Also Caedes is right. You haven't actually explained anything. You've merely asserted that because DNA doesn't "Do" anything, there must be some magic that happens.
evolution question
by outsmartthesystem 165 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
gubberningbody
Caedes , DNA has no "activity" to control, so you're asking the wrong question. Jonathan - you're small chunking unnecessarily. The "mind" is an analogy, and the "reading" is as well. This is commonly used language in describing the process of transcription.
The point is that the aperiodicity of DNA does not in of itself demand any chemical reactions to be arranged, but the "mind" "reading" the DNA does.
-
JonathanH
No it doesn't. You're just making crap up. It has been explained (more than once) how pure chemistry takes DNA to protein, and not once have you explained why this requires a "mind" to "read" DNA. All you're doing is repeating that phrase, though you added quotation marks this time.
-
gubberningbody
Jonathan,
Do you understand that DNA is inert until it is read?
Do you understand that it is a code?
Do you understand that there is nothing in the chemical makeup of DNA that demands certain chemical reactions?
Do you understand that there is a "mind" that "reads" and "interprets" this code to perform certain actions?
Do you understand I'm using the terms "mind" and "reads" and "interprets" by way to ease your understanding?
-
JonathanH
You are simply incorrect.
Chemicals don't "demand" anything, but in the right context they will react in specific predictable ways. There is no "mind reading it" to perform certain actions. There are actions taking place that are predictable and natural. By your reasoning any chemical reaction requires a mind to do it. What is the difference between pyramidine and purine nitrogenous bases attaching to one another, and any other chemical process? Does Catalase "decide" or "think" about splitting H2O2 into Water and Oxygen?
You might as well put "code" in quotation marks too. Calling it a code is something we do out of convenience. It's a series of chemicals that behave in specific predictable ways, and the result of the reaction depends on the order of the chemicals. It's not like a human code that is a series of man made symbols that only mean something to a specific group of human beings that can decode it. Nucleotides are physical things with physical properties that physically react to their surroundings.
You're trying to find magic where there is none.
"Magnets, how do they work?"<--reference to the insanity that is the song "miracles" that this is very reminiscent of
-
gubberningbody
Jonathan - I don't know how you've managed to redact from your mind what is written in so many texts.
In any case what you call convenience I call reality. You know I already know and agree that chemicals react without thought, however you also know more is happening here and that it's disingenuous to act otherwise.
Prove to me you have a mind.
You can't do it.
Prove to me you have free will.
You can't do it.
Perhaps you have neither.
-
-
JonathanH
........so you're reply is "C'mon! You know something fishy is going on. You know it. C'mon!! Admit it!" I'm less than convinced by this reasoning. Your subsequent non-sequitor also fails to convince me that the naturalistic chemical processes taking place in transcription have some kind of magic behind it. Whether or not free will exists, the enzymes, amino acids, and nucleotides involved in transcription are behaving exactly as they should according to chemistry and physics, no magic required.
I think we're done here.
-
gubberningbody
I'm not sure you even got started Jonathon. It wasn't possible of course, because you have neither a mind nor free will.
Your brain is what controls your behavior. It is, like all matter, composed entirely of chemicals. It is extraordinarily complicated, with many many working parts, all interconnected in a clever pattern. No matter how complicated this thing is, however, it remains true that at any given instant in time, it is in a particular state. The chemicals are joined in particular combinations, and energy and matter are moving around in particular directions.
Some stimulus comes into your brain from outside. It is sensed by the various physico-chemical processes and the signals sent to your brain. These signals interact with your brain, changes the physical and chemical state of it, and the result is some observed behavior. Your body follows what your brain instructs it to do. Where's the mind? Where's the free will? There wasn’t/isn't any. -
JonathanH
You're finally right about something. We don't have physical free will, to assert that we do is to assert that our minds and bodies don't obey the laws of physics. The neuroscientists Sam Harris doesn't think we have free will as we typically think of it, neither does Biologists and Geneticist Jerry Coyne. Modern Philosophers have largely just redifined free will away from being a physical thing, to being a philosophical construct that allows us to assign responsibility to individuals for actions. The modern science of conciousness is fascinating, and suggests that our conciousness is more of just a complex system that rationalizes what our body is doing, rather than telling our body what to do. Many studies show that the brain makes a decision seconds before the "mind" thinks "I've made my decision." It's all very interesting.
You haven't demonstrated or proven any point, you've merely come to a reasonable conclusion that scientists and philosophers have come to, and then asserted it must be wrong because it's disquieting and uncomfortable for you. There must be magic, other wise our minds are just illusory emergent properties of physical states, and we don't have genuine free will, but rather we are mechanistic and simply reacting to stimuli. Guess what? That's actually the most likely answer. There is no evidence for any psychic fields, souls, or whatever you want to call them. In fact all evidence suggests the contrary. That we are what we are, and nothing more. Sorry if that disapoints you.