Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

[Dirgni]

So let me restate the question another way: Whoever came first, out of all densities, what created them?

I do not think we can really answer this question from our viewpoint. In my understanding maybe DCM 'decided' to have the experience and let happen 1D to 6D. I do not think that we from 3D have enough insight to explain where and how DCM was coming into being. Maybe DCM existed 'always'. All densities maybe influence each other in some ways. Higher densities may just have more 'opportunities' for changes/influences than lower densities.

People I have heard of have 'stories' where God/a god/a being created our world. There are Native American 'stories' where there destructions changing our world from time to time and the humans were going from one world to the next. It seems to me that these are told due to a reason.

When time is an illusion then everything is happening the same time. It is just that we perceive past and future from our point of experience, but everything is happening in the present at the same time. I asked myself how could one send Reiki into the past. If time is an illusion then you just send Reiki to 'another now'. If/When 4D or 6D are doing changes to 'our 3D world/kingdom', they are doing the changes 'now' in 'The Present'. We may experience the changes after years, generations, centuries but they see the outcome at once.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I certainly don't know the answer to that, but I think part of the conundrum here is that we are so used to think in materialist or dualist terms. We cannot help but picture a God who "creates stuff". However, the universe doesn't seem to be about "stuff", but all about mind and experience. It's all thoughts. How do you create thoughts? You think them. So it's an experiencing mind that creates everything. And what is non-existence but another thought? Seen in this light, non-existence doesn't exist, strictly speaking.

I like Whitehead's vision of this. For him, the world of parts is just as important as the whole - the two can't exist without the other. So he would say that they are both eternal, essential principles of reality: God and chaos, out of which the world (a cosmos) is born. He characterizes God as the cosmic mind, which gives order to all possibilities - all thoughts, values. Those possibilities are then incorporated into what become the beings of the world. He characterizes our current universe as merely our present 'epoch' in what is really eternity - other cosmic epochs came before and more will come after.

At the beginning of our epoch, there was only an initial chaos: unstructured, chaotic energetic events with no stable characteristics, just a random flux without any order. The creation of our current epoch was the ordering of that chaos, where the indeterminate events became determinate. You can say this was the beginning of the so-called 'physical laws', which are really the acquired habits of those initially chaotic events. At that point, you now have simple beings: electronic, protonic, atomic events that are stable, manifesting the order that is 'thought up' in the cosmic mind.

And if we look at this from "within time", as Whitehead did, then I would say that the inner densities that 'fill in' the cosmos existed from the beginning, but they existed as potentials, goals, 'teloi', attractors, thoughts - as 'placeholders' perhaps, or possible futures. And as the universe develops, the picture fills in from both directions, with more complex and ordered physical beings, and more complex and individuated consciousnesses in the higher realms. And at all times, the higher and lower levels are influenced by each other. For example, the 'higher realms' pull us toward futures that are commensurate with where we are now, specifically suited to our current conditions. And in turn, the choices we make will influence which futures will be presented to us.

 

[Anamarija]

At the beginning of our epoch, there was only an initial chaos: unstructured, chaotic energetic events with no stable characteristics, just a random flux without any order. The creation of our current epoch was the ordering of that chaos, where the indeterminate events became determinate. You can say this was the beginning of the so-called 'physical laws', which are really the acquired habits of those initially chaotic events. At that point, you now have simple beings: electronic, protonic, atomic events that are stable, manifesting the order that is 'thought up' in the cosmic mind.

There is something so beautiful and powerful creating order from chaos, even it's related with housework or anything else.

I know that I jumped in serious discussion with this, but when I read AI words I felt overwhelmed in my chest how I feel excited everytime when I make order. And I can't imagine what feels watchmaker when he makes watch from scratch. And then...click...and works!

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Curiously, they said in the future, but I suppose this doesn't really get us too far anyway. It could just be adjusting the language to our level of understanding or whatever.

So let me restate the question another way: Whoever came first, out of all densities, what created them?


@John G:
Thanks, though this is all rather complicated (and theoretical), and I'm not smart enough to make much sense of that. =/

Also, remember what the C's said about the cycle - going from 1st to 7th densities then start over - forever. If the cycle never had a beginning, if souls are eternal and so is the universe, then it makes sense (as much as my 3rd density brain could muster) that there is no "beginning" to all things. You always have 7th density, and as such, you always have the other 6 too. Your personal journey from 1st to 7th doesn't mean that there ever was a "first ever" journey! Precisely because the entirety of the universe already has to exist for such a journey to be possible in the first place - kinda like Behe's irreducible complexity. If there was no space, time, matter, energy, physical and spiritual laws and structure, etc, there would be no possibility of this journey in the first place.

