question

The claim that there are no laws of nature that would lead to “the same results without the unnecessary or bad appendages” sounds strange to me. I can imagine a possible world in which there are such laws of nature very easily. In fact, others have done so before me, and not as an exercise in hypothetical conjecture. They believed that these were the correct laws of nature. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many researchers thought of evolution in terms of the development of a living being from infancy to adulthood. Species that were simpler in their conception “matured” into more complex species in terms of the way a baby matures into a grown man. This was seen as a law of nature in the same way that we perceive the physical laws of nature that we are accustomed to.

If this idea has the scent of a divine plan behind nature, it is entirely intentional. The people who conceived it were mostly theists with a strong penchant for teleological thinking. They used a biological phenomenon available to them, the development of an individual from infancy to adulthood, to try to understand how species were created in a “deliberate” manner.

Think of a universe in which there is such a law of nature that the “mature”form of the animal world resembles the animal world we know, only “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”. Why is a universe in which such a law of nature exists not a universe that God could have created? On the face of it, there are several objections. Some will object to this proposal because these laws of nature are not formulated mathematically. Others will object that they are not physical laws, but biological ones. Because biology as we know it is “built” From the ”things of physics”, in a universe where the kind of natural law I mentioned applies, this would probably not be true. In such a universe, the “things of biology” would be “above” the “things of physics” or at least “equal” to them.

Superficially, these sound like good objections, until you remember what we were asked to imagine. We were asked to imagine laws of nature that would lead to “the same results without the unnecessary or bad appendages”. If “the same results” is actually a living world where biology is “built“ from the “things of physics” And every natural law in this world must have a mathematical formulation, so yes, a universe in which a natural law of the kind I described operates is impossible. Why would this be the only living world that a God who wants to create a “world that operates according to laws” could create? I don’t know. It seems completely arbitrary to me to decide that God is limited in this way. There is no reason why He couldn’t create a world in which a “biological law” is of “equal” or even “higher” status than the physical laws that prevail in that universe.

Ethnology, why are you bothering? Already in the story of Genesis, a creation is described that is not supposed to create unnecessary and bad appendages. I wonder what logical contradiction the rabbi found in it.

Mr. B. It is clear from your eyelashes that you have never encountered research literature. Well, welcome. For 200 years, we have been studying Chapter 1 and insisting that the reality of evil, chaos, and disorder preceded the creation of the world, and the Creator deals with it and extracts order and goodness from it. And ethology, is it you or someone else who is showing off your feathers? As we know, peacock feathers were created by chance according to bi-evolution (Amnon Yitzhak, there). If that is you, welcome to Rabbi Michi's arena. We have been waiting for you for a long time. It is time to ask one last question 🙂

b, your words are puzzling. And didn't the story of Genesis lead to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and the exile of the people of Israel? The argument is not that there is no "creation story" without evil, but rather that every world that operates according to laws must cause evil.

Gil, how can there be evil when there are no living beings who suffer?

D, read again what the question is about. It is not about evil, but about unnecessary and bad organs in living beings.

@b: Interesting point. I'm not sure if the biblical text describes the creation of a world similar to ours, just without the "unnecessary or bad appendages". I can't seem to build a good textual argument in favor of this idea.

There simply shouldn't be unnecessary/bad appendages according to the biblical creation story. The argument is quite simple: I say that the bad organs indicate that there is no Creator. The rabbi will say that he knows of no possible way to do it differently, so I will refer him (how convenient) to one of the famous texts in history that does exactly that, and wish him luck in finding what is not possible there.

In the year 111, Elul 88

When you see a sophisticated and elaborate machine that is unlikely to have been created by chance, and you find incomprehensible details in it – you can assume that they have an explanation,, but we haven't reached it yet. This is how science progresses. When a researcher finds contradictions or incomprehensible situations – he strives to find a satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon – he gets tired and finds one! And if he doesn't find one – the riddle remains as a challenge for researchers in the next generation, and they find the solution..

This is what happened to the appendix, which for many years was thought to be a superfluous remnant of earlier stages of evolution that were herbivores. And now it turned out that in a great man the appendix is of those considered his predecessors in the evolutionary process – Monkeys (see Yoram Sorek's article, "The Worm-Shaped Appendix," on the Channel 10 website).

Studies conducted from 2007 onwards have strengthened the explanation that the appendix, which is rich in immune tissue, serves as a refuge for "good bacteria" that are necessary for the proper functioning of the intestines. In the event of an infection that damages the intestinal bacteria, the body "pulls out" good bacteria that were stored in the appendix and uses them to restore the proper functioning of the intestines (see Wikipedia's entry "Appendix," which also contains a link to the aforementioned article by Yoram Sorek).

In short: puzzling things in the elaborate system of nature – are the opening for research that will find the wisdom hidden in them.

