Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker - Surprisingly Faith Promoting

[thesometimesaint]

That about captures it for me as well. It's not that they agree or disagree with each other, just that for the moment, they are pretty irrelevant to each other. I think someday in principle, they will intersect, but for now they don't have much to do with each other.

I agree that someday they will intersect, but today probably isn't going to be that day.

[mfbukowski]

The real problem is that neither Gould nor Dawkins have a philosophy of language or describe how it is possible for language to "represent" or not represent what they think is "reality"

Having an understanding of the role of language in all this is essential and really that is all that philosophy is about- it is about language and how and why we use it, and how it represents or doesn't represent reality, and what a theory really IS or is not. To me, that's what's missing here. They get all mixed up in the words without knowing what words are and are not.

[mfbukowski]

I agree that someday they will intersect, but today probably isn't going to be that day.

I think they will intersect when science starts to have a scientific look at the subjective and understands how we generate ideas about what is important to us in our lives. There is no science of value or what makes one thing important and another thing unimportant.

There is no science about how to generate a sense of peace and worth in a person's life. Psychology might be getting there, sociology might be getting there but those areas are rightfully thought to be "mushy"- why? because they deal in language and people's subjective descriptions of things.

That's the problem. There is no hard science of description and language and it's hard to imagine what that would be like- precisely because we haven't invented it. Some philosophers like Husserl and Heidegger have tried with Phenomenology but it is usually so opaque that no one reads it.

Until science is capable of measuring "what gives our lives meaning"- whatever that phrase means in itself - and what is important to humanity and why, and which beliefs give us comfort and why, or which ethical systems work better and why, religion and science will be on different tracks with no chance of a collision!

[thesometimesaint]

There really is no such thing as mushy science it is all hard. In that we have evidence to back up our proposed theory. IE: In biology when we want to answer a problem of what something is. We start by limiting the variables by eliminating the commonalities with other like things. So while an amoeba has many things in common with all living animals, not all living animals are amoebas. So on down the line until we have a very accurate description of what we are looking at say a Zebra. In psychology we try to limit the variables by eliminating the commonalities we are studying just as much as biology. Say we want to accurately identify psychosis something we do in thing in psychology. We look for the ideation behind a certain actions. We eliminate the commonalities till we very accurately describe what we are looking at psychosis.

It is true we have a lot more variables than some other disciplines of science, That just makes for more work to identify what it is, but it is all hard science.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Are we bored today Mola? lol

More like, I have some time which I normally don't have much of these days.

[shalamabobbi]

I think that you are somehow missing that words themselves are symbols and models and are not "real" in the sense of being things nor do they "correspond" to anything that we can know about

You cannot get outside of experience to see if it "corresponds" to anything because all you will see is experience.

Science doesn't "correspond" to reality any better than religion or poetry "corresponds" to reality. Yes we have cliffs and walls to fall off of and bump into. But what we bump into is our EXPERIENCE of a wall- some "thing" which hinders our progress- but it is defined precisely by the fact that it hinders our progress.

I don't deprecate evidence- but all we have is evidence. Evolution itself is a theoretical construct- it is a symbolic verbal linguistic abstraction, an explanation of how life came to be. It is theory, poetry, an abstract conglomeration of a bunch of stuff abstracted into what we call "data" because we say it is.

A bone is not "data"- it is a bone. We make it into data or "evidence" by classifying it as a particular KIND of bone. It is a human hip bone or a chicken wing bone. Culturally we have made up those distinctions- we think we are not chickens and we decide this is an "us" bone and not a "chicken" bone. We decide that the "us" bone is old because it is deep down in a hole. We throw away the chicken bone from last nights dinner and look for the "thigh bone" from what we classify as a "human" who allegedly "lived" what we abstractly think of as "ten million years ago".

Because of the shape of what we call the "thigh bone" of a "homo sapiens" (all culturally created concepts) we can now abstract it all and show how, with the help of the idea thought up by Darwin that this particular bone constitutes "evidence" for something else we culturally have called "bipedal locomotion".