On the one hand this makes sense to me more than anything else, on the other, my brain can't really grasp it either, since beginnings and endings are just part of our 3d experience. So I think this is where faith would come in. Maybe in 4D is when the rest of your mind will "catch up" and this will be as intuitive and natural as linearity, beginnings, and endings, are to 3D minds.

 

[Joe]

Therefore it seems to me that the universe must necessarily exist, always. It's not a satisfactory answer, but maybe it makes sense if we stop imagining "nothingness" as empty physical space, which doesn't make any sense if everything is based on experience and thoughts. Non-existence is just another thought. But the thought is still there, creating something.

But an empty physical space isn't nothingness, because it's confined by the word 'space'. There isn't much point, as far as I can tell, in trying to grasp the idea of no end and no beginning and infinity with the brains and awareness we have right now. Lots of people try to explain it to you as if they understand it, but they obviously don't and are forced to simply theorize about how chaos developed into order etc. etc. Even the most fundamental way we can come up with a question of the origins of everything, like "what happened at the beginning" is simply wrong if there is no beginning. So not only can we not grok the answer, we can't even formulate the question.

 

[Laura]

But an empty physical space isn't nothingness, because it's confined by the word 'space'. There isn't much point, as far as I can tell, in trying to grasp the idea of no end and no beginning and infinity with the brains and awareness we have right now. Lots of people try to explain it to you as if they understand it, but they obviously don't and are forced to simply theorize about how chaos developed into order etc. etc. Even the most fundamental way we can come up with a question of the origins of everything, like "what happened at the beginning" is simply wrong if there is no beginning. So not only can we not grok the answer, we can't even formulate the question.

I agree. I think is is enough to know our jobs here and do them and not angst over what we can't yet know because we haven't graduated.

 

[luc]

But an empty physical space isn't nothingness, because it's confined by the word 'space'. There isn't much point, as far as I can tell, in trying to grasp the idea of no end and no beginning and infinity with the brains and awareness we have right now. Lots of people try to explain it to you as if they understand it, but they obviously don't and are forced to simply theorize about how chaos developed into order etc. etc. Even the most fundamental way we can come up with a question of the origins of everything, like "what happened at the beginning" is simply wrong if there is no beginning. So not only can we not grok the answer, we can't even formulate the question.

I think there's one use for thinking about such things: to realize that we can't really know and that therefore we shouldn't obsess about it.

Thing is, humans ask such questions quite naturally, i.e. "who created the universe", "who created the creator" etc. So it's useful to think about cosmology and what kind of cosmology could potentially make sense in that regard. The conclusion for me is that the hyperdimensional, cyclical universe does make a whole lot more sense than let's say a supernatural God, or some materialist nonsense. But obviously, we cannot go further than that from where we are; we need to have faith that maybe one day we'll understand more, but not on our current level. Seen in this light, if we are curious about such things, we should be extra-motivated to fulfill our job here at our current level, because that's the only way to advance. OSIT

 

[Cosmos]

New interview with Behe:

The interviewer, Metaxas, is a bit irritating...he should have given Behe more time to answer. He kept interrupting him with his 'witty' commenting.

aragorn,

He still got through to me despite Metaxas trying to upstage him.

Behe was fairly "witty" too. My favorite remark of Behe was when asked if his theories came out after his tenure he said "My momma didn't raise no idiot".

Found the interview actually quite good although I agree that the moderator should have let Behe talk a bit more and hold back some of his witty comments instead. I found it especially refreshing how both discussed the current reality in science and that the intelligent design issue pretty much has proven, without a shadow of doubt now, that some kind of intelligent design must be at work and that Darwinist's and others are dead wrong. Also, the appropriate comment that science has its limits was refreshing.

I found the comments of the moderator at the end actually quite good as well, which Behe also agreed upon, that Darwinism essentially removed any meaning, purpose from life as well as any idea of "more than this" from the minds of many people and that it is essentially crude dogmatic materialism that in a shocking way makes people get away with the idea that there is really no meaning to existence and no good or evil either. It looks more and more like Darwin and other people like him essentially had a pathological outlook on life, which they presented as the reality of everyone. Some kind of schizoid declaration as Lobaczewski termed it I think. I also think what becomes clear in the video is that Behe really sees meaning and purpose in life and probably a lot more than he openly talks about.

