Philosophy Now Forum

cladking wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote: In other words, environment is everything when it comes to life on planet earth.

Enviroment is everything to the species but behavior is everything to the individuals which comprise the species. "Species" don't really exist except as collections of individuals which share characteristics. I believe behavior is closely associated with genes.

Perspective is always everything when communicating. The reality lies outside semantics and language.

We may not differ so much here except semantically.

So you really don't believe in one of today's emerging sciences, epigenetics?

"epigenetics [ep-i-juh-net-iks]

noun, ( used with a singular verb)
1. Genetics. the study of the process by which genetic information is translated into the substance and behavior of an organism: specifically, the study of the way in which the expression of heritable traits is modified by environmental influences or other mechanisms without a change to the DNA sequence."
.................................--dictionary.reference.com--

Though I firmly disagree with the last bit I've highlighted immediately above in red. As I understand that the environment has actually been that which has fueled Darwin's Natural Selection all along. That, so called, mutation is not random, that it is calculable, that is once all the particular ever variable environmental combinations are connected with their effects, and that shall take quite some time, as it has indeed taken quite some time, for us to get where we currently are, much longer than our short lives.

Genes are the product of star stuff, elements, as is all that we know. Where elements and electromagnetic energy were our building blocks, so they are responsible for life's differentiation. And did I mention time? This metamorphic coalescence, earth, was surely the perfect resource rich incubator, for all it's subsequent spawn, along with it's continuously variable combinations of environmentals, (elements/compounds/electromagnetic energy randomly strewn), of course.

Or at least logically, it surely seems to be the case. We are all of one origin, then we simply moved to a different environment, viola!

Scott Mayers wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote: I disagree to your newfound opinion to keep philosophy and science segregated.

When did I ever say this? I have always scrupulously maintained that science and philosophy are two sides of the same coin and my above opinion is basic Kant 101 which any philosophy undergraduate would be expected to understand.

I understand this. But in your agreement to science being not a function of "truth" is simply derived from the very reason why science segregated themselves from philosophy. They wanted to redesignate the title of 'science' to appeal strictly to practice of observation, procedure, and efficiency without the baggage of formal logic that is intrinsic to the traditional underlying course of philosophy. They traded it for inductive logic and why those like Popper sought for a means to find science work without the drawbacks of inductive problems. Instead of positing a proof through a deductive bottom up approach, he suggested that science could only "deduce" when or where something could be disproved. This is the origin of the final stages to the separation of science from philosophy. And it yet appears to be what you are supporting in contrast to not seeing it as the very justification to segregation/demarcation. To recombine them, we need to bring back the allowance to prove things from first principles that definitively appeal to closure (or certainty) to 'truth'.

We still need the method for the top-down processes (present paradigm) in order to hint at what kind of deductive argument we need. But then we use philosophy to present the bottom-up deductive argument that provides certain closure if possible. This is where the significant difference now lies.

This I certainly agree with completely. The inductive method of science is what it is and it cannot be otherwise and thus I have always maintained from the outset that philosophy and science must never be separated. If you had taken the trouble to read my synopsis you would have discovered that this IS the central theme of my entire philosophy. The inductive methodology of science must be overlaid by the supervening principle of logical deduction from metaphysical first principles or else science runs the risk of creating models which describe a universe which makes no fucking sense, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED.

I'm getting rather sick of repeating this point, Scott, and your refusal to accept that this is what I'm saying is disingenuous to say the least. My bitch with the science of physics is that it has ignored all notions of such things as metaphysical predicates and decided that making sense in science is just a trivial consideration. It is their insistence that their mathematical models only must be the guide to human knowledge which defines the insidious doctrine of logical positivism and this is why the entire science has been bogged down in a conceptual quagmire for a century. Their map is not correctly defining their territory.

raw_thought wrote:Everything we understand and/or percieve is a model. For example, we see a rock. The rock does not enter our brain. We form a model of it and that is what we understand. The rock has no secondary qualities (Locke,color etc). We see the rock from a particular perspective and then form a 3 dimensional model of it. If models are rejected then any knowledge is ruled out.

Exactly so, and I'm particularly pleased that you referred to the fact that the 3-dimensional spatial extension of our observation of the rock is just as much a projection of our consciousness as is the substance of the rock itself. This has been common knowledge in cognitive neuroscience for half a century and in the modern era the particular neural pathways associated with this process are becoming steadily better and better understood. Somebody should break the news to the physicists.

Perhaps,I am misunderstanding you,but you seem to have been saying that models do not help us understand reality. Since all knowledge is based on models that means that any knowledge about reality is impossible.

raw_thought wrote:Perhaps,I am misunderstanding you,but you seem to have been saying that models do not help us understand reality. Since all knowledge is based on models that means that any knowledge about reality is impossible.

That is what I'm saying so you haven't misunderstood me. The way we decide to model reality is purely subjective and thus its truth value can never be determined but if these models make no sense we can be sure we've got something badly wrong because our universe is obviously an orderly and comprehensible place.