Good. That is what we wanted it to do- to fit into Darwin's creative explanation and model/myth of how humans came to be.

We have just "discovered" (or actually created) what we now call "evidence" for our "theory". It all fits together. Just like fitting rocks together to make a fireplace- but now instead of a construction which will keep us warm and safe, we have a mental model which will make us comfortable to think that we now understand "reality" better.

We select that bone as opposed to the other bone because it makes our abstract theory work a little bit better in our abstract attempt to give some made-up explanation that a guy named Darwin came up with 150 years ago.

THAT is what "evidence" is- something experienced which we fit into a conceptual model which model is created verbally to accomplish a specific purpose. Now we have Darwinian Evolution. We can explain all the bones lying around without God.

But that only works for literalists who actually think that they are talking about the "way the world is" and not a way we have come up with to explain how we THINK the world might be.

I see it differently. I see it as a way to put together what we experience into a nice neat myth which is useful for a while and then when it no longer is useful, it is discarded, and some other myth becomes necessary.

In my lifetime I have seen ideas which were seen as incontrovertible suddenly become absurd. I have seen the "Iron Curtain" come and go. I had a personal PC in 1980 when no one else had one and now we cannot live without these silly machines.

I have changed religions 3 or 4 times depending on how you count. I was a communist student radical yippie and a conservative business man. I was a Catholic a Buddhist an atheist and a Mormon, and I have found the path that I know works for me.

And I have studied philosophy and the philosophy behind all the changes I have experienced.

I have seen a lot of explanations of a lot of things and none of them ever get it exactly right and the sooner people understand that the less dogmatic and confused they will be.

All we can know is what we have experienced and what we hear and read and learn others have experienced though our use of language. The problems start to arise when we think that we can know more than that. It's all words- it's all constructed by culture to explain how things work and why, and it works very well most of the time.

But he who thinks it's about some objective reality beyond words has a lot to learn.

Again how do you approve the use of forensic evidence with this viewpoint? You stated that you did. You said that was a good model of what you were getting at as well. And yet you agreed with the process and its use at the same time. How can you do this if there is no objective reality beyond words?

If something new comes along, this time DNA evidence, and it exonerates a convicted felon what do we know? That evidence cannot prove a theory, or get at ultimate reality as you put it, but it can falsify a view of reality. But most would agree that there is *a reality* that resulted in the evidence left at the scene of the crime, no?

So here I would, based upon that, say it is a reasonable *assumption* to believe in reality itself, yes? So the disagreement comes from how closely we are able to depict that reality with the evidence. And the evidence can falsify some viewpoints of reality. But the totality of evidence has to fit whatever view of reality takes the place of the previous view.

So where does that leave us with respect to the ToE? What kinds of things can we know with a strong degree of certainty? If fossils can be dated by multiple independent dating techniques, and they can. Are we justified in turning a blind eye to those facts by noting that science is based upon language and is therefore a messy game to some degree? We have that reflector upon the moon and we measure its recession. The recession rate matches what physics, another model, predicts that rate should be based upon other considerations such as tidal friction, gravitational potential energy, etc. We find fossil coral that shows it lived at an age and time when there were 400 days to an earth year. We calculate how long ago that would be based upon the recession of the moon and physics and the age matches what nuclear clocks say.

Do you expect that these kinds of facts may be overturned by something coming down the pike that hasn't arrived quite yet? These facts will simultaneously all nicely fit a *completely* different model that arrives at *completely* different conclusion as to when this happened?

In my lifetime I have seen ideas which were seen as incontrovertible suddenly become absurd.

I have to disagree here with your assesment as it applies to science. The most obvious paradigm change that came along was quantum mechanics. That changed the classical view and replaced it with the microscopic view. But what did that change of what we knew previously? This new viewpoint predicts the same thing that the old viewpoint predicts at the macro level. So it changes nothing there. It only allowed a new viewpoint about a level that previously we knew nothing about as yet.

