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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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eeyonkee,
I think Largo hit an important nail in the conversation. What does the theory of evolution predict specifically?
You say that the theory of evolution explains everything biological. A characteristic applied to everything makes no distinction.
More importantly, the theory of evolution does not make specific predictions. Vague generalities. The theory appears to describe events or outcomes, but only after the fact. It predicts no specific outcomes in a given situation and circumstance. What species will die out? What features of a species will emerge? What features of a species will lapse into ineffectiveness, disuse, atrophy, and disappear?
Any ancient being from thousands of years ago could say that the understanding that came from a given myth (sun gods, great goddesses, rulers of underworlds) could say that their myths were validated because they too worked—perhaps not to the level of accuracy by today’s standards, but folk legends, community practices, and community belief systems were operational, and they helped to maintain and help ancient communities to adapt to environmentally changing conditions (where to hunt, who to fight, how to care for the tribe, etc.).
We’ve apparently arrived in the techno-scientific-rational age of civilization. I think we have to be aware of just what we mean by “it works,” the extent to which “it works,” and whether or not “it works” is an appropriate validating measurement for the discovery of truth. (Didn’t MB1 sort this issue out plainly many screens up?)
Werner: Female (Prakriti) cannot produce life without God (Purusha) (male).
Let’s give the female principle some space too.
Without the female principle (e.g., the Great Goddess), absolute being or awareness would remain unseen. It is the female principle that emanates all the things in the universe, first as pure energy. Many images show Purusha lying flat in meditative savanna, while Prakriti sits upon (or hovers above him) in a lotus. This signals that embodied experience trumps quiescent introversion meditative states. Precognitive desire or will (the female principle) is the motive force in the universe. Nothing would arise without it; divine consciousness would remain static.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 2, 2018 - 08:34pm PT
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"Niels Bohr, finally gave up on science as an explanatory discipline altogether. He talked of a new “epistemological situation” brought about by particle physics in which we can no longer apply the concepts of causality at all. And with causality goes logic itself. “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory,” said Bohr, “has not understood it.”
Science, in Bohr’s view, is no longer in the explanation business. “It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out [what] nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” All it can do is describe and predict. It can only say “how,” it can never say “why.”
A friend (and scientist) sent that quote to me with the comment that many misunderstand what Bohr said, believing, falsely, that because Bohr's 2 dimensional model has been updated, his comments about "explaining" no longer hold water.
Mike said: A characteristic applied to everything makes no distinction.
Where did the characteristic come from, causally, and why that characteristic instead of some other one?
Explaining is likely a trick question, like Chalmers' Hard Problem, which implies there is a mechanical explanation for consciousness - as soon as the new experiments are done and the missing data is compiled.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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It’s interesting to see that when I look into the mirror, I see three things. I see what I look like. After so many students, I’ve gotten good at reading faces (plus I used to live on the street for a few years). Two, that surprising view got me to look on the inside of what I am, and I get a real sense of that. Three is the immediate shock at the disconnection between the two. “Who is ‘That!?’”
It’s these little things that gotta make you wonder about everything.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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I think Largo may have a reasonable point about his distinction between "description" and "explanation". I tried this on for size: "One of the main aims of science is to give precise and verifiable descriptions of patterns in nature". Sounds right to me. "Explanation" is a much more loaded term. What counts as "explanation" seems to have a lot more to do with our own particular psychological needs. On the other hand, one might hope human beings can "understand" the descriptions produced by science and in that sense, the problem of "explanation" might come into play.
Edit to add: of course that doesn't rule out the possibility of a mechanistic "description" of consciousness.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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What counts as "explanation" seems to have a lot more to do with our own particular psychological needs.
I agree. My particular psychological make-up has no need for a clear distinction between a description of how a thing works and an explanation of how it works.
If we understand how a thing works we should be able to build one, or create a model which has the properties we are interested in.
In this sense we understand how clocks and cars work, but not photosynthesis or the human brain.
