> > I'm just saying that if you give up, say that there is no way to know the purpose of the universe, that the whole argument becomes moot.
>
> I'm not giving up and saying there's no way to KNOW the purpose. I'm saying that randomness presupposes that there IS no purpose. That's what randomness means. I don't think there's any way I can make this any clearer than I already have in three previous posts, so I'm going to stop now, but I will be interested to see how this thread is continued by other people.

Well, not so much a continuation as just an idea...

Evolutionary development depends on the concept of natural selection - nature "red in tooth and claw" has been a controlling factor in determining the genetic makeup of all life on the planet*.

However, humans, by developing consciousness (a sense of self, whatever) have written themselves out of the evolutionary scheme: not only do the qualities that make a person "successful" in society make them less likely to breed in a prolific fashion, but we also have developed philanthropy - nature is inherently selfish, but humanity feels a moral obligation to help others (although this could be a subtle form of selfishness in itself, but I'll not go into that for fear of being too tangential).

So what humanity is experiencing might well be a shift in terms of the medium of evolution: it no longer occurs on a genetic level, but on an intellectual level. Through argument and discourse, man passes on knowledge to successive generations that is considered (at that time) to be "correct" - this knowledge is subtly altered over the generations, combined to make general theories, or scrapped altogether when new ideas are put forth.

Nice concept, I thought, but full consideration of it is a little too in-depth for a post here - you'd all be asleep by the time I'd finished.

If I find the time I'll pull some journal papers on related and make up a suggested reading list, but if you're actually interested I can heartily reccomend "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

Bourne

*A sweeping generalisation, but I don't have the time or patience to bang on about evolutionary theory.