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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the confusion is the meaning of "design" as a verb and as a noun.
as a noun, if referring to the "plan" of the organism, I don't have any issues.
as a verb I have issues. The issue is the confusion of the process as "designing," and in particular, where stochastic processes are involved and various physical principles invoked, the ultimate configuration of the system isn't "designed," it simply meets the physical constraints.
for instance, we don't refer to process by which the state of a gas in a volume in equilibrium having progressed from a state of non-equilibrium as having been "designed."
equally, the production of proteins in a metabolic network, as governed by the genotype and subject to a chemical environment with an overall constraint (e.g. to conserve the "mass" of the system) is not the process of "designing"
the adaptive evolution of a genotype to provide an advantageous phenotype is not a process of "designing" rather the response of a physical system to external conditions subject to physical constraints.
It has become quite popular to refer to "evolutionary design," to adopt the principles to finding solutions to engineering problems in systems with a complex optimization landscape (simulated annealing, and a variety of "evolutionary" programming concepts). Ultimately, however, the chemical reactions that have evolved into "life" as we know it is the result of physical principle, not the result of some designing process.
The distinction may be too subtle, but I think it's important.
It is exactly the opposite of the accusation of being a dupe to some abrahamic religion.
It does embrace the idea that while our science points us in a particular direction with a clearly defined endpoint (the physical description of life) we still do not know what the path will be as many details (important to completing that path) are still not understood.
Admitting to that is a requirement of scientific integrity.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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we still do not know what the path will be as many details (important to completing that path) are still not understood... Admitting to that is a requirement of scientific integrity.
and who doesn't agree here?
You know, you had an opportunity to clean up your mess of last week and yesterday and you more or less dodged it. :(
.....
the confusion is the meaning of "design" as a verb and as a noun.
So quibbles aside (with which I could go on) at base it's a languaging issue (no doubt exaggerated by the mixed company we're keeping) - my understanding all along. Thus, you could've opened with such a statement last week or yesterday instead of the more supercilious if not anal-retentive putdown with which you did.
Maybe responding to a fellow scientist requires a different approach than the usual one to Largo or his lapdog?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2014 - 11:31am PT
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Ed, what I meant is that discursive or focused thinking creates a train of thought or a string and this usually works toward a deliberate goal or solution or answer. Once the focus goes lax, our cognition still functions, but it is not linear or discursive, per se, thought information is still being processed unconsciously. There are a million gradations from a focused discursive thought train to unfocused unconscious processing though in our normal usage, "thinking" is usually a matter of "thinking about that." Meaning it has an intentional object or goal in mind. Of course this by no means exhausts the way that thought itself can work or does work, so perhaps what we are really talking abut here is discursive/intentional thinking as opposed to the vast array of open focused cognition that goes on in our minds.
And Bruce and Ward, let me clarify. What the man was saying is that we have SEPARATE selves that experience past and present. He does understand that our psychological makeup is comprised of a panoply of subpersonalities or "selves," and this is a great start. But his understanding of those selves and how they operate and what is involved is a subject that has been worked on for MANY years by entire psychological schools, such as Voice Dialogue, and the new Sufi movements, and there is no evidence whatsoever in any of these studies that our primary selves are divided by temporal (past and present) factors, rather we have a panoply of I's" or selves that experience reality across past, present and future. We have arrested selves and so forth, which are frozen in time. But selves that specifically experience ONLY the past, present, and future - this is not a model that holds water with people who specifically and professionally work with sub personalities.
For anyone wanting to look at a very comprehensive explanation of selves or sub-personalities, check out Delos.com, which I believe is the Voice Dialogue web page. Hal Stone is an excellent psychologist, formally a Jungian and on the Calf. Board of Examiners for psychology, so has has not only academic bonfides, but plenty of experiential work to back up his work.
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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sorry to disappoint, but I have been busy, and I don't respond off the top of my head but actually like to sit and think and do a little reading, especially on topics that are not directly related to my expertise.
and especially so as not to add to the confusion.
I also don't like to engage in invective posting where I accuse those who don't hold my same viewpoint as "ignorant" or "being quite eccentric" in their beliefs or many of the various rhetorical techniques to "win" a debating point.
Instead I try to use these discussions to examine what I think I understand, and better explain it.
I agree that I have a very different idea of "truth" in science than many scientists. I suggest you examine what you mean by that from a scientific point of view. You might find that some of your more strident complaints are a result of you beliefs, rather than a rationally thought through understanding.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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...perhaps what we are really talking abut here is discursive/intentional thinking as opposed to the vast array of open focused cognition that goes on in our minds.
my experience is that this "vast array of open focused cognition that goes on in our minds" comes from "the space between thoughts" which is you domain of "no-where." Which makes that interpretation problematic (no pun intended).
