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

mkrnhr said:
Bernardo Kastrup's writings have been cited previously in this thread. Regardless of whether one agrees or not with his cosmic mind model, he at least invalidates the basic premises of the materialist/physicalist worldview in an elegant way. He also does it in an academic setting. The video is Kastrup's Ph.D. defense this year:
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I just finished reading Kastrup's book, The Idea of the World, and would like to recommend it. It's a bit repetitive, because it's actually a collection of papers, but he did a good job tying the pieces together, and avoiding super convoluted philosophical jargon. For those who watched the thesis presentation above or any of his videos, it's just a more detailed explanation of it.

I particularly enjoyed how he destroys materialism (the "physicalist" view, as he calls it), explaining that the materialists are basically a bunch of insecure kids trying to boost their egos and sense of importance. But other parts were equally interesting. I don't think he has the whole banana (for example, there are no "densities" or levels of consciousness or STS/STO, Being/non-Being alignment), but I think it's a good platform to build from, and some of his arguments easy to convey to others who may be questioning Darwinian nonsense.

Anyway, FWIW, if anybody is interested.
 
I've read Darwin's Black Box back in the 90's. Just to give an idea how different the cultural context was in that time, I've read it on recommendation from a review in one of the most prestigious newspapers in the Netherlands (NRC Handelsblad). Nowadays, such a book wouldn't even be reviewed on mainstream media.
At the turn of the century, intolerance for any challenge to the materialistic view became very intense. I used to be subscribed to tech websites like Ars Technica. I was very surprised to see articles lambasting ID as some sort of fundamentalistic medieval proposal. That was the reason why I stopped visiting that site.
Darwin's Doubt by Stephen C Meyer is another great book.
 
Chu said:
I just finished reading Kastrup's book, The Idea of the World, and would like to recommend it. It's a bit repetitive, because it's actually a collection of papers, but he did a good job tying the pieces together, and avoiding super convoluted philosophical jargon. For those who watched the thesis presentation above or any of his videos, it's just a more detailed explanation of it.

I particularly enjoyed how he destroys materialism (the "physicalist" view, as he calls it), explaining that the materialists are basically a bunch of insecure kids trying to boost their egos and sense of importance. But other parts were equally interesting. I don't think he has the whole banana (for example, there are no "densities" or levels of consciousness or STS/STO, Being/non-Being alignment), but I think it's a good platform to build from, and some of his arguments easy to convey to others who may be questioning Darwinian nonsense.

Anyway, FWIW, if anybody is interested.
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I've read some of Kastrup's earlier work. There were some interesting intuitions, and a parsimonious rebuttal of materiarialism which made sense to me. In the last couple of years he's gone really woke, applauding Merkel and Lucinda Ardern lockdowns and vaccination mandates. He also went all the way on his 'love' for the Ukrainian cause.
Not long ago he tried to debate Chris Lang and made a fool of himself. And in a very woke way, he demanded the video of the debate to be removed.
He toys with his ideas, but he doesn't go for the experience, imho
 
rlustemberg said:
I've read some of Kastrup's earlier work. There were some interesting intuitions, and a parsimonious rebuttal of materiarialism which made sense to me. In the last couple of years he's gone really woke, applauding Merkel and Lucinda Ardern lockdowns and vaccination mandates. He also went all the way on his 'love' for the Ukrainian cause.
Not long ago he tried to debate Chris Lang and made a fool of himself. And in a very woke way, he demanded the video of the debate to be removed.
He toys with his ideas, but he doesn't go for the experience, imho
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i found kastrup not reliable.
 
rlustemberg said:
I've read some of Kastrup's earlier work. There were some interesting intuitions, and a parsimonious rebuttal of materiarialism which made sense to me. In the last couple of years he's gone really woke, applauding Merkel and Lucinda Ardern lockdowns and vaccination mandates. He also went all the way on his 'love' for the Ukrainian cause.
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Oh yes? Too bad, but unfortunately, not surprising nor a stand-alone case. People without a network often tend to fall for the propaganda even though they can be smart about one or two topics.
 
KS said:
View attachment 80337
I'm wondering what happened... Was that below one? I've only heard first 10 minutes, but turned it off because it was too hard to follow while driving.
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I was planning on posting the video later today.
Kastrup started the debate by stating that he didn't bother to read Chris Langan's CTMU. On the other hand, Langan was very civil and patient towards him. I wonder how Kastrup would have reacted having Chris been more intellectually mean to him
 
I've watched most of the Langan - Kastrup debate and I must say that Kastrup was far more understandable for me than Langan. This is probably because Langan's work requires an understanding of his strictly defined language to grasp his concepts. It's a shame that Kastrup didn't prepare himself, and hasn't read Langan's work, because he could translate Langan's ideas to be more understandable by the mainstream. This resulted in basically a monologue of both participants, with the host only managing which gentleman should be talking now.
Then I scrolled through Kastrup's Twitter feed, and oh boy, his ego is very sensitive. I just cannot comprehend how it is possible that he lacks an open mind on other matters, and just goes by stereotypes. This reminds me of Nassim Taleb, who wrote bestsellers on "antifragility", yet had a complete meltdown and showed extreme "fragility" during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sorry for being off-topic!
 
