and over again, that our genes predispose us towards behaviors that many humans consider immoral, but that his theory doesn't justify those behaviors. If anything, he says, understanding why our genes predispose us towards violence, infidelity and other immoral behavior will HELP us resist those impulses as individuals and as societies.The paragraph you quote is not telling you to reject the notion of good and evil. It is simply saying that, based on observation -- observations broadly described throughout the book -- he has concluded that good and evil are not built into the very existence of the universe. To him, they are human choices.
Your religious beliefs say otherwise. OK, you and Dawkins disagree. That doesn't mean he is "ridiculing" you. Nor is he under any obligation to say "I don't understand..." just because some people might not like his conclusions.
The question sort of defeats itself for me.Even if nothing is nearly infinitely more likely than something, if nothing would have happened, we wouldn't be here discussing it.
If you have 300 sextillion planets out there, statistically speaking it's quite likely at least one of them will develop life, and perhaps even advanced, conscious life forms like us.
The funny thing is that on every rare planet where this might happen, someone would point out how rare it is, or even that it must have been intelligent design or whatnot, even if it's quite simply a statistical likelihood given the scale of the universe.
You could ask "yes, but why here, of all places?" but then again you could ask that wherever it happens (if/when it happens.) If life has also evolved to our level elsewhere in the universe, they're asking themselves the same question, looking no less silly than we are. :)
I do not understand why people would think that without an externally imposed "meaning" (i.e. from god) life has no value. This is like winning the lottery and saying "because nobody is giving me a purpose for this money, this money has no value". Nonsense. We are alive because we are the product of zillion random factors that could easily produced a different outcome. We won the lottery. Now enjoy your prize!
You are wrong Biruk. Let's say that science fully explains the origin of life and the universe in purely physical terms (we are not there yet, but we're making progress). So what? You could still add any sort of metaphysical idea on top of that, for example that there is a "purpose" for that existence. I can say that my cup of tea does not fall on the floor because it is on the table. You could say that is true, but also because it is the will of god, or because staying on the table it is purpose in life. Whatever. The fact is that metaphysical idea does not explain anything, or add in any way into how our universe works. I would say that existential nihilism is the default position because we have no evidence that there is a "purpose", whatever that means.
1) Dawkins' position is not Existential Nihilism. 2) Dawkins' position is based on observed facts.
3) Your discussion has been entirely about defending "conceived God and meaning of life". Keep looking. Keep asking questions. Counter-attacking Dawkins is only the tip of the iceberg. You're on your way.
The field of science that has grown up around these very question is called "Evolutionary Psychology".
I would also add that because there is not externally imposed purpose that does not mean that we as individuals or societies cannot create meaning for our lives.
Biruk,"Why is there something rather than nothing? How do evolutionists answer this?"
I find the word 'evolutionist' a bit difficult to swallow. I'd prefer just to say 'biologist' or 'scientist'. The simple answer to your question is: 'They don't!'.
Your question is about ontology (see wiki). It is a metaphysical question which philosophers have tossed around since Homo sapiens were first able to comprehend such concepts. The epistemolgy of science does not address this question. Religion addresses this question, but it does not have the tools to answer it either.
Many who sympathise with religious traditions such as Karen Armstrong recognise the essential mystery in this question, and treat this mystery with the reverence. Armstrong appears to define 'God' as unknowable ontological reality, and religion as an epistemic practice that facilitates awareness of our sense of being within this unknowable reality. From this persepective `Faith' may be viewed as `trust, loyalty, engagement and commitment' to a practical way of life, rather than blind intellectual assent, or the opposite of doubt, as it is more frequently understood by post Enlightenment religious and scientific folk alike.
A more nuanced and honest philosophical perspective can help to diffuse tensions between science and religion. I hope we are now moving into a post Bush-New Atheist reactionary era. I like to think of science as reverence for what we can know and religion as reverence for what we can never know.
Biruk,I wanted to write a reply to your original question without being influenced by subsequent posts. Now I do read back, we seem to be in some agreement:
"It appears that what we call life came to be through evolution. Why there is anything at all? What purpose there is of life? We don't yet understand."