With greetings, Sh”z Levinger

The appendix also has a role in breaking down the cellulose in the grass, and there is a place for man, according to the purpose in Genesis 1: And I have given you every green herb for food’. The placing of man in the Garden of Eden ‘to work it and to keep it’ It marked his transition to a diet of fruits, but when he sinned and was expelled from the Garden of Eden, he was again commanded to "eat the grass of the field," until Noah stood up and invented the plow (according to the words of Rashi according to Chazal), thus fulfilling his father's prayer: "This will comfort us from our works and from the toil of our hands from the ground which God has cursed." And by perfecting the cultivation of the land, Noah freed humanity from the need to eat grass.

b,
It seems to me that it would be enough if you tried to formulate an argument that expresses what you wanted to say (instead of being satisfied with declarations) so that you would convince yourself that you will not succeed.
There is no statement there that creation is without flaws. And even if there is such a statement, then it itself is hidden from reality (in which we see that there are flaws), and if so, then there is no need at all to enter into a discussion about evolution and divine creation.

Ethology,
Imagining is good for the Beatles. I am talking about a concrete proposal for such a system of laws. In my objective assessment, there is none (it is hard for me to believe that it is possible to create a system of rigid laws with all the consequences except for the elimination of evil and the unnecessary), and not only because it is a good excuse from my point of view. But I may be wrong. In any case, I argue that the burden of proof is on the one who makes it difficult, not on the one who makes it difficult. If you argue that there is a better system and makes it difficult, why did God not choose it, please show that there is indeed such a system.
The fact that you find such a phenomenology is meaningless. I can describe something much simpler and more effective: simply clean out all the unnecessary appendages from our creation. The question is whether you will be able to show that there is a system of laws that is its ”phenotype” (i.e. the product it produces). It is like offering a recipe for peace in the Middle East: that all parties behave rationally and logically and stop killing and compromise. A great suggestion.

A world in which biological laws stand above the laws of physics is words. Do you have such a system that you can present here? It is similar to the description I gave above (the same thing as exists today only without evil). But this is again a phenomenological description and not a presentation of a system of laws.

You can of course ask why he wants a world with laws, but I have no answer to that (although there are suggestions – to make it easier for us) and it is also irrelevant to the discussion here.

In the 12th of Elul, the 8th of the month of Elul,

As Gil and Ramada mentioned here, the story of creation presents an incomplete reality, a chaos of chaos, into which the Creator gradually introduces order: starting with the appearance of light (as the Big Bang theory also says), the distinction between day and night, the distinction between the sky and what is beneath it, the distinction between sea and land, the creation of the plant world, the creation of the moving (the heavenly bodies), the creation of animals, the creation of man, and the creation of the Sabbath.

And in the detailed process in chapters 2 and onwards, it becomes clear that everything that was created needs completion. The plant world needs rain to make it grow and man to work and maintain it, and man discovers that he is not good alone and needs a ’helper’, and it discovers that it lacks the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ and seeks to make up for its deficiency by forbidden means and becomes entangled, and the sons of Adam and Eve feel the need for positive feedback from their Creator to turn to Him, and whoever thought he did not receive the appropriate feedback sins and discovers the answer.

The linear process of ascension in Chapter 1’ becomes a more complicated process, full of ups and downs, crises and rebirth from them, while the process of correction elevates man and humanity to new heights. The desire to break through the ‘glass ceiling’ is what brought about the fall, and the process of correction reveals to man the way in which he can ascend without breaking and destroying.

Eve's aspiration for the good, which was described: ‘And the woman saw the tree that it was good’, came to be corrected by Moses' mother, who also said ‘And she saw with it that it was good’, but Eve failed in that she sought to attain the knowledge of the good not by connecting with the Creator, and Moses would bring the knowledge of the good into the world by hearing it and learning it from the mouth of the hero.

According to the Maharal in ’Netzah Yisrael’ Chapter 3, the error of the idolaters was in not understanding that from a complete Creator, an incomplete creation full of contradictions and struggles could emerge, and from this the idolaters concluded that the world above is as torn as the world below.

Menashe gives the intellectual response to the idolaters in teaching Rav Ashi that one blesses the bread from the place where its cooking begins. The created by its very creation cannot be complete, and it needs constant completion. There is no chaos of contradictions here, but a process in which the more creation recognizes its shortcomings and strives to transcend and draw closer to the Creator, the more and more it is rewarded.

With greetings, Sh”z Levinger

A thorough explanation of the Maharl”s method, in Prof.’ Benjamin Gross' book, ‘An Imperfect World – Towards Responsible Freedom’.-

Regardless of the clear principled answer, we can also add that often, it is a matter of our lack of knowledge and in the end it turns out that there is a role for even the seemingly unnecessary organs (and this is because protein X or organ Y are multifunctional - thus more economical from an evolutionary perspective - and even if some of the functions are no longer relevant, others actually are).