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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On second thought, I'm just not going to let you off the hook so easily,
for instance, we don't refer to process by which the state of a gas in a volume in equilibrium having progressed from a state of non-equilibrium as having been "designed."
because it doesn't function (carry out a process) in biosis. When we're talking biology, the language often needs to change.
as a verb I have issues. The issue is the confusion of the process as "designing," and in particular, where stochastic processes are involved and various physical principles invoked, the ultimate configuration of the system isn't "designed," it simply meets the physical constraints.
There really is no need here to talk in such a convoluted (if not high brow) way because it is such a simple issue.
Again, I think it telegraphs your confusion at least at some level, or levels, in evolution science.
You don't clarify with such language, you obfuscate.
Read those books!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2014 - 11:35am PT
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I actually like the back and forth barbing that goes on between people on this thread and I know I deserve to be roasted here and there and enjoy doing the same in the spirit of fun and laughs. But when I do bear down on something I am generally not guessing.
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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"...plants with seeds that were poorly designed aerodynamically may have been wind pollinated less frequently than plants with streamlined seeds and so left behind..."
Here "left behind" would imply, end of species. A failure of that design to work in a specific environment. But that doesn't necessarily mean the less aerodynamic seed didn't propagate elsewhere. And the streamlined seeds didn't.
does evolution teach that a specific species "arose" multiple times at multiple places throughout the world in the same certain environmental circumstances.
or, did a certain species arise in one spot, then spread it's population throughout the world?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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No, when I speak of scientific "truths" or "scientific truths" it's in exactly the same vein that the bulk of scientists (Hawkins, Weinberg) and science communicators (Bill Nye, Tyson) do. You are the eccentric one in this matter and here I think it's being carried over to your "design" and "purpose" issues.
I agree that I have a very different idea of "truth" in science than many scientists. I suggest you examine what you mean by that from a scientific point of view. You might find that some of your more strident complaints are a result of you beliefs, rather than a rationally thought through understanding.
Again, it's a simple thing. Per example...
(v1) The "scientific truth" is that Titan and Triton do not have the diversity of lifeforms that the third planet from the sun does.
(v2) The scientific "truth" is that there are four chambers to the human heart, not six or eight.
(v3) The scientific "truth" is that E=IR, not I=ER.
Yet you have a problem with it. Scientific "truth" in this regard. Apparently.
And so it goes with "belief" as well. Apparently.
Hell, at this point we might as well blow the walls off and ask, Do you also have an issue with the word "machine" or "machinery" when used in biology context in a statement such as... (a) the cellular machinery of life, from ribosome to mitochondria to endoplasmic reticula to glycolysis and electron chain transport; (b) the replication machinery or the transduction/translation machinery; (c) the pulmonary machinery; (d) the actin-myosin machinery of the muscle cell, etc.
No wonder there's so much confusion. Perhaps 100 years from now it will sort out some. Perhaps.
.....
Lastly you might be underestimating things - food for thought - if you don't think most science minds understand at bottom that truth as revealed by science is provisional. Of course it is. But that hardly means it's proper to eschew the word, in or out of science circles, so useful as it is. (If, in case, this is your grounds for avoiding it.)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Which has led many (particularly those on the leading edge of these subjects) to start using the phrase "poverty of language" in their conversations to help describe this shortcoming/frustration.
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MH2
climber
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I will admit I laugh at what my own subconscious has thrown up as solutions to problems from time to time: Flapdoodle & garbage. (jgill)
That's what you get for turning your attention to such a far-from-the-tree topic as mathematics when your brain wants to be thinking about how to find the antelope and avoid the lion.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Ultimately, however, the chemical reactions that have evolved into "life" as we know it is the result of physical principle, not the result of some designing process.
very good, then wouldn't "being a result of physical principle" become a designer of some sort?
Was it by chance that Matter,water,light,motion,laws of nature,physical principles,etc. all got thrown together to become an happenstance for life?
OR
Why not a model by design to perpetuate into a global incubating greenhouse for life to evolve? Another words, by putting the ingredients together to arrive at a specific designed outcome. But in our case He is still designing, which makes it a verb.
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MH2
climber
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The later [unconscious info processing] is what our brains do. The former [narrow focusing] is what WE do (JL).
Where is the line between unconscious info processing and narrow focusing? Couldn't unconscious processing be narrowly focused? This WE you mention sounds like a little man or men in your head looking at the result of the info processing.
Could an "I" exist if it were not and never had been exposed to information processing?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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I got distracted (perhaps by Lapdog's racist remark) but I wanted to finish this up... equally, the production of proteins ... not the process of "designing"... not a process of "designing" ...
