This time, ami has a point....

[stephen55]

On this flipside, it’s important to remember that just like there are Buddhas and Jesuses and then there are Shirley MacLaines, the world of science too has its heroes but also its snake oil salesmen and their followers. There’s rarely cause to warn against physicists, certainly not as long as they stay in their field (and not blow up anything ), but social sciences are a more fertile terrain for a new priestly class. Piggybacking on the general prestige of science and technology, methods that resemble theirs sell books and win arguments even when they have fuck all to do with science. In everyday parlance, “scientists say” sometimes adopts an eerie resemblance to “scripture says.”

A few posts back, I did say that the natural sciences are the study of reality. Biology, chemistry and physics have a fairly good anti-error and correction system built right in. Even when those two chemists thought they had observed cold fusion back in 1989 it quickly became clear that no one could reproduce their results. I have no doubt that the two guys genuinely believed they were onto something and that there was no attempt at fraud.

Others had a very close look and realized that there were some unaccounted sources of experimental error and that what was being observed did not contain any newly created nuclear reaction byproducts.

The lesson was that, before announcing extraordinary claims, make sure you have extraordinary evidence, as opposed to no evidence at all.

The Piltdown Man hoax was a classic lesson in separating the wheat from the chaff. The perpetrators caused quite a fuss in archeology and anthropology when they announced their finding of a "missing link" between modern man and ancestral ape, found in a gravel pit in England. (It was a modern human skull, matched to the jaw of a modern orangutan, that had been chemically stained to look very old. Also, they did a bit of creative dental work on the teeth so that they wouldn't look so "orangutanish".

Then they made several plaster copies of their handiwork and locked the original fraud away. They presented...ta-daa!! the plaster copies and from the word go, refused to let anyone see the original.

Those in the know (genuine archeologists and anthropologists) saw it as the fraud that it was immediately but the press went wild and England now had some humanoid fossils.

Within months, there were published reports of experts looking at the copies and saying, "Gee...looks an awful lot like a modern human skull and the jaw of an orangutan." The press, knowing a good story when they had one, somehow ignored the expert opinion. Finally, in the 1950's, the original skull was tested and chemical analysis proved the fraud. Of course, the press announced that all those boffins had been fooled for forty years. Announcing that the boffins had seen through the fraud right from the beginning doesn't sell. That a lot of people bought into the fraud, including some scientists, doesn't change the fact that because it wasn't a scientific result (no real data) it never was science.

When someone makes an extraordinary claim and won't even let you see it...move on. It's kind of like psychic surgeons in the Philippines who perform in front of an audience sitting well back and damn...ever time those hands "go inside the body" there's a drape in the way. And Sri Sathya Sai Baba, who consistently refused to produce coins out of thin air under close scrutiny because he felt it was an insult to his cosmic honesty. Ditto for the Transcendental Meditation types who claim to be able to levitate and fly around the room, but no, you can't watch because you're not a true believer.

Don't get me going on the New Age and particularly the Postmodern intellectual abuse of science and math in the social sciences. It's nicely summed up in a book Fashionable Nonsense, by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont. Sokal also wrote a book called After the Hoax.

The hoax was an essay written by Sokal (a professor of physics at New York University) after he got a little tired of certain "Pre" and Postmodern social science types (Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour and others) abusing math and science. They would do this by making outrageously false statements, dropping scientific terms into their work with absolutely no justification (or understanding), creating baffle-gab math and science to bolster their pet theories and generally doing what used to get students laughed at (or expelled) but would get these types jobs as department heads.

In 1996 he sent his essay to Social Text a trendy American cultural studies journal, which published it a special edition containing rebuttals to scientists criticisms of postmodernism and social constructionism (whatever that is). It was titled...

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" which should have been the first clue.

It was chockablock full of delightful bits such as the tomato in the introduction when he states he intends to deride "the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook''

He goes on to bemoan the fact that unenlightened physicists believe that "there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the "objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method."

He then proceeds for 39 pages to tear apart physics and math, replacing it with Postmodern psychobabble such as...

..."Clearly, quantum gravity is in this respect an archetypal postmodernist science."

..."We can see hints of it in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory; but this approach is still heavily marked by its origins in the crisis of late-capitalist production relations."

...Thus, a liberatory science cannot be complete without a profound revision of the canon of mathematics."

..."I think, that the victory of cybernetics over quantum physics in the 1940's and 50's can be explained in large part by the centrality of cybernetics to the ongoing capitalist drive for automation of industrial production, compared to the marginal industrial relevance of quantum mechanics."