We don't even understand the c. elegans nervous system. This small worm has about 300 neurons and all of their connections have been mapped. The c. elegans nervous system is not a good comparison to most others because it does not produce action potentials and has no voltage-gated ion channels in the cell membrane.
It could be said that we understand and have good descriptions and explanations for many of the parts that make up c. elegans. We still can't make very accurate predictions about what the worm will do in its native environment. That might be because even the world of a tiny nematode is pretty complex and difficult to even describe in toto.
Let's be glad for the little we do know today, and for what we may learn tomorrow.
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nafod
Boulder climber
State college
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"Explanation" is a much more loaded term. What counts as "explanation" seems to have a lot more to do with our own particular psychological needs. Our brains are prediction engines, not just long term strategically (what's for dinner) but even in the short term (delay in sound hitting ear and being aware). Explanation is a nice way of saying we model something. We can then "run the model" to predict forward and act on that, adjusting it as we go.
So 'explanation' probably is a deep fundamental psychological need. As it deep as it gets.
It gets seriously recursive when we try to explain the explanation process.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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“Physiology is always psychological. Biological systems are psychological fields, asking to be read for their intelligence.”
(James Hillman, “The Force of Character and the Lasting Life.” 1999. p. 61)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Responses to Largo's questions of me.
That in no wise suffices as an "explanation," Especially a "determined" explanation. Do you understand the difference between a description and an explanation? Yes. This is an explanation -- the dinosaurs went extinct because of a meteor hitting the earth around 65 million years ago. What you seem to be looking for are apriori explanations.
Your "seemingly capricious" suggests that it only seems capricious, but in fact it is not - unless I misunderstand.
I mean it in this way, that the large number of variables and the sensitivity to initial conditions makes Mother Nature "seem" capricious. For all intents and purposes, the future is unpredictable.
You mention "a world of rules and consequences." Explain how the rules are there and why the consequences (effects) are what they are instead of something else.
It may well be that the laws are different in other universes. In this one, they are what they are.
Rules, or natural "laws" are not explanations, rather descriptions of what happens. Effects don't happen because of laws, which are not external objects or forces that yield any causal effect.
Effects happen because of consequences. That is an explanation.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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In this sense we understand how clocks and cars work, but not photosynthesis or the human brain.
If "we" includes "me" you must be talking about cars made in 1975.
When I was thinking about "explanation" being a loaded term revolving around psychological need I was thinking along the lines of how teacher evaluations might question students if their teacher's explanations are "clear" or how I might think another mathematician gave a good explanation of a hard topic, or even how we "explain" our behavior to each other on a daily basis. From this perspective, Newton's laws might not seem like "explanations", since most people can hear them without understanding nature any better than before. But they do give a pretty heavy-duty way to describe patterns in nature, if you take the time and effort to master them.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Up-thread, I wrote...
History comprises the world stage and all of its players as it played out in a world of rules and consequences over a period of time Maybe it's because I'm into oil can number two already, but I'm thinking that this is one of my better sentences on this thread. Here are some supporting thoughts.
Examples of the capriciousness of Mother Nature
• Meteor hits earth circa 65 million years ago
• Hurricane hits Florida rather than Alabama
• Tsunami hits Indian coast as a result of an earthquake in Indonesia
• Your Mother-in-law decides to visit you next week
Examples of rules and laws:
• Gravity
• The second law of thermodynamics
• A specific sequence of bases codes for a specific type of protein
• In DNA cross-links, A can only go with C and T with G
Examples of consequences:
• Mass extinctions when meteors hit the earth
• Local extinctions when invasive species are introduced
• Evolution of new species when continents separate
• You don’t do anything for your wife on Valentine’s Day and things don't go well
Examples of periods of time:
• The time between the creation of the universe and the creation of the earth
• The time between the creation of the earth and the first appearance of life
• The time between the first appearance of life and the beginning of the Cambrian era
• Yesterday
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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eeyonkee: Effects happen because of consequences. That is an explanation.
