Philosophy Now Forum

The Inglorious One wrote:

cladking wrote: Modern language is distinct from reality...

That makes no sense whatsoever.

"I think therefore I am." This is the single greatest claptrap ever issued from the mouth of man. It's right up there with "the mind is composed of the id, ego, and super ego" or "I'll still respect you in the morning". It is self serving nonsense. In ancient language it would have to be expressed as "amun is the son of thot through khepre" which breaks every rule of grammar and is an absurdity of the highest order. It's equivalent to "man (I) create(s) reality through the ability to supercede cause and effect". Of course you can't really translate ancient and modern language. Even if you could ideas get twisted in translations.

There is no "reality" in modern language even though we try to relate reality to our perceptions. We read the geiger counter and try to report the reality.

cladking wrote:"I think therefore I am." This is the single greatest claptrap ever issued from the mouth of man.

Have a chocolate, mate. Sadly this crock of shit was issued from the mouth of a man who went on to become the single most influential figure in the philosophy of science. Descartes didn't know his epistemological arse from his ontological elbow and this noble tradition of metaphysical blindness has polluted the science of physics ever since. The other sciences were rescued by the more enlightened thinking of Charles Darwin but physics has been slow to catch on and consequently its models make no sense. Nature just does what she does and the way we describe what she does is our business, not hers.

Obvious Leo wrote:

cladking wrote:"I think therefore I am." This is the single greatest claptrap ever issued from the mouth of man.

Have a chocolate, mate. Sadly this crock of shit was issued from the mouth of a man who went on to become the single most influential figure in the philosophy of science. Descartes didn't know his epistemological arse from his ontological elbow and this noble tradition of metaphysical blindness has polluted the science of physics ever since. The other sciences were rescued by the more enlightened thinking of Charles Darwin but physics has been slow to catch on and consequently its models make no sense. Nature just does what she does and the way we describe what she does is our business, not hers.

In Descartes defense he was simply stating a basis for science from the perspective of the only language he knew; modern language. Yes, we could have used a different foundation but then science would be different. Perhaps it would even be less effective if we based science on axioms that are less apparent to modern language speakers. Other sciences are hardly exempt from the damage and perspectives imparted by language. I believe "sociology" and Egyptology are among the worst. While physics may be bogged down in mire of its own making, Egyptology isn't even a science at all but a reflection of language as it applies to ancient Egypt. It not only lacks the ties to reality as imparted by math and experiment but lacks the ties that result from evidence. While Darwin was one of many 19th century geniuses and great thinkers I believe even he missed the forest for the trees: Change in species isn't the result of genes but rather individual behavior which just happens to be closely associated with genes. Even this model is not reflective of reality. Everything is far too complicated to understand and models are merely mnemonics to recall experimental results.

There are probably several simple solutions to the mess in physics and they do mostly involve tweeking metaphysics and education. There's no certainty that these changes will get physics unstuck from the bog and crap, though. Tools are only useful for specific tasks and experimental science may have nearly run its course. It will never be wholly abandoned probably but it might need to be supplemented or changed to fit the real world problems impeding its progress. It's hardly impossible that mathematics is the way out but I seriously doiubt that math even has any meaning if it isn't directly tied to observation or experiment. Math by itself is a mother with no father; an impossibility.

I suspect the way forward is much more observation and less modeling/ less math. The way out of the mire is tweeking the metaphysics. Simply stated the problem in physics is the difficulty of experiment design at this stage.

Obvious Leo wrote:

cladking wrote:"I think therefore I am." This is the single greatest claptrap ever issued from the mouth of man.

Have a chocolate, mate. Sadly this crock of shit was issued from the mouth of a man who went on to become the single most influential figure in the philosophy of science. Descartes didn't know his epistemological arse from his ontological elbow and this noble tradition of metaphysical blindness has polluted the science of physics ever since. The other sciences were rescued by the more enlightened thinking of Charles Darwin but physics has been slow to catch on and consequently its models make no sense. Nature just does what she does and the way we describe what she does is our business, not hers.

