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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Ed,
At least with planetary processes, equilibrium is very rarely constant.
Puncuated equilibrium is the norm. Something is in an equilibrium state, gets whacked, flops around for a while and then settles down to another equilibrium state, which may be identical or different from the first state.
You see it all of the time on a macro scale.
As for the entropy argument being used against evolution, it is not valid. First, energy is constantly being moved around on all scales. True, the Universe should eventually wind down and everything will go dark billions of years in the future, but when you apply entropy to a complicated system, it often only matters on a massive time scale.
For instance. Plants grow and reproduce using sunlight. Sure, the sun has a lifespan, but it is in billions of years. Plants might have an annual generation. I eat the plants and can live and reproduce.
With that food, who draws its energy from the sun, I can do work. I can mine and refine materials. I could build a car. I could put gasoline in the tank of the car and drive to South America. The gasoline is just fossil algae that grew and reproduced using sunlight. It was buried to a great enough depth that the temperature from radioactive decay deep in the earth, along with the pressure of overburden, caused that fossil plant life to be converted to oil..and gasoline.
So the sun shines and I can drive to South America.
Now I think that this is pretty f%$king cool.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Largo's has taken the position that is perhaps totally immune to "being wrong"
first he points out that science hasn't the answers to the deep questions he asks (questions as old as human memory)
he then states that a scientist's belief in solving those questions using science is no different than any religious or philosophical belief (channeling the post-modern criticism of science as having no privileged position in the academy)
but that science is obviously a powerful means with which to understand nature, and these particular questions and so it has a lot to provide in answering those questions
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if we take a trip in the wayback machine, it would be fun to fictionalize a pre-genetic-knowledge view of evolution that Largo-like interlocutor might preside over a similar discussion about the "belief" in evolution, which would require a, then unknown, functional element in life that drove heredity
the identification of that biological element, and the understanding of its function, and the very decoding of the information has been a major scientific success in the last 60 years, which provides perhaps the most important element of evolution, and provides the intellectual framework for biology
but before that discovery, the Largo-like critic certainly could argue identically to the Largo we have here... basically: "where's the beef?"
I think it is important to show just where the beef is, and equally important to point out that we don't know, yet...
...taking bets on whether or not we'll find the beef in this particular manner seems like fun, but my criticism of philosophy is that it has been around for a lot longer than science has, and contributed a lot less in the understanding of things around us... and like religion, the domain over which it can claim relevance shrinks, as science's grows... sorry, that's just the way it is...
...and just to circle around, when you know where the beef is, you don't worry about the philosophical or religious basis of that knowledge, you just enjoy the meal... as observed by Feynman.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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You see it all of the time on a macro scale.
we are all familiar with it, we do not have a predictive theory that explains it in most instances.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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I often see people putting forth a false dichotomy. This can easily be logically incorrect.
It is either this or that. Nothing in the middle.
Go-B finds all of his answers in the Bible, so only the Bible is true and anything in conflict is false.
You have to be careful with the false dichotomy. It can be a pretty nasty trick.
You see it in politics all of the time. I am reminded of the time when Obama talked about getting out of Iraq. The Republicans started calling it "Cut and run."
This is a false dichotomy. There is only victory or failure. In reality, the definition of those terms covers some wide ground.
It isn't always wrong. There are situations with only two choices or outcomes.
The slippery slope argument is also a rhetorical no-no.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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I can yack with you for days about geologic processes that follow puncuated equilibrium.
Climate is like that. Earth is all fine. Earth gets whacked by an asteroid that changes many of the prior conditions. Earth then settles down and follows the new condiitons.
It is all over the place.
You can predict it if the system is understood well enough. You know that the Earth is going to get whacked again with an asteroid. Only a matter of time.
An earthquake drops ground level around the New Madrid fault after a big earthquake. Now it is a big lake. Fish live there. The ecosystem changed from plant covered flood plain to a reasonably normal fresh water lake.
I know that you work with lots of very small physicle particles. I look at billions of years of processes. So I am used to it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I also think about cosmology... which is a bit longer process than your geological musings, but being greater than the few thousand year extent of human awareness...
