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0 pointssailormoon16y ago0 comments

Speaking of 0 evidence ...

The human body is a machine. It is a very complex and intricate machine, but a machine it is nonetheless. Yes, we do not yet have the understanding. Yes, we do not yet have the necessary tools. But we will have them one day.

It is a machine, and any machine can be fixed with the right knowledge and tools, and it would seem quite foolish to claim otherwise.

It would seem equally foolish, of course, to plan one's life around the very uncertain wager that these technologies will be acquired by humankind within one's lifetime. No disagreement from me on that one.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

foldr16y ago· 2 in thread

>Yes, we do not yet have the understanding. Yes, we do not yet have the necessary tools. But we will have them one day.

We'll only have them one day if they're not beyond the limits of our understanding. Given that our understanding has limits, this is far from certain.

Xichekolas16y ago

> Given that our understanding has limits, this is far from certain.

That is a pretty big assumption to make. If you are saying that our understanding is limited at this point in time, then I'd agree. Barring loss of data/memory, our understanding will always be limited now compared to our understanding in the future.

But if you are claiming there is some fundamental upper bound to our understanding, and that a complete functional understanding of the human body is beyond that upper bound, then I have to ask what motivates that claim.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that kind of thinking is what supports flawed pseudoscience like "intelligent design" (not claiming you support that, and really not trying to open that can of worms; just drawing a parallel). Sure, if you assume that our understanding is already at some kind of limit, and then show something we can't explain, it follows naturally that it must have supernatural origins. If, on the other hand, you realize that our inability to explain something is most likely just a function of time (eventually we'll learn enough that we will be able to explain it), then the argument seems absurd.

foldr16y ago

>But if you are claiming there is some fundamental upper bound to our understanding, and that a complete functional understanding of the human body is beyond that upper bound

I'm claiming the first conjunct. I don't know whether or not a complete functional understanding of the human body is beyond our understanding.

I don't see why a claim that our understanding has certain fundamental limits should need to be justified. Rather, the opposite claim seems to require justification. If you look at any other animal on earth, this is obvious. Why should we be the only animal without limits?

This is not to suggest that what we happen to know right now is the upper limit, just that there is an upper limit.

>not claiming you support [intelligent design], and really not trying to open that can of worms

Oh please, this issue has nothing at all to do with ID.

> it follows naturally that it must have supernatural origins.

Or, more plausibly, that it has natural origins which are too complex for us to understand.

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jballanc16y ago

Sorry, but you're wrong. The human body is not a machine. The human body is a collection of chemical processes. Chemical processes must obey the laws of thermodynamics. Among those is the second law, which dictates the tendency toward disorder. We, as humans, are allowed to "disobey" the second law because we represent far-from-equilibrium forms known as dissipative structures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissipative_structures).

Now, you might say that any machine is a collection of chemical and physical processes. Fine. If you want to perpetuate a machine analogy, consider this: the camshaft in your car is subject to chemical wear through oxidation, etc. Eventually, the gear teeth will wear out, and it will need to be replaced wholesale. Fine, you say, we'll make replacement parts. But what about the brain? You can replace any arbitrarily large set of components in a car's engine and still call it the same engine, but do you think that holds true for humans as well? And even, say, we figure out how to preserve the human brain (or even, gasp upload it)...problem solved, right? Nope, sorry again. "You" are not your brain. "You" are an emergent property of your entire body. Your brain without your body is as much "you" as your body without your brain is...

Bottom line: study some biology. It's not as simple as the "easy A" course you took in high school or college led you to believe.

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