Then why does A dog protect it's master?

And not only do we have empathy towards beings but also material objects. Mammals are similar in that aspect also. They use tools. We are just mammals Stu.

No, it is not. There are tons of stories of an animal raising a lost young animal of a different species, or saving an animal of a different species from death, and plenty of other examples. Remember when that kid fell into the gorilla area at the zoo and the gorilla protected the kid until its handlers came to rescue the kid?

The only thing unique about humans is the ability to reason abstractly, and we can't even be sure that no other animal possesses that ability and we certainly can't be sure that any animals that don't currently possess that ability will not eventually evolve it.

I found both of these stories really fascinating/touching/inspiring, especially the surfer feeling no ill will toward the shark that attacked him and acknowledging that we humans are visitors in the sharks world.

Respect!



H

I have all the info you need.

no gods exisit in any form, if you believe this then you are not very smart.

we are the aliens.

nuff said.

Anecdotal evidence is suspect. Scientific experiments have been done that show that some animals show empathy towards memembers of thier own species. To my knowledge its never been scientifically demonstrated that animals other than human show empathy to creatures of another species.

Laugh out ****ing loud

Does the irony really surprise you?

But seriously...the behaviors cited as empathy may be something else. Dolphins may instinctively form a protective ring around a blood trail. The baboon may have its own need to groom, etc

But put yourself in the shoes of an evolutionist (don't remember if you agree with evolution or not). Doesn't it make a good deal of sense that these form a continum. That as the creatures get more advanced, so does their empathy?

They've done studies on mice to show that one mouse will protect the mouse in the adjacent cell from being shocked. Not sure if it would make a difference if they put a hamster there.

Evolutionist? Cool, can I be a gravitationist?

Sure you can!

When I look a human and then look at any other animal on earth I don't see much of a continuum. I see some continuity amoung the different animals and then BAM! you got these super advanced animals that have language, art, abstract thinking, etc called humans. The empathy humans have is way ahead anything else demonstrated in the animal kingdom.

I agree, but observing a member of one species show compassion or empathy toward a member of another species is not anecdotal evidence.

The Gospels are anecdotal evidence (at best). Do you distrust them?

It's been shown many times in this very thread.

Can you produce any scientific observations of said behavior? Biologist have studied this so you should be able to produce something if it exists.

Yes. I've asked myself "did Jesus turn water into wine or did he water down the wine?"

well if you turn back time about 100k year or so humans were not much more advanced compare to the rest of animal kingdom. i guess if you want to call millions of years of evolving for BAM! then it all makes sense :| its easier to make reality fit reality then make fiction fit reality.

There are plenty of people living today that are not much more advanced than animals. In fact I would trust a dog a heck of a lot more than a ton of people I know.

I think he did this: Water Into Wine

As for aliens, I think there has to be other life somewhere. If Christianity is believed to be true, why would God create the rest of the universe? I mean, it seems like it would be a big waste of time to create this huge universe when the only thing needed for life would be just the Earth and Sun.

There is reason to believe life exists elsewhere in the universe (large number of planets offsets even an incredibly small probability) whereas there's no reason to believe there's a God.

Now the laws of physics allow for a small probability that a man can walk thru a wall completely unhindered. Its called quantum tunnelling. Does the size of the universe give you reason to think anything like this has ever happened? How about with something as small as baseball. Do you have reason to believe that somewhere in the universe a baseball sized objected has quantum tunneled thru an obstruction in its path?

To be fair I'm agnostic but I'm gonna go with

1. maybe
2. maybe
3. maybe
4. maybe

I will try to find some time to respond to what has been posted over the next couple of days, been busy lately. But for now, though it is not terribly relevant to your point, the above is false. A human cannot quantum tunnel through a wall. A particle cannot tunnel through any potential barrier; there is a limit. Simply put, the wave function of the human being would dictate that the probability of finding the human on the other side of the wall would be 0%.

Remember, this thread is all about plausibility. Implausible does not mean impossible.

Here is a video that explains quantum tunneling.

Easy to grasp....Its about 4 minutes long.


Please remember I was responding to this:

You cannot make a claim that large number of planets offset incredibly small probabilities. If the probability is small enough, it will not. We simply have no credible reason to believe intelligent life probably exists elsewhere in the in the universe. However we have an excellent reason to claim it is plausible it exists elsewhere in the universe.

If someone wants to refute me all they need to do is compute the probability that aliens exists in the universe. Show me the probability number and show me your math. Until someone can the best that can be said about the claim is it is plausible.

/thread

I know what quantum tunneling is. I was a physics major. A human cannot quantum tunnel through a wall. This is not graduate level stuff that only the smartest physicists understand. This is QM 101 stuff. To put it in terms of the video you posted, the mass of the particle (human) and the potential barrier itself (wall) are large enough such that the 'probability cloud' does not reach the other side of the barrier, and therefore the probability that the particle will be found on the other side of the barrier is zero (and it is not close).

I will try to get back to comment on this after bed

The video was not necessarily for you. It was so others would understand what we are discussing if this subject is unfamiliar to them.

I understand that when particles tunnel they only "jump" atomic distances.

When I say a human quantum tunneling thru a wall I mean this.

All the particles that make up a human quantum tunnel at the same time and in the same direction and continue to do so such that to an outside observer it would appear that the human dissappeared and re-appeared on the otherside of the wall.

The probability of such an event is non 0....Just like the probability of rolling a quintillion sided die a quintillion number of times and each time it lands with the same side up is non 0.