..."However, I cannot agree with Argyros' conclusion that Derridean deconstruction is therefore inapplicable to the hermeneutics of early-universe cosmology: Argyros' argument to this effect is based on an impermissibly totalizing use of special relativity (in technical terms, "light-cone coordinates'') in a context where general relativity is inescapable."

..."While this observation is informed primarily by chaos theory -- and secondarily by nonrelativistic quantum mechanics -- it in fact summarizes beautifully the radical challenge to modernist metaphysics posed by quantum gravity."

..."liberal (and even some socialist) mathematicians are often content to work within the hegemonic Zermelo-Fraenkel framework (which, reflecting its nineteenth-century liberal origins, already incorporates the axiom of equality) supplemented only by the axiom of choice. But this framework is grossly insufficient for a liberatory mathematics, as was proven long ago by Cohen (1966).

And my personal favorite...

..."However, these criteria, admirable as they are, are insufficient for a liberatory postmodern science: they liberate human beings from the tyranny of "absolute truth'' and "objective reality'', but not necessarily from the tyranny of other human beings. In Andrew Ross' words, we need a science "that will be publicly answerable and of some service to progressive interests.''"

The journal took it all at face value and by publishing, shot themselves in the foot. Even the crappola title didn't sound any warning bells. I guess the editors of the journal were so used to this kind of psychobabble and gobbledygook that they didn't think to pick up the phone, call a physicist and say, "Hey, let me run something by you."

If you want to read it all...

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

 

[lustatopia]

"there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal'' physical laws."

Prove it, Stephen.

Just to play the devil's advocacy for a moment. I certainly believe there is an external world independent of humans. But we know belief isn't science, right? I don't know how it can be proved. Plenty of second hand evidence about. Can stick my head out the window. Yup, sure does look like an external world with eternal physical laws out there.

But is that science? Or just another faith?

Stephen, you seem to like your science hard and you don't recognize other kinds of knowledge outside science as valid. (Correct me if I am reading too much into your words there.)

So please provide us with a logical proof that ""there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal'' physical laws."

A mathematical one would be even better, of course. But a language based logical proof would really make my day.

 

[stephen55]

Prove it, Stephen.

...whoosh...

 

[Stella_Omega]

...whoosh...

Or as we like to say;

Oh, for crissake.

 

[Verdad]

Forgive me for reading in the extremely common motive for those types of comments, which tends to be pro-mysticism, anti-science. I don't know where you're living that you aren't overwhelmed with credulous superstitious, sheep... but i would love to move there!

You only need to smash the TV and put multiple locks on your door.

...whoosh...

Dunno. If he asked me that, I’d sharpen a pencil and prepare for some hard work.

In fact, almost all human knowledge is unscientific. For instance, this debate isn’t a way of knowing that conforms with the scientific method, yet one could argue that something is happening here that looks very much like the formation, gathering or exchange of knowledge.

I’ve tried to show that the definition of science is all about the method of science. Any human cognitive activity outside the narrow bounds of a scientific inquiry process is simply not hard science. Talking about “believing” in the outcomes of science is in fact, deeply unscientific, yet how else can lay people talk about science? Btw, everyone is a layperson outside their field of expertise.

Every thing that we know that was not directly derived from the application of the scientific method to an issue is un-scientifically acquired knowledge. And almost everything we know falls into this category of knowledge. Every day we gather and use knowledge in useful ways that are utterly unscientific, but are none the less more functionally efficient (and sometimes more accurate) than any scientific study could possibly be. A mother shopping for the week’s groceries with a kid in tow doing price comparisons and mental calculating the week’s meals while under time constraints is using a life time accumulation of knowledge, very little of which is scientifically derived.

Science can’t even begin to explain how the great masterpieces of human art, music and literature were created, much less how to reliable instruct machine or human to create new masterpieces of art. Yet who among us can claim that the great works of art, although ultimately subjective ways of knowing, aren’t among humanity’s greatest achievements in the realm of cognition?

These are wonderful points because they go to the heart of the matter. It seems to me that in our attachment to the dichotomy of religion and science, science gets so swollen that in our minds it gobbles up the entire territory of reasonable human activity, while religion gets stuck with a tiny domain of bizarre beliefs and wacky practices. When you divide it up like that, it’s really a no brainer to choose. Yet it’s false to divide it up like that, and the thing that needs to be saved from it isn’t merely religion. Although I’m even willing to argue for religions' good sides, that alone wouldn’t give me enough motivation. What needs to be saved is science itself, and most important, everything ‘in between’—which is to say, the biggest chunk of life.

