>Ralph:
>>It
>>seems you are talking in ID terms here, saying life has a purpose. Do you
>>feel this purpose comes from outside of life or is part of life itself?
>>If a living organism dies, did it die because it lost its purpose? Is there
>>a purpose to the "purpose"? (I can see my questions are getting murkier
>>and murkier--even to me!). I'm just curious about how you see this purpose
>>working. Or can we just say: "Life has a purpose--but so what?"
>
>Bertvan
>Hi Ralph. "So what" is ok with me. The only purpose to life I discuss is
>what life is obviously doing - growing. I put more esoteric "purposes" in
>the same category as "the nature of the designer". I don't worry about
>questions to which I'm unlikely to find the answer.
this flatly contradicts what you have been saying all along. "Growing"
doesn't conflict with evolution at all.
>> Ralph:
>> My understanding is that evolution is not climbing a ladder
>>from some crude, barely-works animal form to a "perfect"
>> animal form at the topof the ladder. If there were a
>>"perfectly evolved" animal, it would be
>>perfect only in the sense that it perfectly filled its ecological niche.
>>And as soon as its environment changed, that "perfect"
>>animal would no longer be "perfect" so some other animal,
> >better suited to the changed conditions, could take its place.
> >Is this an essentially correct reading of current
>>evolution thought or do you understand it differently?
>
>Bertvan:
>Maybe the perfect organism could adjust to all environments. Humans are
>getting closer. Environments are part of nature and maybe changing
>environments are part of the design. (You've given me things to think about.)
all environments? A perfect organism that can extract oxygen out of water
like a fish, out of the atmosphere like we, AND live with no air at all the
way botchulism(sp?) does? Does God--excuse me, the designer--not have
control over climate? Does he/she/it have to keep redesigning as climate
changes?
>Ralph:
>>You say death and extinction (that
>>seems to be the same thing) were "necessary additions"(?).
>> Christian thought says that the world was initially created
>> without death, which came into the world as a result of sin.
> >Is this the "addition" you're referring to? Or are you simply
>>saying that life has to die at some point to make room for new life?
> >The concept of life without death has always seemed quite
>>foreign to me, probably because that cycle is all I've ever
>>seen. (I've often wondered what Adam did about the mosquitoes
>>before death came into the world!). There is some interesting work
>>being done on *why* we die. Built-in obsolescence and
>>accumulated accidents are the two I've read about most often.
>>If we attain immortality, will we cease to be alive?
>
>Bertvan;
>The biosphere could not have evolved without death and extinction. What
>happens if we attain immortality is another of those questions I don't worry
>about.
I thought, according to you, the biosphere didn't evolve.
Excinction is caused by a lot of different things, but for example one of
the things is where the environment changes suddenly and drastically and a
population is wiped out. Say a freshwater lake full of freshwater fish is
suddenly flooded with sea water due to a geological shift. All the fish
die. That's extinction. If a few of the fish manage to survive the influx
of salt, they will pass their salt-tolerance on to their descendants.
That's evolution.
Susan
----------
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our
actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only
morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
--Albert Einstein
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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