... the chemical reactions that have evolved into "life" as we know it ... not the result of some designing process.
It is (on all three counts) if you widen your thinking to include Darwinian "designing" process (contrast: intelligent designing process, purposeful designing process, human or supernatural designing process) - just as evolutionary scientists do.
Don't like to leave strings untied.
Good luck.
.....
A child knocks on your door, perhaps having heard you're a scientist and also an evolutionist. She points out to you a bird with a broken wing on the walkway in front of your house and the two of you go and investigate. In the course of this, you two talk about the wings of birds, their shapes, comparative anatomy and function, usefulness in escaping cats and such; maybe even a little about their history in evolutionary terms. Now if the conversation happened to take the right turn, would you really tell her the wings of birds have no "purpose" or "design" or "reason" to their being? instead that they are "merely" the entropic, stochastic, cumulative effects of thermodynamic processes cascading down (evolving) over a very, very long time?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Do you also have an issue with the word "machine" or "machinery" when used in biology context
i don't. As a matter of fact i argued this fact with Ed a few years ago. i called any life without an eyeball a machine, and asked him to show me "Life" in any plant. His response was 1. That plants reproduce, generates seeds. Thus perpetuating the the design inherent inside the gene to further that plants "work"in it's specified environment. "Life"
Wiki's def on "seed";
The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors.
So's how come the Earth couldn't be considered a "seed" with an inherent design?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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BB,
I offer the eye as an example. There are several different types of eyes among animals, and the same type of eye has evolved independently more than once. There are only so many functional types of eyes given the most useful part of the EM spectrum on Earth.
I was reading this the other day.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dumb-ass god if you ask me.
You don't know the story very well?
God gave Lucifer His word of honor that once He set the Universe into motion He would sit down and not interfere with said motion of time.That He would allow in Trust that His children would seek out His Face through Love and Truth! The Earth is spinning at this time for us to witness His Majesty and call on Him by name. We must praise His Glory and worship on bended knee, Now! Or forever be without..
It IS ALL by Smart-ass Design!
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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I was reading this the other day.
i read the other day that ALL the DNA makeup for ALL life that ever existed on this planet fits in a teaspoon.
Now if "Evolution" in the regards that We ALL grew from one single life form. Plants to animals, animals to man, The Tree of Life is how they put it? Shouldn't the Lion be carrying around ALL the DNA or Genetic make-up it took for him to get to be a Lion? If so, if one of his attributes(say, seeing in the dark) was no longer needed in this country(because he's in a zoo and no longer needs to hunt at night), compared to that lion in Africa who sleeps all day. Who's to say over generations living in that zoo he couldn't grow different eyes? Maybe by pulling them up from his genetic memory?
Norton used to say that we all had tails. Well if we did and its dormant in our DNA. It should be a seed that with cultivation should be able to grow again? Same with wings or Eagle eyes. i suspect that when science is provoked enough they will find a pill that will cause a tail to grow in a week..
That said. i'd like to know specifically which animals eyes you were referring to?
Remember God saying, everything in man's imagination will come to pass?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2014 - 04:44pm PT
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Bruce, I think it is important to differentiate between objective functioning and sentience. Doing so might seem like splitting hairs, till you are faced with what my friends faced when having to approach the task of writing code for sentience per AI projects. As mentioned, writing code for objective functioning like memory and so forth are pretty stranghtforward in a conceptual way, but sentience is a totally different animal. DK is making great progress per objective functioning. But if by "mind" you mean sentience, he is really not addressing that aspect at all, at least not in a way that will help those who need a tangible break down to start writing that code. Of course there is nothing wrong with working with biology and trying to project forward into selves and so forth, but at the meta level where this stuff occurs, other modes in inquiry are indicated. Freud knew as much over a century ago, and so did Liebnitz long before.
And MH2, all you have to do to keep clear on discursive thinking is to remember that it can only happen when we are narrow focused on something because word/symbol generation does not occur in real time with that narrow focus. No exceptions. Once our focus opens up we can still think, but not in the focused, linear way we can when we're intentionally paying attention to a train of thought and are consciously working toward a desired result, be it a sonnet or an equation.
So far as there appearing to be a "we" or little man observing - this is an illusion and has been worked over endlessly in the Cartesian Theater discussions. Just little bit of quiet self-observation discloses that there is no such little man, there is only observing.
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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He does understand that our psychological makeup is comprised of a panoply of subpersonalities or "selves," and this is a great start.
Forgive me. So there is multiple little men talking? If so, my statement was referring to the one making the decisions.
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