I would add that we may never understand and there may not even be an answer. Accepting this, living with it and finding our own meaning is part of what we share as humans and conscious beings. Surely this shared experience counts for something?
:o)
Biruk Haileye wrote: "If I understood Richard Dawkins correctly, a gene "wants" to be replicated for no apparent aim than to copy itself. Furthermore, the gene happened to exist with no apparent design but just by pure ..."sorry if this was said already, i didnt read all the above posts, but as someone who is studying evolution academically right now I have some things to say to your question.
really, as an evolutionist, im not concerned with WHY there is something rather than nothing, in reality, thats an answer for cosmologists. Studying evolution begins after there is something, after the first replicating molecules came to be. We dont know how this happened and thats totally fine! In fact, its exciting!!!
When you study and research evolution, you are only studying life, not pre-life, thats a whole other area of science, but thats cool too, I cant wait to see what we can discover about how life began, it should be noted that we are not asking WHY, we only ask HOW. Why is a question for philosophers and really, only the religious care to much about why. Science cares about how all of this happened. Thats the fun stuff in my opinion.
it always comes back down to a singularity, the first atoms, or the first fields, or the Big bang but what existed before the Big bang etc? Because with our limited dimensionality of mind (try conceiving of a shape in 5 dimensions), we can't get beyond these and beyond the time before there was Time, we have to posit that there is a reason behind the way things shook out, that there has to be intelligent design. Physical existence is without rhyme or reason. The selfish gene pursues it's own continuance through reproduction, be it through human beings, cockroaches or viruses. Why does it have to continue? Who knows. It is a blind drive, there is no 'mind' behind it. That one of the physical manifestations a certain arrangement of genetic material expresses happens to be man, who subsequently invests everything with his mind, is perhaps an unfortunate complication.
Biruk Haileye wrote: "If I understood Richard Dawkins correctly, a gene "wants" to be replicated for no apparent aim than to copy itself. Furthermore, the gene happened to exist with no apparent design but just by pure ..."The simple answer is - If there were nothing, you could not ask why isn't there something.
Slightly more complex answer - If there is nothing, this nothing is infinite. All _nothing_ needs to conclude with _something_ is infinity. A questionable element is meaningless in a infinity before space-time, though to calculate the uncountable infinity prior to space-time results in an near absolute result of _something_. That is if you assume there was a point of nothing.
"Nothing," is unstable. Realm of physics.
Nothing... infinity... relative... all break down at the point of being linguistic constructions of logical suppositions
That's a lot of words amounting to a meaningless assertion.
Biruk Haileye wrote: "I'm asking why there is anything at all. Why is there a universe?"I don't think there is a reason for everything. Some times, some things just happen without a reason.
You should read A Universe From Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss.
Dan wrote: "You should read A Universe From Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss."Everyone should read that :)
Zoran wrote: "Biruk Haileye wrote: "I'm asking why there is anything at all. Why is there a universe?"I don't think there is a reason for everything. Some times, some things just happen without a reason."
Fully agree. "Reason" is a construction created by mankind and cannot be applied to every process in the Universe.
actually it might. that is why i think the idea of an omniscient god is in itself contradictory. some people know a lot about somethings but not everything.
Reason is not a construction of human mind but a good correlation to reality understood (even understood is a limited word (matched might be better)) by some brains. reason is not relative. emotions are.
that might be a wrong question. the simplest answer might be because there is something. in reality something might not be very different from nothing. maybe nothing is not possible. empty space is not nothing. maybe you should read some book by lawrence krauss, i might suggest too as above 'a universe from nothing'.
Perhaps a better question is "How?" not "why?"If you ask "why?" Then you must ask why you asked why? Why there's a reason instead of "if" there's a reason and how did it happen.
Rex wrote: "that might be a wrong question. the simplest answer might be because there is something. in reality something might not be very different from nothing. maybe nothing is not possible. empty space is..."The phrase "vacuum energy" should be somewhere on this page.
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Why not? So far, it looks like the universe has a lot of chemical nothing (biologically speaking). Why shouldn't there be an exception somewhere in the universe?
It has been five years since I've read the book, sorry if I missed on what you were commenting about.