@b: And yet, where in the biblical creation story does it say that God created creation “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”?

@mikyab: That was the closest thing to an argument in favor of your position that you wrote:
I find it hard to believe that it is possible to create a system of rigid laws with all the consequences except for the elimination of evil and the unnecessary
In my opinion, a religious person would have to believe that it is entirely possible for God to create a universe in which exactly what you claim cannot happen will happen. God can “look” at our universe as it is now, including the animal world. He can imagine, in much greater detail than the Beatles, the animal world “corrected”, “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”. If the religious person thinks that the laws of nature prevailing in our universe are deterministic, he will have to agree that God can insert the ”corrected” situation into the relevant equations and turn back time in the equation a few billion years. As an output, God will accept the situation in which he must create the universe so that eventually a living world would be created “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”. Therefore, God could have created the world so that eventually a living world would be created “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”.

The same conclusion is reached even if the religious person thinks that the laws of nature prevailing in our universe are not deterministic. Religious people believe that God planned and intentionally carried out the creation of life, the creation of intelligence, the status of Mount Sinai, the creation of man, and many other things that are completely dependent on the non-deterministic behavior of the laws of nature. Therefore, if a religious person believes that God created a "world that operates according to laws" and these laws are non-deterministic, he will have to conclude that God is able to fine-tune his creation from the beginning well enough that he will not have to intervene halfway and "violate" the laws of nature in order to ensure that all the things I mentioned actually happen. If he can do this for the creation of life, man, intelligence, and all those things that religious people believe he planned and intentionally carried out, every religious person will have to admit that God is also able to do this for a living world "without the unnecessary or bad appendages". Therefore, God could have created the world so that eventually a living world would emerge “without the unnecessary or bad appendages”.

The problem is that God did not do this. That is your problem.

The argument I gave above is enough to make it clear that you are wrong. The ball is in your court to find a relevant error in it. At this point, I could make a tactical retreat, retract everything I wrote in the previous response, and focus on the argument I made above. I will not do so for now, because your counter-reaction was simply so non-reactive.

You dismissed the scenario I presented in my previous response as ”phenomenology”. It takes Rashi to understand which of the many meanings of the word you meant. You are using the analogy of ”recipe for peace in the Middle East” That you need to open addenda to reach a compromise, to look at the Midrash of a legend to understand its relevance and prophecy to extract from it something that looks like an argument. All I understood from your response is that you think that the script I presented in my previous response is not detailed. There is enough “meat” in the previous response that deserves a clearer and more explicit counter-argument than that. If you do think that the script I presented in my previous response is not detailed, specify what points require detail and explain why it is important for me to detail them. I promise that I will do my best to expand on what is necessary.

I will end with a request for the future. In your response, more than once you demanded that I present a set of natural laws and show that it would produce a living world “without the unnecessary or bad addenda”. I am amused that you claim that I am obligated to do work that you really do not feel the need to do. Your response makes it clear that you didn't even model the possible laws of nature before you formed your opinion that they would all yield the “unnecessary or bad appendages” and you certainly didn't prove non-existence. And yet, you express dissatisfaction with the level of detail of the script I gave in my previous response. Let's talk doggery. By the standards you present in this conversation, an argument is to say that ”it's hard for me to believe” that I'm wrong and somehow that will be “my objective assessment”. Unfortunately, from a conversation at this level, I won't learn anything, so what's the point of it? I prefer conversations with explicit arguments. I hope you'll cooperate.

I will end with the words of the Beatles:
Don't let me down, don't let me down
Don't let me down, don't let me down

Happy New Year to you and to all the people of Israel!

Etologika,
You seem to be missing the logic of the discussion.
1. We have a world. I claim that God created it (i.e. the laws that created and govern it). And my reasons are with me.
2. The following argument was raised against this: Why are there flaws in the world? God can create a perfect world, and if the world is not perfect, he probably did not create it.
3. To this I replied that the flaws are probably necessary (given the fact that he wanted a world that is governed by strict laws. There is no other set of laws that will create a world without flaws).

Since in this discussion you are the one who is making the argument, the burden of proof is on you. I do not need to show that there is no such set of laws, but you need to show that there is. You did not show it. The example of peace in the Middle East accurately reflects what you did. You simply suggest that God create a perfect world and that is it. Thank you very much in his name, but the question in the discussion is whether it can be done. The question is not what a perfect world would look like but how to do it and if it is possible. That is, is there such a rigid set of rules? You did not answer that and of course you cannot answer it. Of course I did not expect you to answer because it is a difficult question and I do not think anyone can answer it. I only pointed out to you the mistake in the question, because until you have shown such a set of rules you cannot raise your argument.

Therefore, your claim that I demand that you do something that I do not do is of course factually correct but irrelevant. In other words: I admit the facts and plead guilty.

Happy New Year to you and to all of us.