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To answer your question about eyes, I'd say that I am not surprised at all by the number of species that have them. Living organisms need to sense their environment so that they can respond to it appropriately. That is more or less the definition of life here on earth. The sophistication of the sensory organs is in my view the result of evolution. Some will die off if they can't see, for example. Those which can see survive better. I understand that you think eyes are too complicated for such a simple process, but I see it as inevitable. Sight is an advantage for survival so that it makes sense for the hardiest of all living things to have the best eyes. I would go so far as to suggest it is necessary for higher order of beings to exist at all.

If I need to ponder what seems to be an enigma, I could ask myself why all life forms seem to be designed to replicate. The entire concept of evolution is based on the need to survive so that life can perpetuate. I believe the answer is in quantum physics and relates to the concept that the universe always was and always will be. But then I get a headache when I think too hard.

Many of the animals on the continent of Australia are unique to that continent.
None of them existed before the continents broke apart.
Yet most have four limbs, two eyes, two ears, a nose with two nares, a mouth and a tongue.
Each have their own voice or sound, and fur or skin.

If they evolved separately from the other continents, why do they have so many things internally alike?
Also, not enough time has elapsed for something as complex as the eye to have developed to the state it currently is in.

And if each species of creature evolved independently, how is it they all have the same basic components?

Being raised in the horticultural industry, where compared to animals, things are sped up considerably.
There are so many species of plants, all with similar functioning parts, but no where near like anything else.
Now although man has been able to cross a couple of species, such as the Fatsederia. No other such crosses exist in nature.
Every plant is unique. And yes there are mutations which make the many varieties, but they are still the same species.

There had to have been a creator!

When working in the greenhouse, why is it that you only were able create new plants. Why didn't a monkey develop in one of those peat pots? The answer is the environment. All your plants have similar components because of the environment in which they were created. Change the environment, such as to a tropical rain forest, and you might eventually see a boa constrictor evolve out of the bio diverse stew. Life forms on earth are restricted to what the planet can support. There are very likely other life forms in other worlds, none of which resemble what we see before us. All those variations of life evolved within the confines of their specific environment.

There is a notion in some circles that god is the universe. Given that the universe is infinite in scope, always was and always will be, then you could extrapolate divine intervention for the creation of individual galaxies. Reality, however, is that which remains after all elements of human intervention have been removed. The god I keep hearing and reading about is way too human to qualify for being a reality.

So you don't think the design was wrought by intelligence?

There have been mythological gods all throughout the ages. But that don't mean they did anything except be the figment of someones imagination.

What I do know is that all mammals on earth share the same DNA within about 97%.
And the Y-chromosome is expected to be over 400 million years old.
We are related to the mouse by around 97% DNA, and to a Chimp by 99% DNA.
However, DNA are the building blocks of basically all life on earth.
That being said DNA sequences are something else entirely. How they line up.
Homo habilis is like 2.8 million year ago.
While Homo sapiens are only about 200 to 300 hundred thousand years ago.
When using sequencing to determine relationships, we are no more related to Homo habilis as we are to a mouse.

This is why there is no relational link between species, every species is unique.
And it holds true for plants as well as animals.
No single species has ever evolved into another species.

It took men of science hundreds of years to view down as far as our DNA, and as of yet we have not got down lower than that. But some day we might just break each element of a DNA strand and learn much more about ourselves.
I'm sure it did not come about by happenstance! The design is way to complex even for our understanding.

The design is way to complex even for our understanding.

That tells me we don't know, and possibly are incapable of knowing, all the details that go into how a universe evolves. There certainly is a method and design to physics, but that does not mean an outside being made it that way. It happened "in house" so to speak. Whatever the planet earth had to offer as far as elements and environmental factors is limited. There are materials, forces, energies, and dimensions we cannot fathom as mere mortals because we are a subset of all that. The supposition that some intelligence created what we see is equivalent to a mosquito pondering it's existence. It knows all about sucking human blood, but does it have any notion of what a human is? Can it ever have such thoughts? Or any thoughts at all. The organization and design you see before you, and which might convince you some intelligence is behind it, comes from the need of our own brains to form rational relationships. The universe, sans humans, is random as random can be - Quantum Potential. If that's the notion of intelligence you envision, then we see things in a common light.

Let's start with the empty vacuum of space.
There was nothing out there, just a total empty vacuum.
Where did everything come from?
Where did all the elements come from?
They had to all come from somewhere or from someone far beyond our understanding!