Obvious Leo wrote:
This I certainly agree with completely. The inductive method of science is what it is and it cannot be otherwise and thus I have always maintained from the outset that philosophy and science must never be separated. If you had taken the trouble to read my synopsis you would have discovered that this IS the central theme of my entire philosophy. The inductive methodology of science must be overlaid by the supervening principle of logical deduction from metaphysical first principles or else science runs the risk of creating models which describe a universe which makes no fucking sense, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED.

I'm getting rather sick of repeating this point, Scott, and your refusal to accept that this is what I'm saying is disingenuous to say the least. My bitch with the science of physics is that it has ignored all notions of such things as metaphysical predicates and decided that making sense in science is just a trivial consideration. It is their insistence that their mathematical models only must be the guide to human knowledge which defines the insidious doctrine of logical positivism and this is why the entire science has been bogged down in a conceptual quagmire for a century. Their map is not correctly defining their territory.

I already read your synopsis... in part. But I actually understand you more in interactive discussion because of a likely language/accent barrier. I understand your positions but find your language describing them points to missing key points that are at odds from what I know. I pointed out that you supported the "method" as sufficient and good for science yet you appear to simultaneously think it also needs more at different times. I knew when I first came here that you supported the idea of bringing them together. And I agreed in principle. I disagree to which factors are the causes of this. The method as is is what defines science by most and in it it attempts to both posit means to proceed as well as to delineate it from philosophy because of the bottom-up approach. They interpret the presumption that any good arguer can present a logically valid and sound argument philosophically but find it 'abusive' in a similar way that Socrates interpreted the Sophists of his day (= the teachers of rhetoric in a similar way to our present motivational speaking movements that appeal to teach people how to argue like a lawyer or prosecutor with absolute reference to emotional appeals as a priority and to advocate like a debater solely to 'win'). This tactic is often used in religion, politics, and business to sell us anything. This was the apparent concern of demarcation (separation) of ideas that distinguish science from philosophy.

Again, you mention "logical positivism" when it was also what ended upon this demarcation. The logical positivists were arguing for a logically posited bottom-up approach to which I think again you and I approve of but you are thinking it as something else??? It proposed to find a means to unify logic into a means to prove everything through first principles but base them on some means of personal empirical process. It validated philosophy for its use yet confused even most scientists who couldn't or didn't want to bother with the depths they were going to. (Have you ever seen the three volumes of Bertrand Russel and Whitehead's tome on this effort: The Principles of Mathematics? I think only a literal handful of people actually read it.) It was the height of philosophy with science and the confusion by many who couldn't follow with all the varying complexity that scared people away from science. A divorce was thus ensued.

Obvious Leo wrote:

raw_thought wrote:Perhaps,I am misunderstanding you,but you seem to have been saying that models do not help us understand reality. Since all knowledge is based on models that means that any knowledge about reality is impossible.

That is what I'm saying so you haven't misunderstood me. The way we decide to model reality is purely subjective and thus its truth value can never be determined but if these models make no sense we can be sure we've got something badly wrong because our universe is obviously an orderly and comprehensible place.

I see I'm not the only one finding your specific language different, Leo. You kinda remind me of Bobcat Goldthwaite at times Leo. And no it is not an insult -- he was a favorite of mine in the day.

Scott. I am completely conversant with Russell, and Whitehead in particular was very influential along with Charles Sanders Peirce in steering me in the presentist direction of modelling reality as a process. This constitutes a totally different metaphysical predicate from that adopted by physics which is a Platonist and thus an eternalist paradigm. Eternalism models reality as a collection of objects moving in space whereas presentism models reality as a sequence of events occurring in time which the observer merely observes as a collection of objects moving in space. Both the space and the objects become the property of the consciousness of the observer.

These two positions are mutually exclusive but mine has the advantage of making sense.

But presentrism is only a model. As such (according to you) it cannot help us understand reality.

I believe in an objective reality. If we can never understand it does not mean that it doesn't exist.

SpheresOfBalance wrote:

cladking wrote:

SpheresOfBalance wrote: In other words, environment is everything when it comes to life on planet earth.

Enviroment is everything to the species but behavior is everything to the individuals which comprise the species. "Species" don't really exist except as collections of individuals which share characteristics. I believe behavior is closely associated with genes.

Perspective is always everything when communicating. The reality lies outside semantics and language.

We may not differ so much here except semantically.

So you really don't believe in one of today's emerging sciences, epigenetics?

"epigenetics [ep-i-juh-net-iks]

noun, ( used with a singular verb)
1. Genetics. the study of the process by which genetic information is translated into the substance and behavior of an organism: specifically, the study of the way in which the expression of heritable traits is modified by environmental influences or other mechanisms without a change to the DNA sequence."
.................................--dictionary.reference.com--

Though I firmly disagree with the last bit I've highlighted immediately above in red. As I understand that the environment has actually been that which has fueled Darwin's Natural Selection all along. That, so called, mutation is not random, that it is calculable, that is once all the particular ever variable environmental combinations are connected with their effects, and that shall take quite some time, as it has indeed taken quite some time, for us to get where we currently are, much longer than our short lives.