 

[Verdad]

The hoax was an essay written by Sokal (a professor of physics at New York University) after he got a little tired of certain "Pre" and Postmodern social science types (Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour and others) abusing math and science. They would do this by making outrageously false statements, dropping scientific terms into their work with absolutely no justification (or understanding), creating baffle-gab math and science to bolster their pet theories and generally doing what used to get students laughed at (or expelled) but would get these types jobs as department heads.

In 1996 he sent his essay to Social Text a trendy American cultural studies journal, which published it a special edition containing rebuttals to scientists criticisms of postmodernism and social constructionism (whatever that is). It was titled...

"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" which should have been the first clue.

Laughing! I know that story. Check this online pomo generator—by simply clicking, you too can create preposterous sounding gobbledygook.

I still have to point out two things, though. 1) Marx said of himself “All I know is I’m not a Marxist.” The same could be said of most original thinkers—you can’t blame them for every bit of chaff that follows in their wake. Postmodernism had/has important things to teach us, and most of us accept some of its ideas without even realizing they’re ‘postmodernist.’ As with materialism, it’s a kind of fish in the water thing. If it also made every local critic write like Derrida, it just goes to remind you that you have to look at the substance, if any; mere appearance of the words “always already” doesn’t guarantee it’s bullshit.

2) I’ve read a bit of Lacan and Kristeva, of the ones mentioned, but didn’t have patience for Saussure, Barthes, the structuralist/post-structuralist debate and such. However, they were doing philosophy, psychotherapy, art criticism, etc, so whatever one thinks of their contribution, it’s not really fair to say they abused science.

Which brings me to the other hoaxes you mention. As you correctly point out, the great thing with science is that it has inbuilt mechanisms of control and the hoaxes don’t last long. However, that works best on the level of scientific results. They will be checked and rechecked, but both abuses and unwitting blindness occur on other levels: Later, in interpretation, and before, in the very choice of questions to ask. The level of paradigm, not that of individual result, is shakier than you seem to want to think.

Additionally, there’s a spillage of the paradigm into the areas where it doesn’t belong, like when we try to quantify art or lovemaking.

 

[amicus]

]Let's see...

I looked up the mass of the moon and it's mean orbital velocity, figured out it's mean orbital momentum...and for that I'm bitter? Here I was simply thinking that the idea of someone altering said momentum sounds kind of muddle headed.

Ami, you like to post broad accolades to human ingenuity. Go for it. We do have a wonderful ingenuity. But there are some things, such as altering the orbit of the moon, that are beyond our ability and for starters...why the hell would we try?

The moon is receding from the earth at the rate of about one centimeter per year. That isn't hurting anyone and it shouldn't bother you.

And would you get off with the idea that I don't respect individual life? Why do you think I went into medicine in the first place? If you're still on about Baby Joseph Maraachli, think about this. The poor kid is terminal. That's not going to change. I feel for the parents. I really do, but I don't see the point of prolonging the life of a child in a persistent vegetative state, who is dying by inches.

Priests For Life figured that it would cost about $150,000 to keep the boy in paediatric intensive care for seven to ten days following his surgery (all of which they expect someone else to pay). The procedure took place on Mar. 21. It's now Apr. 21 and he's still there, still vegetative and I haven't heard a peep from the good priests. The bill is likely up to half a million and counting.

If said priests were serious about saving lives, they could give the half million to an organization like Village Outreach and save 500 lives, all of whom could then live healthy, productive lives. Quietly and effectively saving 500 lives doesn't garner press headlines and get time on TV from the talking heads, but...damn...now I understand why the good priests are putting someone else's half a million into a terminally ill, vegetative boy.


http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=...FlockInc.:en-US:official&tbm=isch&um=1&itbs=1

So Ami, what would you have done? Given 500 children a chance at a long and healthy live, or given one terminally ill, comatose boy the chance to be terminally ill and comatose for a few more months?

Behind the press headlines and the talking heads there are real children dying every day due to lack of immunization, infectious disease, lack of clean drinking water, famine, war and all the other causes of infant and child mortality in this world. Some of us think they deserve a better chance. Some of us think there are reasons to allocate money in a way that does real good. We think all of those individual children are of value.