Before there was even such a thing as a vacuum there was a "potential" for anything, and I do mean anything, to exist. This is what Schrödinger was talking about in his famous (and often misinterpreted) thought experiment involving a cat. What we call a quantum event happened and produced the universe; yes, you could call it something out of nothing and I would say a previously potential state suddenly manifested in one quantum leap. Keep in mind that the universe always existed (and always will) in the form of infinite potential. Understanding the concept of infinity is the key to understanding how a universe coming and going is possible. The universe we live in will disappear and go back to it's state of unknown quantum potential; then it will rematerialize into some other universe with different forces, energies, and laws of physics. I would not blame you for coming to the conclusion this is all science fiction. But, as we speak, it is happening now on a quantum level. Atomic particles come and go making something out of nothing and then return back to nothing. Knowing all that to occur on such a small scale, allows one to extrapolate the potential for it to occur on a cosmic scale.

There are some common descriptions of god that fit into the quantum physics model. I've been taught since childhood that god always was and always will be; that is what infinity is all about. That also makes us humans take the image and likeness of god because after all we are part of the universe. Omnipotent is what the god I heard about is made of, just as the Quantum Potential can be anything and is unsurpassed. Describing a god in anthropomorphic terms is a false analogy and leads to incorrect assumptions. It's like looking at the order and structure of the cosmos around us and saying it must have an intelligent design. The order and structure you see is there because of human perception and not the other way around. The universe is nothing more than a series of random events that are unknowable until they are observed. When humans do the observation, that is when things become anthropomorphic.

I've seen models of our Universe, it has a definite shape. I'm talking about our whole universe, not just our solar system.
I don't doubt there could be other Universes out there, after all, as you said space is infinite, and our Universe is just one tiny part of it.

I doubt if anything from our Universe drifts around in space, and ends up in another Universe somewhere out there.
But of all the matter in our own universe, I don't doubt there are particles that eventually end up on planet Earth, and all the other planets too for that matter.

You've mentioned matter from nothing a few times in the past. But you never did show how nothing can combine with nothing to create something.

You are writing about my pet peeve in science. LOL People talk about parallel universe all the time. They even postulate about universes colliding with each other, which some would use as an explanation for all the dark matter we have not seen yet. My peeve is that the universe is everything. That includes all those made up universes that may or may not exist. I've seen several models of what our universe looks like and I am not against the idea of it having limits to it's size. But that infinity surrounding it is included in my perception of the universe.

The something from nothing theory is something I read about while perusing some writing by a person with a very large forehead. Many of the sub atomic particles cataloged do not exist until they rip apart an atom. The are not there beforehand. How that phenomena can be translated to a universe spontaneously coming into being is not clear. Thus, in that regard you might want to look upon my ideas with suspicion. Be that as it may, the theory is well accepted by people who do know how to explain it; most of them being quantum physicists. It has to do with what they call Quantum Potential. How a potential transforms into a reality is the answer you're looking for, but I can't provide the details. It's not about combining anything, or combining nothing. It's about the state of being anything (such as is infinity) that results in one of those potential states being the something created from nothing. If you want to take this line of thought to Biblical stories, that is exactly what god supposedly did to create this place. Well, some physicists think they know god's secret and can replicate it.

I remember you sent me to a website a while back where they explained how things could be created from nothing.
And they used the split atom theory there too. However, they still started with an atom to split, hi hi.
Who made the atom?

I have my own take on how our universe was created, which I think actually aligns with the bible, but not in the way most folks perceive the bible. So I do come up with some good arguments with folks over it too, hi hi.
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are two totally separate events and basically have nothing to do with each other, although everyone says Genesis 2 explains Genesis 1. Personally, I don't see it that way at all.
And the way I see it, it makes the Big Bang not only probably, but a most likely occurrence.
We have the bible thumpers who don't agree with science, and the scientist who don't agree with the bible, yet I see them both as correct if they only understood what the bible actually says, not just what they are told it says by those with their own ideas.

And I do agree, much of the bible is mans take on their religious beliefs. Get rid of religion and what each teaches and then the bible starts to make some sense. Read it like a history book of events that took place and forget the hocus pocus.

As often happens when we discuss esoteric subjects, the implications are that we both are talking about the same thing from different points of view. Viewing the Bible as a history lesson has always been an acceptable idea to me. One of the problems I have with that is in the translation. I currently am corresponding with a woman in the Czech Republic, and who also happens to be a multi-lingual author. I've seen some of her book covers and read some of her descriptions, but I've not been able to actually read her books because they are written in the Czech language. I'd probably have a hard time reading them because she writes about fantasy. It's a hugely successful genre of books but totally opposite to my way of thinking. This lady is very creative to say the least. But, we don't really understand each other. LOL My letters are frequently sprinkled with liberal amounts of innuendo, sarcasm, and double entendre. It's not that she doesn't understand the words I use; it's the ideas behind those words that are way over her head. As I said she is intelligent, but in a foreign kind of way. They don't think like we do over here and her social/cultural background might be in one of those parallel universes we are talking about. So, if I'm trying to explain an irony to her, she takes it literally and misses the point. The particular irony does not exist in her world and thus loses it's literary value. When I think of how the Bible came into existence, I think of my experiences with this lady in Europe. I don't believe that what we have available in English is anything like the original intentions on those scrolls used to compose the Bible. There is some historically important information therein, but the meaning, purpose, and direction is lost, in my humble opinion.