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Please don't think that I am insulting you, Go-B. This is just an example that came to mind, having just read a post.
You aren't hurting anyone, so please carry on.
The really dirty use of the false dichotomy is in politics or silly arguments. You know...
"You are either for it, or you are against it." That is the classic example of a false dichotomy. I am sure that most people here are aware of it.
The problem with these improper uses of logic is that our politicians use them constantly. It really irritates me. It irritates me because most people don't notice it and will believe anything they are told.
Ya gotta go rent the movie, "Idiocracy." It is hilarious, and painfully true.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Musings? This is hard work. Sick hard.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Largo: But just wait.
Again, so what's the problem with just waiting? As pointed out by Ed with his commentary around DNA prior to its discovery and by myself with the question about "...1889 relative to the transistors, jet turbines, and what the surface of Mars was like", that's how it works.
Is it, as Ed seems to think, that philosophers don't really have much to add, or that they just manage to outwit themselves at times. Null is certainly a valid, necessary, and useful concept - I use it every day at work - but it seems almost amusing to see someone trying so hard to get 'there' all the while pronouncing that time and patience is futile as a mechanism for learning anything beyond it.
Besides, even if you are 'righter', you can meditate 24x7 and the very best you're going to do is a fleeting whiff of that particular event horizon. So I wouldn't say avoid the void, but beyond a certain 'point' what's the utility or learning?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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It is chemistry, not philosophy.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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I may have had a little "punctuated equilibrium event" just yesterday. I dunno what it is, but I'm feeling a little extra evolved today. That's the way it is with me. I go months and months with a feeling of statis. Then, I get that unmistakeable feeling of evolving. I argue for evolution from personal experience.
Edit. Turns out it was gas.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Every now and then I like to point out contributors who impress me with their intelligence and writing style. I want to point Healyje as someone in this category.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dear Dr. F.
You know there are alternatives to either/or thinking. You just don't want to engage in them.
This is not surprising since you live in America which pits people against each other and always
declares one winner and one loser at the end. We were all raised on the idea that cut throat
competition makes the best society. Comparing ourselves to other industrialized nations (infant
mortality, education, life span etc.) however, doesn't bear this out. And our dichotomized
political system which demonizes the other side is an even worse example.
Either/or is the problem and we need a new paradigm.
You do love all your cactii don't you, not just one?
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MH2
climber
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You can't have it both ways.
I want know why I am wrong!
It depends on how you look at it. If you are talking about light as wave or particle.
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go-B
climber
Habakkuk 3:19 Sozo
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Either there is a god or not
Bingo!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Fair enough, Dr. F.
Now in keeping with science, I'm going to say that we need
a precise definition of God before we start, so we all know what
we're talking about. Otherwise this discussion is meaningless.
Please define God.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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What's wrong with God set this universe in motion at the big bang and let it evolve
from there (an educated western approach)? Or that God and the universe are
intertwined as intelligent matter (an educated eastern approach) or some kind of
western implicate order or holographic paradigm?
And what about the Zen concept of the "don't know mind"?
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Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
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I left this thread 400 posts ago and not one thing has changed. Props to all of you who have stuck it out here fighting the good fight. Don't quit now I think your about to get your point across.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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And what about the Zen concept of the "don't know mind"?
This is the part that Ed is missing. "Right" is a game of providing material evidence for material things of processes.
I've said it before: "Knowledge availed us nothing."
This is, knowledge about "things."
Ed makes a case for the frivolity of philosophy which has been "corrected" by measuring. In fact measuring has provided a massive amount of knowledge about objective functioning. But the fundamental, existential questions about what is is to be a human being involve questions that quantifying have not gone one step in sorting out - unless you are satisfied with objective functioning alone to answer your questions. Many have cried existential Uncle and have declared that since quantifying can provide the only real answers, everything else in simply mnot worht pursuing, since there is no "beef" in anything but measuring.
If you only knew . . .
JL
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nothing wrong with physics and it fits quite well with the notions of God that I mentioned.
Both that kind of God and physics involve speculation about possibilities -
a long way from a god who was described once and for all a few thousand years ago.
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