Re: Why the theory of evolution is ontologically impossible


John Wilkins wrote:
rev.goetz wrote:
John Wilkins wrote:
rev.goetz wrote:
...

All potential phenotypes existed Platonically in the initial conditions
of the universe while only a small fraction of them were *aquired* by
descent with modification.

snip

Which is effectively the same claim as "All phenotypes are physically
realiseable states, but not all physically realiseable states exist". No need
for Platonism.

I was not implying Platonism. I was implying only that all potential
phenotypes existed as Platonic friends in the initial conditions of the
universe. Are you suggested that various phenotypes were romantically
involved in the initial conditions of the universe? I thought that
non-Platonic romance started roughly 13.5 billion years after the
origin of the universe.


If you say "X existed Platonically" you imply Platonism, nicht wahr? All I'm
saying is that the same point can be less objectionably (yes, I object to
Platonism) stated as a simple claim about what states can be physically
realised, due to the laws of physics. But just because, say, a human phenotype
could be instantiated at some point in the universe based on the laws of
physics, it didn't then and doesn't now follow that they *will* be. We have to
explain why what phenotypes exist do, and the explanation is a historical one.
We exist because our ancestors, and their ancestors, etc., existed, and each
one was both viable in the conditions they encountered, and not too different
from the descendant forms.

The way you put it, we exist because our Form exists Platonically and we
realise that Form. This is no explanation at all.

You are generalizing my view. I implied that there are many or an
infinite number of potential forms that would never realize. So I am
not saying that the existence of a Platotinic form determines that a
particular form would exist.

And if you object that various alternative laws of physics could make
it impossible for anything close to life us, then you should review
some of the literature.

james goetz

.

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