Creationism vs Evolution is a bit of a false argument. That argument is designed to explain how life came to be what it is on this planet. In other words it's a justification for our existence as human beings. Since we are aware of the fact that we do indeed exist, then we must have a purpose, or so the reasoning often goes. We don't have a purpose and I can see the difficulties one might have accepting that notion. Life forms and everything else we know about in the universe likewise has no purpose. It's all random, which is how I explain the formation of the universe. It's simply a random event. There is no design to it, and thus no intelligence behind it. The pieces fell into place the way they are because it could not have happened any other way given the surrounding circumstances.

I wish I could recall the name of the book I read about 40 years ago and which explained the Big Bang. Well, it explained the first 300 seconds or so because everything after that is self evident. The author reverse engineered the making of the universe second by second. He got it all down into credible form but had to admit that the first .001 seconds (or some small time frame like that) were explainable at the time of the writing. That takes us to the moment you are most concerned about when you ask from where did the material come from prior to that .001 seconds. The answer is that it came from infinity as a matter of random occurrence. It was akin to spontaneous combustion taken to a whole new level where you don't need any invisible gases to create a big bang. At the moment the universe appeared, it was just as likely that it did not happen. It's a binary construct as are most other things we know about; it could have happened or not. The only other alternative is that quantum state where all things exist in potential. The exact state could not be determined because infinity is everything and not one particular universe. If that Big Bang happened .001 seconds later, we would not exist as we do today. The universe would have been an entirely different arena.

When you spend your entire life making stuff, it's hard to perceive how anything can be made from nothing. It's true, us humans do not have that ability, and it's not likely we ever will acquire it. We think we can observe it, but we can't actually do it. So, I'll concede that my perception of the state of infinity might be closely allied to your perception of a god. The only difference I can see is that my theory does not require an intelligence to make it all happen. You are telling me that intelligence existed before the universe. So ... where did THAT come from? LOL

I agree with you on the English bible translations. Mainly because of my step-daughter who was fluent in Hebrew and taught me the many different ways the same sentence could be translated into English.
Then to compound the issue. The English bibles we use were first translated to Latin and then to English, with some referenced back to the Hebrew. Where it gets really convoluted is when they translated Greek and Aramaic to English.
This is the main reason I bought the large multi-volume set of Matthew Henry's Commentary. It often explained the many possible meanings behind words and phrases, and also pointed out where he thought the English translation was not fully accurate, but close. It does help to understand some things by reading other History books that talk about life in certain time periods to get the full meaning of why something was said the way it was.

I don't agree with your next paragraph. I see intelligent design in nearly everything I look at.

I don't know Yogi. I've come to terms with the Big Bang in my own way, and it fits my way of thinking well enough I can accept it as making perfect sense of the matter. However, to explain it involves both science and belief in God, and how He possible put the wheels in motion.

One of the seminaries I went to had a small group who the school considered way off base.
Even so, I knew all the members and we often had lunch together.
How they explained it did not revolve around a God per se.
They referred to it as a Cosmic Consciousness.
Out of nothing, empty space became aware of itself, and this awareness grew it developed thought, and from that thought they became conscious of the emptiness and chose to create things for their pleasure, but what they created was only in their conscious state, not yet developed as matter. It took a combination of their consciousness as a pure form of energy to create matter. So from nothingness, and the combined cosmic consciousness produced enough energy to build upon a design and then use their combined energy to create matter for their design to come to fruition.

We understand that God, always was and always will be, had no beginning and will have no end, because he is in essence the cosmic consciousness like the small group believes. God is everywhere! He is infinite space that is aware.

It appears as if we do not have much separation in our thinking other than the concept of a self-aware Cosmic Consciousness. I've read about some theories of consciousness wherein it is claimed inanimate things react to their environment and thus prove to be a primitive form of consciousness. Those folks are confusing self-awareness with the cause-and-effect phenomena of natural physics. Be that as it may you must be aware by now that I like to think about matters which ordinary folks don't have time for. it's comforting to me that we can discuss such personal thoughts and still remain friends. The exact opposite has happened to me more than once in the past. LOL

I did an article once on moving rocks. Those that would actually walk across a dry lake bed on their own, or in some cases across a field. We actually see a little bit of that right here in my area.

They are not pushed by wind or water. But it does take sunshine and below freezing temps to cause them to move.