What else? The Michelson/Morley experiment. What did that change? Here we thought that there was a preferred reference frame and an aether that lived in that frame and was the basis for the transmission of light. Turned out not to be the case. What did that change of previously accepted reality? Up to that point our view of reality fit nicely into that model that got overturned. But what did the new model change? Nothing really with respect to what we knew from the old model. Stars were still far away based upon lightspeed calculations, etc. It only allowed an extension into new areas, to know more than the previous model allowed.

[shalamabobbi]

Again shalamabobbi fails to address directly any claim I actually made. His latest (in reply to my comment on ERVs):

"Hovind offered this remark in a debate that is comparable to what you are suggesting here. He had the audience consider the fact of a fossil and proceeded to state that there is no proof that the creature from which this fossil originated reproduced and left progeny. So fossils don't prove anything at all. You see how that goes?"

* Just what, specifically, is it that you think I have suggested that Hovind's remark supposedly undermines?

* The real issue is not whether the fossil "proves anything" but whether it proves a specific claim about neo-Darwinian evolution. It does not. It may be consistent therewith, but it does not differentiate DE from some alternatives, including some versions of II or ID. Unless a theory or hypothesis can be formulated in a way which differentiates itself in a measurement or experiment from alternative explanations, it is not really scientific and the data adduced as evidence for that theory does not provide powerful support -- it can provide plausibility but not proof.

Allen

You missed the point of the post. It is this. That your assesment of ERVs is about as logical and compelling as Hovind's(a complete crank) argument about fossils. I don't know how to put that in a delicate manner.

The real issue is not whether the fossil "proves anything" but whether it proves a specific claim about neo-Darwinian evolution. It does not. It may be consistent therewith, but it does not differentiate DE from some alternatives, including some versions of II or ID. Unless a theory or hypothesis can be formulated in a way which differentiates itself in a measurement or experiment from alternative explanations, it is not really scientific and the data adduced as evidence for that theory does not provide powerful support -- it can provide plausibility but not proof.

Really? Consistent with ID? So the designer places life forms upon the earth and lets them live for inordinate lengths of time only to replace them with lifeforms, newly designed, that vary only slightly from the replaced designs. That is how you view the record?

Fits nicely with a statement by Dyson BTW:

The role of failure

You can't possibly get a good technology going without an enormous number of failures. It's a universal rule. If you look at bicycles, there were thousands of weird models built and tried before they found the one that really worked. You could never design a bicycle theoretically. Even now, after we've been building them for 100 years, it's very difficult to understand just why a bicycle works – it's even difficult to formulate it as a mathematical problem. But just by trial and error, we found out how to do it, and the error was essential.[43]

[shalamabobbi]

More like, I have some time which I normally don't have much of these days.

Well use it well, there is a lot less of it than you imagine from your present perspective..

[shalamabobbi]

mfbukowski,

I just got back from the Mexican Mart behind the house. I noticed that the Spanish version of People magazine's "El Hombre mas Sexy" didn't correspond with the English version. Different language/culture, different conclusion. I didn't want you to think that nothing of what you are saying is sinking in..

I sent you a PM about lunch.

[mfbukowski]

Again how do you approve the use of forensic evidence with this viewpoint? You stated that you did. You said that was a good model of what you were getting at as well. And yet you agreed with the process and its use at the same time. How can you do this if there is no objective reality beyond words?

Sigh.

Please explain how one proves "something" (like a verbal proposition maybe?) without words or how you know what constitutes "evidence" without words?

"Just words" is all we have- you shouldn't deprecate their importance. I did it just to make a point- because people think there is "something" beyond words.

Tell me what that is please, and remember not to use words.

[mfbukowski]

But most would agree that there is *a reality* that resulted in the evidence left at the scene of the crime, no?

So here I would, based upon that, say it is a reasonable *assumption* to believe in reality itself, yes? So the disagreement comes from how closely we are able to depict that reality with the evidence. And the evidence can falsify some viewpoints of reality. But the totality of evidence has to fit whatever view of reality takes the place of the previous view.

