Very cool thought!

In reply to this comment by GenjiKilpatrick:
The last five minutes are probably the best thoughts this man has sown in my head.

If humans can build Mars rovers, and we are only 2% more advanced than Chimpanzees.

What will a 2% advanced post-human society look like? [!?!?!?]

I'm not sure how you see yourself as any less dogmatic than I am..and Im sorry for making you sad. I hope that you haven't wasted too many kleenexs on me, but save them for yourself..you'll need them when you figure out evolution is wrong.

Here is the key portion of your wiki article:

"Ideally, this list would only recursively include 'true' transitionals, fossils representing ancestral specie from which later groups evolved, but most, if not all, of the fossils shown here represent extinct side branches, more or less closely related to the true ancestor"

What we see in the fossil record is that when something new shows up its all at once and is fully formed and then never changes. Ie, no true transitionals have ever been discovered. What has never been witnessed in the fossil record is steady progressive change of one kind of thing into something completely different.

You think this is a gap? It's a super massive black hole, and the vacuum may be in your head if you believe it. Here's some info:

John Bonner, a biologist at Princeton, writes that traditional textbook discussions of ancestral descent are "a festering mass of unsupported assertions." In recent years, paleontologists have retreated from simple connect-the-dot scenarios linking earlier and later species. Instead of ladders, they now talk of bushes. What we see in the fossils, according to this view, are only the twigs, the final end-products of evolution, while the key transitional forms which would give a clue about the origin of major animal groups remain completely hidden.

The blank spots on evolutionary "tree" charts occur at just the points where, according to Darwin's theory, the crucial changes had to take place. The direct ancestors of all the major orders: primates, carnivores, and so forth are completely missing. There is no fossil evidence for a "grandparent" of the monkey, for example. "Modern gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere," writes paleontologist Donald Johansen. "They are here today; they have no yesterday." The same is true of giraffes, elephants, wolves, and all species; they all simply burst upon the scene de novo [anew], as it were.

I think you're the one who needs to re-evaluate your beliefs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6EiN-3uWak




>> ^Skeeve:
>> ^shinyblurry:
the bar is still incredibly low..one of the best transitional forms out there is based on a whales nostril..i would find that embarassing if i believed in evolution. show me something convincing. also, give me an example of mutation that increases information in a genome while you're at it.
You've said that you aren't ignorant of science, yet you ignore the science that proves these things. You, and people like you, are not really interested in the facts, you are interested in finding all the gaps so you can point and say "aha, there is a god!" I am truly saddened by people like you - it breaks my heart that you can be so smart and so blind at the same time.
But you asked for yet more proof so I am at your service.
A (comparatively) short list of transitional forms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
As for the claim that mutations not increasing information in a genome:
"We have observed the evolution of
increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)
If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place."
You can look up those scholarly articles if you actually don't want to remain ignorant. They are listed here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

As you may have notice, this message is very long. Please take a while and read it a few times, in chunks, before you respond. I ask a lot of questions here so I’d like it you pretended as if you were asking the questions to yourself.

I should have qualified my statement about religions. I meant to clarify that in the Persian and Pre-Rome regions of the world, which were primarily Pagan, a huge majority of the religions didn’t have religious structures that were based around fear, for the most part. Yes, I admit that there was the concept of retribution from the gods but it wasn’t anything to the degree of everlasting punishment. I currently don’t know anything about the religions of the very early Americas (Mayans, etc). It wasn’t until the god concepts became more personalized and more humans that it became more about fear. There is a natural progression in the ideological development in religions that goes from being nothing about humans to being all about humans. Eternal suffering or anything resembling a “hell” is relatively new and came about around the time of monotheistic religions.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you trust your personal revelation?

I ask this because I used to be very “spiritual” and I’ve even had out-of-body experiences, experiences that I can only call past life regressions. I grew up in a practicing Christian family and I have memories of experience that I can only call “personal revelation”. I’ve come to a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t trust those personal revelations; I want to know if you’ve come to understand how the human brain is very easily tricked into irrational behaviors and beliefs (not just religious)

You say that this has been an ongoing revelation since you were 14. If you had not had this history of personal revelation at all and it came to you suddenly today, would you find it believable? I imagine that you’re beliefs have been challenged many times. Are you certain that the strengthening effect of the challenges aren’t just from the boomerang effect, caused by a need to justify something that you feel committed to?

Here is another great question. How much of your belief system is tied to your identity; how much do you identify with it, personally or socially? Meaning, if you came to disbelieve what you now believe, would you know who you are or would you have a sort of identity crisis? If you stopped believing as you do now, do you feel that you would you lose a part of who you are?