Genes are the product of star stuff, elements, as is all that we know. Where elements and electromagnetic energy were our building blocks, so they are responsible for life's differentiation. And did I mention time? This metamorphic coalescence, earth, was surely the perfect resource rich incubator, for all it's subsequent spawn, along with it's continuously variable combinations of environmentals, (elements/compounds/electromagnetic energy randomly strewn), of course.

Or at least logically, it surely seems to be the case. We are all of one origin, then we simply moved to a different environment, viola!

Cool. I'm not familiar with epigenetics but I agree with the quoted passage and agree with you that DNA is affected.

I believe the vast bulk of change in species is usually almost unrelated to "survival of the fitest". I believe almost all change in species (erroneously called evolution) is actually the result of population bottlenecks caused by the eradication of individuals which share some behavior. "All" individuals are fit and have a nearly identical chance of surviving most threats. But it's the threats which no individuals who have some common behavior survive that drives species change. Nature eliminates behaviors that are determined by genes preserving a "new" species which breeds true. There are no missing links because change in species doesn't happen that way.

spheres of balance and cladking,

You, spheres, only mentioned 'epigenetics' but then opted to define 'genetics' instead. Epigenetics is how the environment indirectly switches on present genes among what is normally already there, not to adding new means to adapt. That is epigenetics cannot actually add new information on how to evolve. It only switches on those traits that are among the "junk" DNA.

"Fitness" in genetics is not about quality of ones in an upward projected evolution towards some advanced super-being. It means only that if survival to maturity (to procreate) requires being able to survive within one's given environment because your genetic outward qualities (phenotypes) "fit" meaning "to match" with the environment. This can mean for instance if you were forced to live in a dark cave all your life but had say some accidental gene that provided you with better night vision or an ability to survive naturally on bugs, if you live long enough to make babies, you are considered a 'fit' to survive in that cave as an environment. Your survival over someone who might not handle living long enough in that cave without sunlight could make the difference between a you surviving over a Brad Pitt. Also, included in what is "fit" is mere factors of environmental luck that favors you by mere stupid fortune over another for no other good reason.

Obvious Leo wrote:Scott. I am completely conversant with Russell, and Whitehead in particular was very influential along with Charles Sanders Peirce in steering me in the presentist direction of modelling reality as a process. This constitutes a totally different metaphysical predicate from that adopted by physics which is a Platonist and thus an eternalist paradigm. Eternalism models reality as a collection of objects moving in space whereas presentism models reality as a sequence of events occurring in time which the observer merely observes as a collection of objects moving in space. Both the space and the objects become the property of the consciousness of the observer.

These two positions are mutually exclusive but mine has the advantage of making sense.

Russel and Whitehead attempted their proof using a similar approach that I do with intense logic. I'm not sure where you interpreted them as what you refer to in the 'time-dependent' origins you give. They argued states as propositions in what I read and used operators as active or dynamic components collectively.

You should be aware that I'm also for a Steady-State theory. The underlying assumptions going into that extends the Cosmological Principle to a stricter form which includes time, called the Perfect Cosmological Principle. This agrees with much of the observations but includes time as an eternal concept that only appears to be limited as we look at it. This is my view too on the level of the Universe (ours). I only take a step further to include the word, "totality" to reference all other factors that we may know or not know which includes other universes or even, though doubtful, any god-like entities or sci-fi fantasy world (like the concept of us being in a Matrix), and of course, a category for nothingness, to which these other ideas may dutifully fit.

I have explained before to others a long time ago about how the singularity of the Big Bang concept is an illusion such that we would see this no matter when we go. That is, it should appear to us as 13.8 Billion years old at all times. It is a type of calculus argument but you likely follow this in a Zeno paradox examples. Given what appears like 10 feet from a wall, if you decelerate from some point speed such that you half the distance each few seconds, it would take an infinity of time to reach the wall. 10ft to 5ft to 2.5ft to 1.25ft ... approaches zero but never gets there in an infinity of time.

What initiated with Plato on forms is indistinct to this discussion of models except that the 'form' is the generalization of the actual model by the universe/totality itself rather than our specific ones we as humans make. We usually call them either universals in logic or algebra in math, or any number of things we formulate. I mentioned the idea of a gaseous molecule of H2 to be a formula of two atoms necessarily. We do not as humans force the fact of this condition. If we stopped existing, the hydrogen molecule will always still exist in reality. This make it a 'law' when we generalize forms for science. I understand that you don't accept 'things' as real but 'moving things through time'. If you knew of the details of where my latter part of my theory goes, you'd find it relatively comforting (fitting) to your view too. Each and every point in space is always moving but just in different types of directions.

Wikipedia on 'Perfect Cosmological Principle' wrote:The Perfect Cosmological Principle states that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic in space and time. In this view the universe looks the same everywhere (on the large scale), the same as it always has and always will. It is the principle underpinning steady-state theory and emerging from Chaotic inflation theory.[1][2][3]

The Perfect Cosmological Principle is an extension of the Cosmological Principle, which asserts that the universe changes its gross feature with time, but not across space.

The singularity went out with the Elvis sideburns and the platform shoes, Scott.