There are experiences which the brain organizes as what we call "evidence".

This is what the brain said:

The brain says- "Ah- I am receiving data from the eyes- let me organize that- ok- now we have a picture. red, blue, grey black- let me filter that- ok now that we will call a "car" - that is a "stone"- and what is that brassy colored thing? ignore rock ignore tree, ignore mc donalds down the street, even though it is past lunch time, ignore grass and the sun light- better yet, put on sunglasses- AHA! Is that what we call a "shell casing?

Quick! send a message to the cerebral cortex! That brassy colored thing might be a shell casing which might constitute "evidence" that I am being requested to process! This could be important!

Cerebral cortex responds: Yes! definitely fits the definition of the word "evidence" - notify muscles to reach down and pick it up and put it in a bag, photograph it etc! We have fit the definition of "evidence"!

There are other brassy experiences here as well- shell casings? cortex says yes! Can we fit those experiences into a pattern? Yes- these are called 9 mm shell casings all in a line down the street- probably constitutes "evidence". Alert the cortex again!

Response from cortex: Definite evidence! Data from eyes filtered focused and confirmed! Evidence defined!

Pattern established! Line of shell casings indicate possible movement of producer of shell casings in either north or south direction!

Alert mouth to articulate message to other officers!

Cop says

"Hey Joe- we have some 9mm shell casings here- look like the perp was running down the street firing as he went!"

So we have gone from raw experience entering the eyes, the eyes focusing it into a picture, the brain creating and classifying the data and a verbal proposition being put forth- WITHOUT EVER GETTING OUTSIDE OF OUR EXPERIENCES TO "REALITY"

How do you know those experiences "correspond' to something "beyond' the experiences? You don't! How would you ever get "beyond" the experience itself to check and see if it did??

"Yep- there's the experience on this screen- and there's "reality" on the other screen- yep- "corresponds" exactly!"

YOU CAN'T DO THAT!

But guess what- we don't fall off of cliffs we haven't seen, we don't bump into walls we haven't seen (usually unless it's night time etc- but even those exceptions only prove the point) that there is no distinction between what we experience and what "reality" is!

Why is this even important?

Because people do not usually understand that everything we see and think is "real" is actually organized by our mind/brains. For all "practical" purposes what we see and perceive IS reality

That what that Rorty video I post every other day says- there is no distinction between appearance and reality, and reality IS appearance! It is what our brains put together- it is what humans do!

And it works! We can send vehicles to Mars and do practically anything with what we call "reality" without ever really noticing that what reality is is what our minds/brains tell us it is.

So there is no need to see some kind of gap between what our minds tell us and what is "real"- it is the "same thing"

There is what our minds tell us privately - like "You have a pain in your chest- better call the doctor!" and what we can talk about and share experiences - like the shell casing story above.

The pain example is a subjective experience because YOU cannot verify that I am having a "pain" in MY chest- and the shell casing thing is "objective" because you can "verify" that those indeed are 9mm shell casings and that your brain tells you the same thing about them that my brain tells me.

I sure hope that helps.....

[Calm]

Tell me what that is please, and remember not to use words.

Charades!!!!.....

I hate Charades.

[supersnail]

I just hope all you guys know that "Gould's view" is not Gould's view in the sense that he was the inventor of that position any more than that "Kuhn's view" was invented by Kuhn.

If you want to know who invented those views, read the Pragmatists - Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Polanyi, and even good old Richard Rorty.

Gould is not even a philosopher and really his view doesn't go very far.

Neither Dawkins nor Gould appear to have any philosophical training and it shows.

Just to clarify, the view that human evolution is improbable because of historical contingency isn't a philosophical view. It is a scientific one. Like Richard Dawkins' and Simon Conway Morris'. Each, though, has a view of science and religion that is separable from their particular scientific ideas. In principle, I could accept Morris' scientific ideas, stripped of extraneous commentary, without accepting his view of the relationship between science and religion, or his Platonic Christianity.