KS said:
Then I scrolled through Kastrup's Twitter feed, and oh boy, his ego is very sensitive. I just cannot comprehend how it is possible that he lacks an open mind on other matters, and just goes by stereotypes.
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This happens most of the time when people don't work in a network, as Chu mentioned earlier. Fortunately, we can extract here some good ideas from those people, and apply it in the right context.

Thank you Gaby, for the great Behe's video. I like very much his work!
 
@irjO This thread and books within explain why there is no evolution above the family level. The levels from top to bottom are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family are created. "Evolution" or DNA breakdowns occur at genus, species.
Laura said:
A: It is actually good. Coming to knowledge that is sure by your own efforts locks it in at the belief center, and thus gives added power. All who seek to graduate to 4th density must seek knowledge. In 4D, eventually it will be your job to engineer lifeforms on new worlds.

Q: (L) Well, from what I've been reading about the engineering of the lifeforms on this world, that gives me the idea that 4th density intelligence and abilities are so...

A: Stupendous is the term.

Q: (L) Yeah, stupendous. Reading these books has just blown me away.

(Pierre) You mean the level of engineering?

(L) The level of engineering, the level of intelligence, I mean... Obviously, there have been experiments. Look at the book, Prehistoric Life. You can SEE minds working on engineering creatures. Then they decide, oh, we don't like that one. They wipe out the whole planet and then a whole new bunch appear. That's engineering. They didn't like the old design. There were some of the old designs that REALLY were bad, I'm tellin' you! [laughter] I swear, you can see in that book. There were some really BAD ideas! Serious design flaws.

(Joe) You said in the forum that every single species was individually engineered out of the experimental parts that were previously engineered through billions of years of Earth's history. So, I was wondering... They said in a previous session that life here was seeded. First, primitive life was given. But to what extent was the progress of all the species on Earth directly created?

A: As Behe suggests, at the family level.

Q: (L) Like family Canis. You can get wolves, dogs, etc.

(Joe) So all of the constituent parts of dogs were directly created somewhere else, and then...

(L) Look at the book. You can see where they started. It shows you how they started with the most basic organisms. They played around with those, and then they built on it. It's just like amazing to look at those pictures and see what they've uncovered in the fossil record. You can see they tried doing this, then they added that to it, then they used a part from this and part from that, engineered a new part or two, and so on. Every species has a certain number of genes or parts of them that no other species has.

(Joe) In the previous session they said it was more or less like a thought in 4th density of a dog. Then that's transferred to 3D and matter accretes to that.

(L) Well, I'm sure that happens the same way they were describing abductions.

(Joe) No, but is that... So there is an evolutionary process where the component parts of a dog...

(L) I don't think they were talking about the dog.

(Joe) So some evolution happens naturally? Ya know what I mean?

(Pierre) I think what Joe means is that... Joe is reconciling intelligent design and evolution somehow by saying that yes, at our level...

(L) There is no evolution.

(Pierre) But the ideas in the mind of the engineer of the mind in 4D DOES evolve...

(Joe) Like you send a blueprint down, and the matter accretes around that blueprint and produces a dog quite quickly.

(Pierre) And then you learn from it, your thinking gets better, and you design a Dog 2.0.

(Joe) No, a dog evolves from something.

(L) No, a dog doesn't evolve from anything. A dog is created.

(Joe) And it appears out of thin air?

(L) No, it doesn't appear out of thin air. It gets... I think what they were saying was that the idea of the different small like proteins or other building blocks. But how do they get put together? And I don’t think it was exactly like the thought of a “dog” but they were talking more about basic life forms to begin with, and the engineering via DNA. If there is a “thought” that is transferred to 3D, it would be in the DNA. If you look at the book, you see how it starts off with very basic structures, like slime molds. Cyanobacteria. Then, you get things where groups of different kinds of organisms form tubes. Then they form stalks. Then they learn how to do photosynthesis. Then they make leaves. Then, somewhere along the way, sexual reproduction comes into the picture. Once sexual reproduction has entered the picture, then the door is open for seeding other things via sexual reproduction. Then, what you can do is make a code and plant it in literally by sending viruses or something through the realm curtain or even just thoughts, or something like abductions. You can plant it in an egg and it's born. It's not like something just accretes out of the air. It happens in a very practical way...

A: Following the idea there is a certain amount of experimentation and even gestation of some "parts" in other lifeforms or in other realities before transference to this one.

Q: (Joe) What I was trying to say was it's kinda like a blueprint is transferred to these lifeforms, and they follow a preprogrammed blueprint...

A: No. There is no evolution as you are thinking.
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hlat said:
@irjO This thread and books within explain why there is no evolution above the family level. The levels from top to bottom are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family are created. "Evolution" or DNA breakdowns occur at genus, species.
Click to expand...

I remember this now! Thank you! If it’s relate to the question about giants I did on the other thread, the question is not related to how they were created per se, but why there was a huge size difference between giants and regular humans.
 
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