It is? It might be a tautology. (Aren’t effects consequences?)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 3, 2018 - 05:01pm PT
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eeyonke is obviously not getting what others are - of that we may be sure.
Perhaps that's my fault in short handing out what I consider the differences between a description and an explanation. In the sense of what Ludwig Wittgenstein meant, a guy coming from logic and the philosophy of mathematics. He was adamant that nothing could be explained, only described. He is also widely misunderstood. What we he really getting at?
My sense of it is something I also heard from an old Zen master who was also a PhD psychologist, that the arising of any form is not owing to what came before it. Both Wittgenstein and the psychologist threw me when I first heard their drift. Then Bohr with his business about reality not being a matter of causation.
Perhaps what they were getting at is something like this:
In the Kantian sense, our rational minds impose an a priori order onto reality before it ever registers in consciousness. That is, our thinking is pre-conditioned to conceive of things and the endless unfolding of things in certain ways that may or may not be inherent in the flow itself. One of those is the continuity of reality and the intuitive belief that there is a causal reason why B follows A. Without a reason, we can hardly make the claim that we have "explained" anything.
Again, note that it's not simply the case that B follows A, which is a description, rather we feel compelled to "explain" why B follows A in causal terms. And what's more, that explanation means that it is causally determined that B follows A. We might surmise that in this instance, A creates or sources or gives rise to B, and only B. If A randomly gave rise to D, V, H, and Z, we can hardly say that D, V, H, and Z were the determined output of A, or that reality acted like a determined, predictable, mechanical clock.
For example, if we see light in a certainly frequency, it is determined that a normal working brain will "produce" for consciousness the experience of, say, red. The mechanical processes of the brain won't intake light at 620–750 nm and 400–484 THz and output the experience of green or blue, but rather red. Every time. This sure feels like a determined output, though we've yet to supply a reason why the red is red and red alone, we've merely observed that under so and so circumstances, this happens every time.
We are right to wonder what, exactly, is the relationship between A and B. In a temporal sense, A comes before B, and B always followes A (in our red example). The fact that is does work like that does not tell us why. The relationship between A and B gets even trickier when we go a little deeper into mind and consciousness.
Because no one can directly observe consciousness, Type A physicalists have devised a work-around that holds that brain states are identical with experiential states. Identical in this sense means "no difference."
This brain state IS red, as we experience it. Not only that, this brain state is ONLY red. It is NOT blue or pink or green. So to the physicalist, there is a determined, one to one relationship between the experience of red and the brain state believed to produce it. They are identical. We only think there is something going on beyond the objective functioning, when in fact it is all determined causation.
Not so much ...
It is hard if not impossible to imagine that in all of space and time, we are the only sentient beings in the universe. And it is easy to imagine that other beings besides ourselves experience the color red. However it is impossible to imagine that the alien brain that "produced" red was the same as our brain. If another brain by another biological process can produce the experience of red, what happens to our belief that red is no different than a specific human brain state, when in the case of the alien brain, it is altogether different? What happens to our explanation, the one that is causally determined?
And that's just the start of it...
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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eeyonke is obviously not getting what others are - of that we may be sure. Sounds like something Trump would say.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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I'm supposed to be off-grid but I caught this. I better post or come thursday I might not even recall it. Fast times!
mh2 wrote,
The c. elegans nervous system is not a good comparison to most others because it does not produce action potentials and has no voltage-gated ion channels in the cell membrane.
From Cori Bargmann, three days ago...
"C. elegans neurons have action potentials. There. We said it."
https://twitter.com/betenoire1
I'm sure you've heard it before: the devil's in the details.
From Cori Bargmann just today, quoting Larsch...
AWA, my favorite C. elegans neuron, is now a certified spiking gradient climber. Great work by @wormwhisperer0,
the worm whisperer, lol!
https://twitter.com/wormwhisperer0
Since this is first and foremost a climbing site and not a nervous system think tank or neural dynamics think tank or even a basic biology think tank, I'll just leave it there.