However, trying to use Morris' or even Dawkins' ideas to justify a belief in creation may reflect the influence of Platonic Christianity for reasons I have discussed. Attraction by non-scientist Christians, whose understanding of various evolutionary topics is questionable, to the semblance of a perfect design inexorably leading to humans may represent the influence of creatio ex nihilo and other elements of Platonic Christianity.

The extent to which Stephen Jay Gould's view of how evolution happens is not originally Gould's is not something I care about too much, except for the purpose of learning more about the view through other scientists.

If you are referring to Non-overlapping Magisteria, there is a reason why I put a comma after "(NOMA)" and before "and underdeterminism in philosophy" in the 3rd paragraph at http://www.mormondia...entry1209167912 I have not got into NOMA in the present thread, but I am aware that NOMA represents an effort by Gould to popularize a view of science and religion that has other sources.

The first and only time I myself encountered "Non-overlapping Magsteria" under that name as required reading was in a biology class. What you're noting is kind of my point. Many biologists and biology students are already aware of "Non-overlapping Magisteria" through Gould, who is an example of an evolutionary biologist who wasn't anti-religious and is relevant to science & religion and evolution discussions for a variety of reasons. Gould's writing is accessible to biology students who may never take a course in the philosophy department. These things are important to note if one's impression of evolution and evolutionary biologists is influenced by Dawkins' high-profile speaking and writing.

Edited September 12, 2012 by supersnail

[mfbukowski]

Charades!!!!.....

I hate Charades.

I hate Charades too.

The only problem is that it is a kind of sign "language" complete with symbolic gestures.

[mfbukowski]

Just to clarify, the view that human evolution is improbable because of historical contingency isn't a philosophical view. It is a scientific one. Like Richard Dawkins' and Simon Conway Morris'. Each, though, has a view of science and religion that is separable from their particular scientific ideas. In principle, I could accept Morris' scientific ideas, stripped of extraneous commentary, without accepting his view of the relationship between science and religion, or his Platonic Christianity.

However, trying to use Morris' or even Dawkins' ideas to justify a belief in creation may reflect the influence of Platonic Christianity for reasons I have discussed. Attraction by non-scientist Christians, whose understanding of various evolutionary topics is questionable, to the semblance of a perfect design inexorably leading to humans may represent the influence of creatio ex nihilo and other elements of Platonic Christianity.

The extent to which Stephen Jay Gould's view of how evolution happens is not originally Gould's is not something I care about too much, except for the purpose of learning more about the view through other scientists.

If you are referring to Non-overlapping Magisteria, there is a reason why I put a comma after "(NOMA)" and before "and underdeterminism in philosophy" in the 3rd paragraph at http://www.mormondia...entry1209167912 I have not got into NOMA in the present thread, but I am aware that NOMA represents an effort by Gould popularize a view of science and religion that has other sources.

The first and only time I myself encountered "Non-overlapping Magsteria" under that name as required reading was in a biology class. What you're noting is kind of my point. Many biologists and biology students are already aware of "Non-overlapping Magisteria" through Gould, who is an example of an evolutionary biologist who wasn't anti-religious and is relevant to science & religion and evolution discussions for a variety of reasons. Gould's writing is accessible to biology students who may never take a course in the philosophy department. These things are important to note if one's impression of evolution and evolutionary biologists is influenced by Dawkins' high-profile speaking and writing.

And why do you think Gould came up with it?

Because deep down inside he was a Nice Jewish Boy.

But it was a philosophical idea 100 years before these guys "invented" it.

Edit: I hadn't though about it in these terms but actually it is quite a bit older. I was wrong.

It goes back to Tertullian, at least.

Quick, somebody tell Dawkins! http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/

But they've got all my other boys in that article just fine.

Edited September 12, 2012 by mfbukowski

[supersnail]

mfbukowski:

I'm all for students taking courses outside their majors and checking out non-required books from the library, but realistically a random natural science major in a U.S. college is more likely to read Gould than Rorty or even Niels Bohr. I don't celebrate that myself, but some things are just too much to expect of people who would rather check Facebook for the millionth time than even read a philosophy essay on the web.