Darwin was a clown as well, as it's not random mutation, rather calculable mutation, that epigenetics is starting to unfold.

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Darwin was a clown as well, as it's not random mutation, rather calculable mutation, that epigenetics is starting to unfold.

I agree that mutation is one of the major drivers of species change but I believe the biggest driver in most species most of the time is population bottlenecks. It is not survival of the fittest, genes, or mere chance that determine which individuals survive. It is behavior. Of course there are always deaths and births of individuals in every species so day to day changes have aspects of these bottlenecks. Change is simply much much more pronounced when large percentages of species die. This is why there are no missing links; the missing link never existed at all. If mutation were the largest driver than both types would be found concurrent. No doubt mutation is a major and primary cause of change but it's rather presumptuous of us to assume that mutations are necessarily random. I wouldn't use terms like they are experiments of nature but there's no reason conditions or unknown forces don't cause mutation.

If you think about the aggregate behavior and the many genes that can become mutated in a species it begins to become clear just how impossibly complex these things are. They can't be modeled any more than a cloud can be predicted or placed in a mould. A cloud can't even be explained except in very general terms. How does one identify each individual water molecule or its trajectory? What are the odds it will look like a horse to some specific ten year old at any given moment? Reality is too complex to model and our attempts are just wrong as proven by the inability to make predictions. We don't notice because of the perspective imparted by the language in which we think. Ancient people referred to our languages as "confused".

SpheresOfBalance wrote:Darwin was a clown as well, as it's not random mutation, rather calculable mutation, that epigenetics is starting to unfold.

Don't get me wrong because I'm not a Darwinist by any means. I was merely making the point that Darwin revolutionised the way science should be thinking the world because the theory of evolution contradicted Newton. Physics still remains an Intelligent Design model but the rest of the sciences have moved on. Reality does not unfold according to a divine plan but rather it unfolds according to the most intuitive law we know, the law commonly known as "shit happens".

cladking wrote:it's rather presumptuous of us to assume that mutations are necessarily random.

Randomness and unpredictability are NOT synonymous terms, a simple fact of etymology which physicists would do well to take to heart. Any scientist caught using the word "random" should be immediately sold into slavery. There is no such thing as a random mutation because this suggests an event without a cause. There is however such a thing as an unpredictable mutation because this merely suggests an event without a pre-planned cause. An unpredictable mutation is when shit just happens because it does.

Obvious Leo wrote:
Randomness and unpredictability are NOT synonymous terms, a simple fact of etymology which physicists would do well to take to heart. Any scientist caught using the word "random" should be immediately sold into slavery. There is no such thing as a random mutation because this suggests an event without a cause. There is however such a thing as an unpredictable mutation because this merely suggests an event without a pre-planned cause. An unpredictable mutation is when shit just happens because it does.

Yes. Well said. Thank you for a better perspective and phraseology.

Obvious Leo wrote: Randomness and unpredictability are NOT synonymous terms, a simple fact of etymology which physicists would do well to take to heart. Any scientist caught using the word "random" should be immediately sold into slavery. There is no such thing as a random mutation because this suggests an event without a cause. There is however such a thing as an unpredictable mutation because this merely suggests an event without a pre-planned cause. An unpredictable mutation is when shit just happens because it does.

Not so. "Just because" is something one might expect from a toddler.

Take fractals, for example. How a fractal unfolds is unpredictable, but it is mathematically determined -- it does not unfold "just because." An "unpredictable mutation" does not automatically entail "just because": it can also entail ignorance or a cause that is ultimately indeterminate, and "indeterminate" does NOT mean "just because."

The Inglorious One wrote: Not so. "Just because" is something one might expect from a toddler.

Nevertheless that's the way all naturally occurring physical systems operate. They are beholden to no law beyond the meta-law of cause and effect and the fact that you can't understand how this can be merely reflects your ingrained preference for a god-created reality.

Please don't speak to me of fractals because it is utterly impossible for someone to both believe in god and understand the Mandelbrot set.

The Inglorious One wrote:: it can also entail ignorance or a cause that is ultimately indeterminate.