The ion channel we're talking about here is a Ca.
...
QT What is that smell?
ANS I don't know, but my Ca and K are off-scale! In all sectors, too! Let's investigate!!
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Zen Master: . . . the arising of any form is not owing to what came before it.
“Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! ‘Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen, and we have a Winner!!’”
Fer Christ’s sake, people. . . . Just Look. You might as well be looking at paint on a wall. It’s right there in front of your faces. Just look.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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It is hard if not impossible to imagine that in all of space and time, we are the only sentient beings in the universe. And it is easy to imagine that other beings besides ourselves experience the color red
https://askabiologist.asu.edu/colors-animals-see
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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the arising of any form is not owing to what came before it.
Maybe. Maybe not.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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The vestiges of ancient and dogmatic "explanations" reside in our conciousness to this day. The shared response to mysterious, cataclysmic events and dark behaviors such as earthquakes, lightning, eclipses, epilepsy and schizophrenia have deeply infected our culture. The symptoms of engrained folklore are as profound to our behaviors as the science that has revealed the process.
We are now down to philosophical paradoxes and mathematical anomalies in the explanation or proof of the non physical. What's clear is that, as much as we are susceptible to entrenchment, we are equally and more importantly prone to overreach. Whether it's in the abuse or suppression of overreach, this is where humans differentiate themselves and innately posses the mechanism for advancement. As we stumble through the maze of reality and steadily expand the horizons of our conciousness, it's the honest descriptions that stand out and accelerate ideas.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2018 - 09:27am PT
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Dingus, that's not the "entire point," but is a reference to a common and long standing argument against identity theory. I gave an example in short hand, rather then diving into the deeper philosophical issues per the philosophy of mind, for which few can be bothered to study.
The issue is summarized as such:
4. Multiple Realizability
In "The Nature of Mental States," Hilary Putnam introduced what is widely considered the most damaging objection to theories of Mind-Brain Type Identity—indeed, the objection which effectively retired such theories from their privileged position in modern debates concerning the relationship between mind and body.
Putnam's argument can be paraphrased as follows: (1) according to the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist (at least post-Armstrong), for every mental state there is a unique physical-chemical state of the brain such that a life-form can be in that mental state if and only if it is in that physical state. (2) It seems quite plausible to hold, as an empirical hypothesis, that physically possible life-forms can be in the same mental state without having brains in the same unique physical-chemical state. (3) Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the Mind-Brain Type Identity theorist is correct.
In support of the second premise above—the so-called "multiple realizability" hypothesis—Putnam raised the following point: we have good reason to suppose that somewhere in the universe—perhaps on earth, perhaps only in scientific theory (or fiction)—there is a physically possible life-form capable of being in mental state X (e.g., capable of feeling pain) without being in physical-chemical brain state Y (that is, without being in the same physical-chemical brain state correlated with pain in mammals). To follow just one line of thought (advanced by Ned Block and Jerry Fodor), assuming that the Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary convergence applies to psychology as well as behavior, "psychological similarities across species may often reflect convergent environmental selection rather than underlying physiological similarities." Other empirically verifiable phenomena, such as the plasticity of the brain, also lend support to Putnam's argument against Type Identity.
Another point worth raising per Dingus, is that our imagination has no limits. We can, in fact, imagine anything. If you don't want to imagine something, that's fine, but it is no fault of your imagination that you choose not to use it for the sake of the thought experiment.
Does the thought experiment "prove" the point. Not even. But it helps bust us out of our normal fixed way of viewing things according to our inherent folk perspectives.
eeyonke is obviously not getting what others are - of that we may be sure.
Sounds like something Trump would say.
If I have this wrong, perhaps explain to the group the difference between a description and an explanation.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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If I have this wrong, perhaps explain to the group the difference between a description and an explanation.
Too strange.
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