You ask a good question in “Maybe it is you who is delusion and I see things as they actually are.” Yes, perhaps I am and perhaps you are and perhaps we both are. So how can we know, how would we find out, what kinds of tests and experiments could we do to illuminate the answer. It isn’t good enough to simply say that we both might be delusional; therefore our views are equally valid. Either one of us is correct and the other is not, or we are both incorrect.
You know, I used to have a dualistic view on the nature of humans. I used to believe in the soul or the spirit as something separate from the body. I used to resonate heavily with the lyrics of Tool and the ideas behind the art of Alex Grey.

I guess my biggest question would stem from this statement that you made
“My faith is that i have a spirit, a soul, a divine spark that is connected to the ALL, the ONE, also known as "the source".”
What makes you think that there is an “ALL”, a “ONE” or “the source” and how do you know that you’re not just fooling yourself? What would it mean if you discovered that it’s probably not true, and that the real explanation for the subjective experiences that you’ve had are far more elegant and interesting than the ideas of spirituality that you currently hold?

To be blunt, I don’t think that you’re thinking this whole notion of an ego through far enough. It sounds like you’re just accepting the ideas as being true without going through the motions of analyzing what the concept implies. The notion of an ego implies several things; one of which is that we as humans are special to the degree that we have egos when, either, other animals don’t, or, other animals are better than us in controlling it. The questions then become, do other animals have egos? If so, how does the ego operate in them? Do other life forms, such as plants or bacteria, also have egos, or does the ego require a certain degree of cognitive function? If the ego does require certain cognitive functions to be noticeable, and since we are extremely closely related to other apes such as chimpanzees, do they also exhibit features of having egos? If they don’t and having an ego is strictly a human feature, what happened during the development of the brain that allowed for the access to what we might call the ego and at this point, do we really believe that the “ego” is actually something that exists outside of the brain? If it doesn’t exist outside of the brain than how can we separate who you perceive as yourself and what you perceive as the “ego”? Are all “ego’s” the same or is it brain dependent with variations depending on brain structure and chemistry? Can you see why I would say that the notion of the ego as something outside of or separate from oneself is inherently egotistical.

The way that you talk about the ego makes it seem mystical and somehow separate from “self”. To me, that sounds like someone trying to escape responsibility. Why not just cut out the middle man and admit that you, not your ego, has the tendency to be possessive, needy, insecure, wishes for self-aggrandizement, etc. The notion that “negative” qualities are part and partial of some sort of external thing that is separate from “you” just seems childish to me, not to mention, completely unsupported by research.

For myself, I suppose that I recoil at the idea of an “ALL”, or “ONE”, or “the source” because it doesn’t really answer any questions. If someone were presenting these ideas to me for the first time, I would immediately start asking questions like “What is it made out of, what kind(s) of particles?” “How does it perpetuate?” “What is the physics of this thing?” “By what mechanism does it connect to everything?” “How does a source not also have its own source?” “What tests and experiments can we do to learn more about this thing?” “What objective information do we have about it?” “Does this thing operate differently between animate and inanimate objects?” “If spirit or soul is inherent in the system, do animals and plants also have a spirit or soul?” “What exactly constitutes as a spirit or soul, what can it be defined by?” “Did “the source” have a beginning or a history?”

I think you understand my point. My problem with subjectively believing something is true is that it’s more susceptible to not going far enough in scrutiny. It is much easier to subjectively believe something that feels good or feels right and not go any further than that. Very few subjective beliefs translate into objective or rational understandings of nature; it’s very easy to get it wrong. Subjective beliefs are as prone to fallibility as humans are to irrational thinking.


In reply to this comment by enoch:
hmmmm..
i disagree with your statement that only the monotheistic religion control by fear.
buddhism (yes..buddhism) shinto,mayan,toltec,arminianism,zoroastriasm..the list is legion and they ALL have punishment/reward doctrine.each at varying degrees but its in there.

i do enjoy hearing an atheists perspective on how my faith translates.
very..analytical of you my friend.
suffice to say my faith is born from personal revelation and has been an ongoing revelation since i was 14.
nothing i have encountered or experienced has taken away from this revelation,in fact it has strengthened it.
could i be delusional?
i guess its possible.
or maybe it is you who are delusional and i see things as they actually are.
not trying to be an ass,just pointing out the subjective nature of this particular polemic.

i guess..in its most simplest of terms.
my faith is that i have a spirit,a soul,a divine spark that is connected to the ALL,the ONE,also known as "the source".
freud believed that the ego WAS who you were.i could not disagree with that more.
the ego is who you THINK you are.predicated and perpetrated by those who are close to you.
we cant help that.it is very human.
so around 12 yrs old we start to have a sense of self.this self understands the world and how he/she interacts with it by rules set by his/her parents.
as we grow older so does the circle of influence i.e:friends,lovers,teachers etc etc.
think about this for a second because i am expressing a very huge idea in a very short amount of time and glossing over all the implications of said idea.

