Hi Russell,

Quote
Substance must exist for chance to have a chance true enough but ‘meaning’!! No! You are confabulating unlike terms here. No meaning is necessary for evolution to occur. Information, raw information, the sort created by matter coalescing out of disorder as a universe expands and cools is all that’s required to enable evolution.


Hang on, if no meaning is required, then where did information come from in the first place....out of thin air? Did it think itself into existence and then into an ordered code...or did the ordered code evolve as time went on? Somehow shuffling itself until it hit the jackpot? And what is the point of information if there is no meaning? Since information has order to produce anything of meaning/form and we see this in the genetic code and the incredible outcome in the world around us. No computer is of any point unless it has a programme and for a programme, it requires a programmer. The programme doesn't magically come together on its own given chance and random processes. No matter how many times you roll an imaginary dice.

Where did the matter that created information, get it's information from? What is this matter you speak of and what is contained within it that is capable of bringing forth anything, let alone what we observe around us....Whether it took thousands or billions of years still doesn't answer the question.

I assume you can tell us all about this matter and what it contained in order to prove it capable of producing life. And within that life, the ability replicate, procreate and evolve over billions of years into the vast varieties and complex machines we are and observe around us.

Quote
What meaning do the numbers on the dice have without humans? The figures are still there but what do they mean? Just variations in the coloured surface of an oddly shaped bit of matter without us. Meaning is assigned by intelligent beings but the universe and life goes on without intelligent beings, ToE works without intelligent input or meaning though it appears fully capable of creating intelligent beings who can then assign meanings to things around them.


Exactly and did the dice roll itself? Already it requires an outside force to start the ball rolling so to speak. Meaning is most definitely assigned by intelligent beings and we are assigned by an even more intelligent being (force). How can you be certain anything you think or say has any point or meaning to it if your origins are in chance? And ultimately, if you came from chance and are heading for a future as worm food, I hardly see why you'd be worried either way. Since your beginning and end have no point....according to your beliefs anyway. How is this in yours or anybody's best interest? Or do you feel that evolution will oneday go beyond such boundaries and you wish to contribute to the future of your fellow human beings, just in case there is a way of delaying their ultimate end as worm food?.... well if/when that day ever comes, sadly you won't know about it. But the worm might. [Linked Image]