Speaking of ignorance kindly explain what we are to understand by the notion of an indeterminate cause. Are you familiar with the word "oxymoron"?.

Obvious Leo wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote: Not so. "Just because" is something one might expect from a toddler.

Nevertheless that's the way all naturally occurring physical systems operate. They are beholden to no law beyond the meta-law of cause and effect ...

That's not what "indeterminate" means or implies.

Please don't speak to me of fractals because it is utterly impossible for someone to both believe in god and understand the Mandelbrot set.

Was there anything regarding fractals I said that was incorrect?

The Inglorious One wrote:: it can also entail ignorance or a cause that is ultimately indeterminate.

Speaking of ignorance kindly explain what we are to understand by the notion of an indeterminate cause. Are you familiar with the word "oxymoron"?.

It's not an oxymoron at all. All it says is that science is limited in what it can investigate.

Clearly, you mistake your model of reality for reality itself.

The Inglorious One wrote:That's not what "indeterminate" means or implies.

Do elaborate. What do you reckon indeterminate means? It certainly doesn't mean unpredictable, which is what you seem to be implying.

The Inglorious One wrote:Was there anything regarding fractals I said that was incorrect?

Yes. Fractal systems are non-linear which means they are self-determining, or autopoietic. ( From the Greek "self-creating".) Generally such systems are modelled mathematically in terms of topological spaces and iterative functions but they are not modelled using Newton's tools of Cartesian spaces and immutable laws of divine origin, which you were unambiguously implying.

Obvious Leo wrote: Do elaborate. What do you reckon indeterminate means? It certainly doesn't mean unpredictable, which is what you seem to be implying.

I've already answered that. It means "Not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance" or "undefined." Practically speaking, it's just a way of admitting to something that cannot be known. It's saying "I don't know," not "just because."

There is no difference between chance-in-the-gaps (or "just because") and God-in-the-gaps, but at least theists have the sense to say, "In the end, we know God as unknown."

Fractal systems are non-linear which means they are self-determining, or autopoietic....

So, other than failing to imply that fractals are self-conscious entities, what did I say that was incorrect?

Leo, you seem to be operating from misguided perception that "God" necessarily implies an external agent. That model would incorrect even it was 99% true. It's called "stereotyping" and it makes you look something like a card-carrying member of the KKK.

The Inglorious One wrote:I've already answered that. It means "Not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance" or "undefined." Practically speaking, it's just a way of admitting to something that cannot be known. It's saying "I don't know," not "just because."

You are clearly a very confused person. "not precisely determined" does NOT mean "not known in advance". An event can be both precisely determined AND not knowable in advance.

The Inglorious One wrote:So, other than failing to imply that fractals are self-conscious entities, what did I say that was incorrect?

As I said, it is utterly impossible to both believe in god and understand the Mandelbrot set. A self-determining reality does not imply a self-conscious reality. The structure of snowflakes, for instance, is self-determining yet snowflakes are not conscious. They are the way they are just because that's the way they formed themselves according to simple cause and effect. They are CAUSED to be the way they are but there is no physical law which determines the way they are. If there were such a law then they would all be same but in fact every snowflake ever formed has been different from every other snowflake ever formed.

Obvious Leo wrote:

The Inglorious One wrote:I've already answered that. It means "Not precisely determined or established; not fixed or known in advance" or "undefined." Practically speaking, it's just a way of admitting to something that cannot be known. It's saying "I don't know," not "just because."

You are clearly a very confused person. "not precisely determined" does NOT mean "not known in advance". An event can be both precisely determined AND not knowable in advance.

Hmmm. Should I file a complaint with every company in the world that publishes an English dictionary? And was Heisenberg wrong?

The Inglorious One wrote:So, other than failing to imply that fractals are self-conscious entities, what did I say that was incorrect?

A self-determining reality does not imply a self-conscious reality.

That's exactly what it implies. A mathematical artifact -- and that's precisely what a fractal is -- is not self-determining.

I've read a few books on the subject and every one called fractals self-similar and mathematically determined, but not one called them "self-determining." Can I ask you where you got the idea they are?