Down here, if you have an area where you moved some dirt to and it is still bare, you can see these spikes that rise up from the soil as the water freezes.
The rocks will normally move toward the sun.
The sun warms the front of the rock and the heat reflects down on the ground in front of it, which speeds up how fast the frozen ground thaws. But then behind the rock it is shaded from the sun, so the ice crystals push upward and slowly inch the rock forward by rolling it toward the sun. In some cases they can move as much as three feet or more in a day.

I'll have to look to see if I still have the article I wrote about the rocks in the lake bed. But I think you can find that info on-line also as written by others who observed the phenomenon.
This also happens in Death Valley in the desert, which is also perplexing, they call them Sailing Stones.
I do believe it is about the same as here, and has to do with freezing temps. Yeah, in Death Valley, hi hi.

It was the middle of February of 2018 when the north pole temperature rose to 35F. Think about that. The coldest time of the year and the north pole is thawing. So, why not freeze in Death Valley?

There is a vague memory lurking in the depths of my mind regarding rocks that move. It seems that they also have been observed to defy gravity and bubble up to the surface from below ground level. What you describe as happening around you isn't a matter of rocks moving of their own accord. They are being pushed around by the elements of Nature. I don't recall the mechanism of those Sailing Rocks, but the article was an explanation of how it happens. None of it was beyond science as we know it.

I don't think there is a consensus regarding consciousness. I have read a few articles here and there, but it's all speculation. Nobody has quite defined it nor discovered its underlying mechanisms. As far as I know the question of it's location is still unanswered; is it internal to the brain or external to the body? I know people who have had out of body experiences (mom, for one) but that isn't exactly what consciousness is about. The center of our perceptions seems to be between our eyes inside our heads, but that center apparently isn't locked into place. The fact that perception occurs at all is a function of consciousness.

It is not uncommon for the north pole to be at or below freezing in the summer.
The average summer temp for the north pole is 32 degrees F.
However, in the winter months the north pole only gets down to around an average of -40 degrees F.
Now let's take a look at the south pole.
Summer at the south pole averages around -18 degrees F.
And winter at the south pole averages around -76 degrees F.
In 1982 the south pole was the coldest in recorded history at -82.8 degrees F, well below it's normal low.

As far as the continents go. The climate has been shifting, moving from east to west. While the Americas are experiencing warmer temperatures, Eurasia is experiencing cooler temperatures.
Dip down to India and Africa, while Africa is getting warmer, India is getting cooler.
Australia seems to be holding about the same over long term averages.

If you ever lived on a farm with plowed fields, you would know more rocks come up than go down.
This is normal, because finer grain particles move down and become compacted forcing larger particles, aka rocks, to move upward. Beneath your layer of sod or grass, you will always find a layer of hard pan.

My aunt Patty was pronounced dead four different times.
She too had out of body experiences.
She named things that were on top of the cabinets, and things above the drop ceiling, such as numbers written on the ceiling panels.
Her doctor had the panels taken down from the operating room and examined. The numbers where there just like my aunt said. So after that, he began putting objects on top of the cabinets, hidden in the corners where they could not be seen by someone standing on the floor. On several occasions where someone came back on the operating table, they described the objects perfectly.
This made her doctor change his tune about it only being the mind playing tricks as it lost oxygen.
He no longer believes what people see as they are dying is a trick of the mind, but their Spirit does actually leave the body.

As best as I can understand it the water temperature in the South Pacific is rising on average and that is what is causing the shift in weather winds. Seeing it on a map makes sense, but sitting in record cold in Chicago while Anchorage is well above freezing doesn't make sense at all. LOL

All I know is that the brain is not the same thing as the mind, but both share the use of our built in sensory organs. To me that means those out of body experiences are coming from between our ear lobes and not likely to be a separate entity departing from our physical body. An understanding of how that is possible relies on a good explanation of what exactly is consciousness. It is the totality of self-awareness, but there might be no boundary for that awareness. I heard stories from people whose mind traveled great distances to be at the side of a loved one in distress. They too described the trauma without actually being there. I once belonged to the Chicago Society for the Investigation of Psychic Phenomena and attended several of their meetings. It's all very curious stuff and hard to understand why only certain people experience these things. They must be aliens incarnate.

Here too! Guess we'll have to start some new topics.
The current threads are way off topic now, hi hi.

You are right about being off topic. When there were more that just the two of us, I was a stickler for keeping people on course. It wasn't a power trip but a valid attempt to be useful to the general public. Many unseen visitors read at least part of what we write here and a lot of what they choose to read depends on the topic title. Going off into the wild blue yonder turns people off when they are looking for specific information.

So True! If I can remember to do it, if I go off the beaten path on a topic, I may start a new one for my response.