 

[Cosmos]

Also interesting in the interview is Behe's insider comment that he estimates that at least one third of professional academic biologists are fed up with Darwins theory and are just not admitting it publicly because of the repressive climate especially from established institutions and the media.

 

[aragorn]

I just finished Darwin Devolves, and it was a excellent read. As with DBB, Behe has gone to great lengths to explain concepts and details in ways that are easy to understand. And the progression of the book is well thought of. This is an absolute nail in Darwin’s coffin, and the materialists are unsurprisingly going bonkers, attacking Behe with numerous debunking ‘reviews’.

Again, it’s shocking to read these ponerized ‘reviews’ by prominent scientists, these people are crazy!

Behe has done an outstanding job in replying to almost all of the major debunking efforts of his book. You can find the most important ones on the books webpage:

https://darwindevolves.com/criticism/

You can find even more responses to the recent criticism if you follow the links to the evolutionnews.org page.

 

[aragorn]

Btw, I hope that all of you who have read DD (and liked it) will write a positive book review on Amazon. At the moment, there are only 56 reviews (I just submitted mine), and the current standing is:

- 78% 5 stars
- 2% 4 starts
- 20% 1 star

So, right now, since there are so few reviews, the one-star reviews by the maniacs are weighing down the average score pretty heavily.

On the bright side, DD is now #1 in 'Developmental Biology' and #5 in 'Science & Religion' with several entries in the top 10, due to various formats (audio book, kindle). Other books questioning Darwinism are trending pretty well too (Axe, Meyers etc), so it looks like people are interested in learning more about this (perhaps because they have doubts), and this surely make the gate keepers even more worried!

For convenience, here's the link to Behe's DD:

Amazon.com

 

[Mandatory Intellectomy]

The rating distribution is really telling. Clearly looks like a great book that a certain group of people is desperately trying to tear apart. The "top critical review" starts: "Michael Behe's works, for all their flaws, have always been the gold standard of creationist writing." This shows the despair, since there's not a trace of creationism in Behe's books. He talks about things going on for millions of years... on a planet that's like 6000 years old according to creationists. If you're attacking with bullshit, it's clear you have nothing legitimate to attack with.

I also find it funny how Darwinists use phrases like "an alarming trend in science" to describe criticism of Darwinism. If ID was false, then there would be no need to be alarmed. Clearly they see this as a real threat to their theory, and for a good reason. Their theory is wrong.

 

[Mandatory Intellectomy]

As I continue reading Behe (DD), I sometimes feel like I don't understand the underlying biology and chemistry to properly appreciate what it really takes for something to happen, how exactly mutations occur and what exactly they can do, etc. So occasionally I go to Wikipedia for an hour or two and learn. After weeks of this, I have a decent understanding of what DNA, mRNA, tRNA, ribosomes, and other things look like, what they do, what exactly are genes and how exactly they translate into proteins, etc. I studied protein synthesis today.

It constantly boggles my mind what kind of a genius designed all this. I might as well be a piece of wood compared to the intelligence of the designer. Every single thing involved in this is complex, the processes are even more complex, everything needs precise timing... It requires all my brain power to even somewhat understand how it works. Designing something like that is safely in the realm of "unimaginable".

And the Darwinists think all this happened randomly?? Jesus f***ing Christ... That doesn't make any sense at all.

 

[Laura]

The rating distribution is really telling. Clearly looks like a great book that a certain group of people is desperately trying to tear apart. The "top critical review" starts: "Michael Behe's works, for all their flaws, have always been the gold standard of creationist writing." This shows the despair, since there's not a trace of creationism in Behe's books. He talks about things going on for millions of years... on a planet that's like 6000 years old according to creationists. If you're attacking with bullshit, it's clear you have nothing legitimate to attack with.

I also find it funny how Darwinists use phrases like "an alarming trend in science" to describe criticism of Darwinism. If ID was false, then there would be no need to be alarmed. Clearly they see this as a real threat to their theory, and for a good reason. Their theory is wrong.

Sounds like a good opening for a review!!!

 

[Anthony]

A couple of pages back there was a discussion about how best to share the information on Darwinism so as to make it "click" with the audience, so I thought I would share the following from the book Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff by Thomas de Hartmann which seems to be related to the discussion. Their group was holding a Work demonstration in America:



I guess this can be applied in general to our work on SOTT and work on our personal issues and our daily life activities. For Gurdjieff, it was never about the results, but the efforts we invest. So it's more process oriented. A good discription can be found in this thread.