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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 13, 2017 - 10:32pm PT
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I think you have seriously misunderstood the "evolutionary process."
I won't provide any links, you might consult a modern treatise on evolution, however, before you state things which you do not understand at all (by evidence of your posts).
"You're wrong" isn't much of an argument.
So mind is a function of conditions. If something is "allowable" by nature, is it then inevitable?
Yes, given the conditions of opportunity: a vast universe with an incredible number of opportunities and perhaps even an infinite amount of time.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 13, 2017 - 10:35pm PT
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but it happens to be true in this case...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 13, 2017 - 10:59pm PT
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but it happens to be true in this case...
And repeating it is just plain silly.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 13, 2017 - 11:07pm PT
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insisting that it is silly doesn't explain or excuse your ignorance on the matter.
I'm not really that interested in providing for your education, you should take more responsibility for it yourself
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 14, 2017 - 06:59am PT
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there is no nothing Because if nothing existed it would be something!
How about that set that contains nothing or the space that contains a vacuum. What's inside?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 14, 2017 - 07:54am PT
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jgill: Since we can imagine it happening, there must be a non-zero probability that it has (I'm channeling Paul and MikeL here).
What is imagined is. What was is. What is is. What will be is.
The here and now is all there is. Your word game is artificial and contrived. It’s no wonder that it appears confusing. All word games present conundrums of some sort.
Lots of logic in the conversation. Would you say that logic is universal and ubiquitous in the here and now? I mean, it’s a tool, isn’t it?
Avoid the Law of the Small Instrument: “Give a child a hammer, and you will find that everything they encounter requires pounding.”
Philosophy was meant to open one’s mind, not close it.
Be well—and Happy Mothers Day, you mothers.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 14, 2017 - 08:15am PT
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How about that set that contains nothing
{ }
seems to be a small whitish space, maybe vacuum?
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 14, 2017 - 08:40am PT
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Is it inevitable that the Golden Gate Bridge will be taken apart piece by piece and reassembled in Paducah, Kentucky?
The way I understand it, in the frame of classical physics, if you also hold a sort of strong reductionism: e.g. the human decision process is a result of chemical processes in the brain, which in turn are determined in a specific way by the motion of atomic particles, then the answer is that what happens is "inevitable" (is a mathematical function of initial conditions). If you want to deny this, you must either modify classical physics, or admit that some properties of the universe are not a function of the physics of elemetary particles
In the frame of Quantum Theory the question about determinism becomes more interesting. Can two experimentalists independently set their mesasuring aparatus? If so, then the answer to question could be no, since (for example) what Conway and Kochen show is that if the choice of an experimentalists to set her appartus is not a (mathematical) function of the past, then the state of the elementary particle isn't either. In otherwords, in so far as experimentalists have free will, some elementary particles do too. On the other hand, there is a possibilty of superdeterminism: that the settings of all experimental measuring appartus have already been correlated, perhaps at the point of the big bang.
What Bell said about this: "There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the ‘decision’ by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster-than-light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already ‘knows’ what that measurement, and its outcome, will be."
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WBraun
climber
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May 14, 2017 - 08:42am PT
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some properties of the universe are not a function of the physics of elementary particles
Yes ........
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 14, 2017 - 08:44am PT
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insisting that it is silly doesn't explain or excuse your ignorance on the matter.
One wonders, at what point does arrogance become ignorance?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 14, 2017 - 09:36am PT
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yes indeed, one wonders (but probably not you)
again, you would better spend your time honing your arguments regarding human exceptionalism and the impossibility that evolution explains it by actually learning something about evolution.
your defense of ignorance is disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 14, 2017 - 11:17am PT
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again, you would better spend your time honing your arguments regarding human exceptionalism and the impossibility that evolution explains it by actually learning something about evolution.
You argue with straw men and meaningless declarations of your own intellectual superiority (of which I see little evidence). Where do science types go to study rhetoric? Perhaps the Pacifica School of Automotive repair? And you wonder what scientism is.
Evolution is a construction born of the laws of physics, a system of laws either eternal or born at the big bang, but a system of laws that are the predicate of evolutionary processes and are the ultimate determining factor in that process and whose origin remain wholly mysterious. But you know everything and so with your infinite knowledge my suggestion is to go win the Nobel Prize in "Arrogant Certainty." Good luck.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 14, 2017 - 11:33am PT
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yanqui: In other words, in so far as experimentalists have free will, some elementary particles do too.
:-) That’s a good one. I like it. (Clear writing, too.)
There are surely other alternatives—one being that “free will” is just a way of talking. Science-minded folks remind us of this almost every day here when they remind us that myths and such are simply ways of talking about what science is discovering (or so is said).
Is it possible to see outside of one’s own worldview?
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 14, 2017 - 02:58pm PT
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But you know everything and so with your infinite knowledge my suggestion is to go win the Nobel Prize in "Arrogant Certainty." Good luck.
Why would a person with arrogant certainty need good luck?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 14, 2017 - 02:59pm PT
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Yanqui is a good thinker. It is good to see his posts here.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 14, 2017 - 03:02pm PT
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And yanqui:
Isn't it a question about time? Maybe things appear to happen in sequence to us, but if you could see all of time at once, wouldn't it appear that everything was determined?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 14, 2017 - 03:23pm PT
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Why would a person with arrogant certainty need good luck?
Ha, why do you think? Because arrogant certainty has nothing to do with being right. Though I bet that's hard to understand.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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May 14, 2017 - 04:09pm PT
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Can a biological cell or mind make a randomizer? Before I was in high school I hunted cottontail rabbits with a 22 caliber rifle. My conclusion from many observation was that they must be moving either to right or to the left randomly.
If there is a way for our brains, cells or mind to make a randomizer we are free of full time determinism.
We do make randomizers with computers.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 14, 2017 - 04:10pm PT
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Hmmm ... beats me MH2. But from where I'm standing it's like every time we think we got a handle on something, it's time for a paradigm shift.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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May 14, 2017 - 04:12pm PT
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We do make randomizers with computers
Except psuedorandom numbers generated by computers are not random.
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