Do you?[/[/I]QUOTE]

~~~

There is an advertisement for Cancer Care Center, that has been running for several months now. It concerns a middle aged lady who was told she had cancer and two months to live and that she should prepare for death, sit back and wait for it.

I don't believe most of what they say, nor do I think they have any special method of treatment...with one exception, the personal, individual perspective.

Stephen, your 'practical', cost/benefit ratio, is logical as hell and just as cold as outer space, and you just don't see it, or get it...

The children of Africa and for the most part of Asian, could be helped if an American style, free enterprise system were to be imposed where human dignity and individual import were primary goals. All the tremendous efforts of charitable concerns to even supplying netting to prevent malaria from mosquito bites goes to waste as the collectivist, tribal, socialist, command governments consume the bulk of foreign aid to the needy.

It is an magnificent, grandiose humanitarian gesture for civilized western nations to devote time, energy and resources to save those 500 needy children, but it is a wasted effort until we can bring western civilization and the concept of individual human rights to those backwards nations, and I include Canada, because you, if your are representative of that nation, just don't understand the primacy of the individual human life.

This Joseph kid, may or may not survive, he may or may not add to the accumulation ofhuman knowledge about medical problems...but...what if he does? What if, by extending his life, science learns how to deal with his malady?

Not guaranteed, not at all, but is that not how discoveries are made?

Your anedotal shit may fly with some; but to me, it indicates a lack of common humanity that I would like to think exists in every human being. Apparently,you and your cohorts were passed by when when the great green guru of heaven passed out human characteristics.

It may be apparent that I don't think much of Canada, subservient to the Queen of England, clustered in a dozen socialistic cities, some of them by the froggy French, partially under Sharia Law, with the government owning all your natural resources and doling out the income from your shale oil fields and your diamond mines and timber quota's.

Pure, your compatriot, Oggbashan in England, Liar in the conquered Low Countries; all of you seem to have a lack of individual identity and turn to the Nanny State to tell you how to sip your Pablum.

America is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...if we have to move the fucking Moon to survive, bet me, we will..

Amicus Veritas

 

[amicus]

Space and time are relative but not illusive. Unlike the tree falling in the forrest, we can be fairly certain that space and time exist whether we consciously perceive them or not. However, it appears that space and time are almost interchangeable, so perhaps you mean that our perception of any distinction is an illusion?

Here is one that will drive Ami and others crazy:
All of science is based on at least two articles of abject faith that are neither provable nor falsifiable. (Anything that cannot be falsified or proven must be taken strictly on faith)

1) No matter how many times an experiment produces the same result as last time, there is no certainty that the result will be the same next time. It is handy and practical to assume on faith that the next result will be the same, but no matter how many times the test is performed, there is always an uncertain next time.

2) Just because an experiment produces a certain result here, how do I know it will produce the same result over there? Unless an experiment is repeated everywhere, I must assume based on faith alone that the experiment does not change based on location. We already believe that observable physical effects vary in extreme environments like particle accelerators, big bangs, at event horizons, etc.

I am a scientist. Scientists can't KNOW very much at all. Science is based on faith! The only real distinction between science and other "faiths" is that science relishes skepticism, and to the practitioners, the value of the scientific faith is directly proportional to the practical benefits it yields.

Many other faiths may provide some practical benefits too, but science has a track record that is hard to beat.[/QUOTE]

~~~

For Square John and Marlow Bunny...hey...

We dug up the bones and kept the records from Ape to Man, (in loose terms), over time, which led to humanity assigning names to things we observed and concepts we abstracted....gimme a fucking break, eh?

Mankind has done his best, with the continual detraction of the female, to determine WTF is going on in our little corner of existence.

Those erudite conclusions about the nature of our universe, made by .0000000001 percent of all living humans, (those with an intellect), have proven to be, surprisingly accurate, have they not?

How fucking dare you denigrate the efficacy of the human mind to define the reality in which we exist? What the fuck are you hoping for? Some grey bearded supernatural creature who knows all and tells nothing? An Utopian, Garden of Eden, Socialist Paradise in which you are guaranteed all and given nothing?

Grow the fuck up!

Amicus

 

[amicus]

At the risk of confusing the issue, I think the first question must be whether the universe - and therefore our existence - is deterministic. That is to say... do we operate as free agents in possession of free will?

To be free agents our "minds" must be largely, maybe totally, independent from our "bodies." It's a long story, but basically if we are simply Pavlovically responding to hormones, environmental influences and genetics then we don't have the ability to choose between various options that existence offers us, we can only react biomechanically to stimuli.

Likewise, if the whole universe is deterministic, that is if the first atom bumped into the second and forced it into the third and so on down the line so that if some super being was to possess every physical measurement it could determine the future a billion years hence, then we have no free will either. (Any neither would the super being, for that matter.)