my philosophy..or my faith if you will,views the ego as my "false" self.
the ego wishes only to validate itself (thats why mass marketing is very VERY effective).
the ego wishes to perpetuate its own existence by way of constant feed-back.
the ego gets jealous and possesive.
the ego gets insecure and needy.
the ego has demands...and desires...which seek only for self aggrandizement.
now societal roles consisting of compassion and empathy will,and can,curb the destructive nature of the ego (think your teenage years and just how self centered you were to give you an idea of ego gone wild)

through my faith and discipline i am quite aware of my ego and have suppressed it to the point where it no longer manipulates my thinking nor my emotions.
so i have no urge nor a desire to be perceived as "correct" because to me that is irrelevant.
(though i do prefer to be "corrected" if i misstate something).
i do not experience jealousy,nor envy.
but i do experience pride.
i do not allow anothers limited perception of me based on their own subjective reasoning influence how i feel about who i am.
i am open and honest because my faith is that we are all connected with the divine and to lie,steal or cheat you is to be doing to myself also.
i do not judge anothers faith or lack of it because that is THEIR path and the only time i ever feel the need to intercede is when it flows into my domain and affects me in some way.

even as i write these words,which to me seem pretty articulate and clear,i know that you will understand them based solely on..well..your understanding.
i do not say that as a slight but rather a statement.
trying to convey complex thought patterns by way of text can be so..limiting.

everything i do or say i do so with spirit in mind.
sometimes i fail..sometimes i succeed.
i am human.
with a spirit! ziiiiing!
anyways..
i really do enjoy our conversations.
you are a pleasure my friend.
namaste.
(look that word up btw..its a great word)

God sure hates chimpanzee's that's for sure.

>> ^MarineGunrock:

It's a neat idea, sure. But "rocked the world of automation enthusiasts"? I guess it doesn't take much...


Being primarily a software automation guy I thought along the same lines.... perhaps the guy writing the summary is buddies with Dave. Good salesmanship I suppose. (i.e. "The most amazing video with a mole and a chimpanzee hitting a baseball of ALL TIME!!!")

That said, this is amazing to me. The magnetic ball chain was an awesome idea. I only wish I could do this sort of stuff with hardware. I once tried to put a handmade geared setup together and quickly determined I didn't have the skills for the task.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'monkey, dog, river, Pakun, James' to 'monkey, dog, river, Pakun, James, chimpanzee' - edited by Fusionaut

'Hey, jury is out! Need a transitional thing... last thing was this chimpanzee named Lucy, but it turned out to be a human! You need to have faith in science.'


Its interesting to imagine how Michaelangelo, or Newton, or Socrates must have felt, surrounded by other humans even more ignorant than them... and I wonder, is it any different for us now?

If there is one constant in human civilization its the struggle against encroaching ignorance.

There is abstract thinking involved in this task. Realize that the chimpanzee or human must know the order of the numerals (arbitrary symbols).

If you want to test yourself, you can do so at Lumosity.com. It requires a free sign up, and you'll get to play all the brain games for free for about a week. Then they want to charge you.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

The last five minutes are probably the best thoughts this man has sown in my head.
If humans can build Mars rovers, and we are only 2% more advanced than Chimpanzees.
What will a 2% advanced post-human society look like? [!?!?!?]


Agreed the last 5 minutes was probably the best, but what really got me is the "walking by the worm" thought. That there could of very well be the species 2% "above" us been here before and we're too stupid enough to recognize it. That got me thinking, woah.

The last five minutes are probably the best thoughts this man has sown in my head.

If humans can build Mars rovers, and we are only 2% more advanced than Chimpanzees.

What will a 2% advanced post-human society look like? [!?!?!?]

Thank you, alien_concept
In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
Very emotional, so so sad!

*promote

Huh. My first thought was that they were going to single out "banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee". I guess the notion that African instruments are played by APES is subtle enough for them.

@rebuilder Agreed, but "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

@rottenseed Agreed, but religion's key tenet is gullibility or faith without evidence. If something big flies in from the sky and says "I am god, this is the end time, bow down or die"... unless as you say, it's a giant flying unicorn. Sucks when you misinterpret a culture...

@marinara Assuming aliens are more than 1% more advanced than humans... to expend the effort to cross the galaxy to make contact to talk about god, not claim to be god - they will probably want something. Compare it to missionaries travelling to Africa to preach to Chimpanzees.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Chimpanzee firefighter does training with a bulldog. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

hahaha. But actually kinda interesting how most human tribes and neaderthals practiced cannibalism in the same way as these chimps.
>> ^ant:
But humans don't eat each other in wars.