Lately, more science majors get philosophical ideas through Dawkins without calling it philosophy (which it is, as naive or undeveloped as it is), but I still see Gould's writings on science & religion on university syllabi and reading lists.

Crude, watered-down philosophy has pitfalls, I would agree, and NOMA has other limitations, but I feel Gould's writings are a good starting point for some non-Christians and Christians. I am open to the idea that nothing is better than something, though, especially with Dawkins.

[mfbukowski]

mfbukowski:

I'm all for students taking courses outside their majors and checking out non-required books from the library, but realistically a random natural science major in a U.S. college is more likely to read Gould than Rorty or even Niels Bohr. I don't celebrate that myself, but some things are just too much to expect of people who would rather check Facebook for the millionth time than even read a philosophy essay on the web.

Lately, more science majors get philosophical ideas through Dawkins without calling it philosophy (which it is, as naive or undeveloped as it is), but I still see Gould's writings on science & religion on university syllabi and reading lists.

Crude, watered-down philosophy has pitfalls, I would agree, and NOMA has other limitations, but I feel Gould's writings are a good starting point for some non-Christians and Christians. I am open to the idea that nothing is better than something, though, especially with Dawkins.

It's the dumbing-down of America.

If it's not a video game it's just plain "boring".

We will pay for it, and it has already started.

I would love to put some of this stuff on youtube but don't have the technical expertise- know anyone who does?

Edited September 13, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Lament]

shalamabobbi said:

"You missed the point of the post. It is this. That your assesment of ERVs is about as logical and compelling as Hovind's (a complete crank) argument about fossils. I don't know how to put that in a delicate manner."

Why not make direct statements the first time? Helps avoid miscommunication and missed points. And part of direct statement would include elaboration of accusation, e.g., illustrating what you take to be faulty logic, etc.

S again:

"Really? Consistent with ID? So the designer places life forms upon the earth and lets them live for inordinate lengths of time only to replace them with lifeforms, newly designed, that vary only slightly from the replaced designs. That is how you view the record?"

I offered, and offer, no view of "the record". Did you miss that I was engaged in discussion of theory construction, concept formation, and science? Lack of imagination in proposing alternative theories is to reflect Dr. Watson rather than Sherlock Holmes.

And I do not pretend to propose or know what any super Designer or God might have in mind. To act as if you know what the Grand Optimal Designer thinks, or intends, or expects, or might do, etc., is arrogant or ignorant.

[thesometimesaint]

An appeal to the supernatural is counter to science, and is at best left in the Science Fiction shelves of your local library.

[mfbukowski]

Call it NOMA or whatever, this is a good summary of what Wittgenstein believed:

Although Wittgenstein was not by conventional standards religious, his philosophical remarks and journal entries reveal what might be described as a religious sensibility and are informed by a definite sympathy toward at least certain features of religion. For Wittgenstein, as for Kierkegaard, whom he admired, religion was less a matter of theory than of practice. “I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. They have to change your life. (Or the direction of your life.)…Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion” (1980, 53e).

It has been argued that Wittgenstein's later thought, though perhaps not overtly fideistic, nevertheless lends itself to fideistic interpretation. According to this interpretation, religion is a self-contained and primarily expressive enterprise, governed by its own internal logic or “grammar.” This view—commonly called Wittgensteinian Fideism—is variously characterized as entailing one or more of the following distinct (but arguably inter-related) theses: (1) that religion is logically cut off from other aspects of life; (2) that religious discourse is essentially self-referential and does not allow us to talk about reality; (3) that religious beliefs can be understood only by religious believers; and (4) that religion cannot be criticized.^[7]

It is highly doubtful, however, whether Wittgenstein would have endorsed any of these claims, let alone all four of them. Their attribution to Wittgenstein seems in fact to depend on a narrowly selective reading of what he actually said. As Richard Bell has pointed out,

It is premised on the view that our language is a series of language-games rooted in a form of life each governed by its own set of rules—as if our life of speaking and acting were like a bag of marbles, separate spherical speech-worlds with their own boundaries and rules governing their size and elasticity and use—some are shooters, others decorative, all rest side by side and affect their neighbors only if they collide (217–218).

