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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Apr 22, 2012 - 09:04pm PT
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What, in your opinion, is the qualitative difference between a beehive, an ant farm, and self-consciousness?
I don't have an opinion on or answer to that question.
I don't believe this for a second - that when asked a direct question per the topic that you don't have an opinion. My sense of this is that without qualitative differences given full weight in these discussions, the important aspects of the topic are defaulted out of in lieu - you guessed it, mechanics.
Another question is: Give us an example of something with an "emergent" function or aspect that you consider to be greater than the parts you believe product it.
A beehive. An ant colony.
What is the emergent function in either a beehive and an ant colony, meaning - what is the emergent function, aspect or phenomenon that has little to nothing to do, qualitatively, with bees or ants?
Hint: For example, with consciousness, even if you have no "opinion," it nonetheless is facile to see the qualitative difference between, say, self-awareness, and electro-chemical activity.
JL
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Rankin
Social climber
Greensboro, North Carolina
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Apr 22, 2012 - 10:57pm PT
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Teach the science, as any such class is dependent upon the scientific method, rather than religious conjecture. Allow a critique of evolution, or an alternate theory, if it is based on scientific evidence. The Supreme Court has ruled that states may require the teaching of alternate scientific theories, but has been quite clear that creationism is not a scientific theory.
This is a lovely topic for me since I'm studying for a Con Law final. In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) the Supreme Court ruled that requiring the teaching of creationism along with evolution was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment--that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Aguillard established the Lemon Test for determining whether an Act is an infringement of the Establishment Clause. Though this test is rarely used today, it is still relevant:
The goverment's action:
1) must have a legitimate secular purpose;
2) must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3) must not result in an excessive entanglement with religion
In the Court's analysis in Aguillard, a law requiring creationism in public education is a de facto promotion of religion, because creationism cannot be decoupled from its religious tenets of Biblical monotheism, and as such violates the second and third prong of the Lemon Test. The court also found a violation of the purpose prong despite the law's veiled attempts at innocuous drafting.
While intelligent design has not been addressed at the Supreme Court, it will almost certainly meet the same fate should states try to substitute ID for creationism in their statutory scheme.
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cowpoke
climber
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Apr 23, 2012 - 07:31am PT
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Rankin, fabulous post!!!
I'm skeptical, however, about your point regarding the hypothetical case of substituting ID for creationism. I certainly agree that ID fails all three prongs of the Lemon test, but this is not 1987. The court has changed quite dramatically since then. Reading the three prongs, it seems clear cut, but...I would be worried if your hypothetical became reality.
This jumped out at me looking at the Chicago-Kent College of Law web page on Edwards v. Aguillard, which shows the justices and allows you to sort according to vote: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1986/1986_85_1513
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MH2
climber
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Apr 23, 2012 - 12:05pm PT
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What is the emergent function in either a beehive and an ant colony, meaning - what is the emergent function, aspect or phenomenon that has little to nothing to do, qualitatively, with bees or ants?
I feel I don't understand your question.
Communities of social bees or ants do stuff that individuals of the species couldn't do alone.
I also don't know what you mean when you say that a "top-down dynamic" must be involved when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is all pretty vague.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Apr 23, 2012 - 12:58pm PT
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Communities of social bees or ants do stuff that individuals of the species couldn't do alone.
I also don't know what you mean when you say that a "top-down dynamic" must be involved when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is all pretty vague.
These questions are basically trying to get behind the fundamental logic or reasoning or materialism/physicalism and to show where the model breaks down, or where it can be sustained only though denying or rounding off reality to the material components that are believed to "produce" the emergent
phenomenon.
I have harped on the necessity of honoring the qualitative differences in things because one, they are important, and two, that's how we actually live our lives. And behavior always says things in plain language. We know the qualitative difference between a ripe and rotten tomato and we eat the ripe one. Saying we don't, is absurd, ergo, qualitative differences make a huge difference in our actual lives. If you think differently, eat a rotten tomato. Simple as that.
But getting back on topic: Do you see consciousness or "mind" as being greater than what you believe are the biological and atomic parts that "create" it?
Put differently, can you think of anything on earth, including your spouse, that might be greater than his/her various parts?
Does "life" constitute something greater than the various elements that host/produce it? Is self-awareness more than atomic activity? Or are "life" and "consciousness" merely material "behaviors," like what a bee and an ant do in a colony, ergo the qualitative difference between an ant's physical behavior in an ant farm, and the subjective experience of self-awareness, is precisely zero?
JL
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