It is true that Wittgenstein cautioned against the tendency to assume a unity of logical form behind the diversity of actual usage. He writes, “Don't say: ‘There must be something common…’—but look and see” (1958, I, §66). However, it is by no means clear that he intended to advance any equally a priori thesis about the discontinuity and incommensurability of our discursive practices.

Indeed, he suggests that the result of “looking” is that “we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing” (1958, I, §66). A metaphor to which he returns periodically is of language as an ancient city: “a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses” (1958, I, §18). Remarks such as these seem to militate against the balkanized view of language implied by Wittgensteinian Fideism.

http://plato.stanfor.../fideism/#2.2.3

You can see how this would fit well with a church which believes in orthopraxis as opposed to orthodoxy and which relies on each individual to obtain his own view, or "testimony" of the truth.

The article also makes it clear that NOMA is not a new idea, and in my opinion sets Dawkins on his ear. Dawkins just does not "get" language- which is what I have been saying from the beginning.

Of course this account itself is somewhat controversial but for new students of Wittgenstein it will get you into the ballpark at least where the game is afoot.

Or an arm depending on how look at it

Edited September 13, 2012 by mfbukowski

[shalamabobbi]

mfbukowski,

No need for sighs. Just trying to digest what it is you're saying.

I would love to put some of this stuff on youtube but don't have the technical expertise- know anyone who does?

http://www.youtube.com/t/creators_corner

[mfbukowski]

mfbukowski,

No need for sighs. Just trying to digest what it is you're saying.

http://www.youtube.c...creators_corner

Genuinely sorry. Grumpy after a hard day.

[bcuzbcuz]

Oh and I don't know what you mean by "physical facts".

Facts are interpretations of experience and are not "physical". Words are not things.

[mfbukowski]

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

Exactly!

For those who didn't "get" that - the words in French say "This is not a pipe." And of course it is NOT a pipe- it is a painted image of what we call a "pipe"- that is the whole point.

Arguably that is echoed by artists like Warhol with their Campbell Soup cans in an art museum. The entire point is that everything is context-dependent to get meaning. Putting a fake can of soup in a museum focuses that - what is the "reality" of such a soup can? In another context it becomes what we call "art"- but why is NOT "art" when it is on a supermarket shelf?

What exactly is the nature of art itself?

Is not everything we do in some sense art if it is a human creation? Both William James and John Dewey talk a lot about that idea.

And this is of course the whole point of that painting and the point of the movement it represents. It's not like I am making this stuff up. I wish I could take credit for it, but of course it is the point of most of 20th century philosophy, directly or indirectly.

But of course Dawkins doesn't get that. He is a scientist and scientists don't think any way but scientifically.

What a shame!

Edited September 13, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Hamilton Porter]

While ignoring most of my response, Porter replies to me:

"Allen, genetic algorithms and evolutionary algorithms are the same thing."

* Yes and no and it does not matter to my argument.

-- First, your claim was that "ALL principles of evolution" including "sexual reproduction...", adaptation, etc., were involved. Such is not the claim of evolutionary algorithm and not true in the specific context to which I replied and not relevant to most of my claims.

Allen...all principles of evolution ARE included in genetic algorithms. Please check the notes from my neural networks class. Sexual reproduction is in there, as well as adaptation.

* And what about the other questions/issues I raised about several of your statements?

Allen Lambert

I brought up sonar and genetics only as examples provided by Richard Dawkins on how sophisticated life is. I didn't say that engineers got them by imitating bats, only that the technology is identical. Same thing with genetics. Computer science was developed before the discovery of the genetic code. The point is that life is at least as sophisticated as the technology intelligent beings like us develop. There are, however, ways in which we develop technology by mimicking nature.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Hamilton Porter