Before one decides if we live in a deterministic universe or indeed have free will consider that either way we clearly possess the "illusion" of free will due to the nature of time which seems to us to travel only in a single direction. Causality and the the laws of thermodynamics combine to reinforce the feeling that we control our destiny whether or not we do.

If we have no free will then there can be no morality and it would be fine for us to collectivize and become like an insect society beholden to a hive mind. Communism would be therefore completely rational.

However, if we are independent agents capable of freely choosing (creating even) our own destiny then any variety of collectivism is the ultimate crime against humanity.

~~~~

Hello, Lustatopia, interesting mind bender, best served with alcohol....

Some Sea Birds pick up shelled critters, fly up and drop them on rocks....some birds build nests in certain ways that indicate free will, some Sea Critters cooperate to round up schools of fish for lunch... wolves and hyenas hunt in packs, some mammal 'herd the wagons', to protect against predators...

It is a fascinating study between instinct, learned behavior and free will, but to question the nature, the absolute, proven nature, of homo sapiens, is not a productive avenue of research.

I make no effort to account for the one percent of humanity that is criminal in nature; take your pick of the theories, low intellect and Negroid offer the best answers, but....?

I perceive 'free will' as a choice, among those above the average intelligence quotient, but not only as choice, but of focus and intent and dedication. Even a 185 IQ professor might pick up a hundred dollar bill lying on a sidewalk....smiles...

It is a wonderfully complex equation, the highly intellectual Uni-Bomber, the PH.d, Castro, the poorly educated Edison or Bell...all things considered, it boils down to genetics and the individual and his own personal ambition....humanity, to paraphrase Heinlein, is a 'crapshoot', at best, and, Democrats at worst....

der amicus...

 

[amicus]

In various posts in this thread I've tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully to convince ami that science doesn't deal with absolute truths and certainties. I'm not sure if he truly understands that it doesn't but keeps saying it does just to get me riled, or if he truly doesn't understand.

He'll never change his mind because of anything I write, so I'll toss in one more quote from physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman...

“If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.”[/COLOR]

~~~

You continue name dropping, as if it were of import or relevance, what was the Peace Prize Obama was granted?

The scientific process is to stipulate a theory and the prove or disprove it. If it is proved, and survives the challenges and the reality and the proof, it becomes fact, and, omg, truth!

And from that truth, simple as it may be, that A is A, or Euclidian Geomety, or the diameter and circumferance of the Earth, all future truths and absolutes are derived.

Somewhere along the line, Stephen became addicted to theoretical mathematicians and subjective philosophers, that convinced him that reality doesn't actually exist, it is all a matter of subjective perceptions.

Under subjectivism, squarejohn can have his God, the next fellow can have his uncertainty principle and all you pointy headed assholes can fuck with the mind of the general public as if you had some gravitas in the intellectual world, when in fact you are nothing more than afficionado's of modern art...totally meaningless...

Amicus

 

[amicus]

After reading this thread I think we should all calm down and admit that there is more than one kind of knowledge available to humanity.

Obviously, in our modern technological society Kuhn and Popper-style rational scientific inquiry based upon the transparent exchange of data and method and the falsifiable proposition (hypothesis formation) is our dominant means of achieving "knowledge" today.

But the modern scientific method as developed since The Enlightenment is actually only relevant to a very narrow sphere of inquiry into physically verifiable existence. Only because we are living in a highly technological, consumer-based society encased and supported by our manufactured environments and devices do we imagine that science is the primary way to know anything.

For time immemorial the human species lived as hunter gatherers in direct naked contact with full force of mysterious nature. For our ancestors the myriad ways of knowing often had little to do with rational inquiry into and modeling of nature. They relied heavily upon genetic memory, traditional knowledge, dreamtime experiences, various shamanistic techniques of consciousness altering, intuition and always a mental cosmic map of reality superimposed upon the environment around them which allowed them to see the numinous nature of the world long lost to us as we attempt (but must ultimately always fail) to be objective.

Perhaps being able to literally see the numinous or experience dreams as problem solving isn't going to provide engineers clues to how to build a better Ford, but when big science is stretched to its very limits as it is today in cosmology then at some point the realm of the transcendental and mythopoeic are crossed over into and empiricism loses its validity.

All human beings are hardwired to function best within a holistic cosmological mythology. And by myth, I don't mean a "lie" but a self-consistent working (and therefore useful) model of reality, and not just the physical empirical reality we can see and touch, but the spiritual as well.

All human mythological traditions, by definition, must answer these most primal human questions:

Who are we? Why are we here? What should we do? How should we do it? And finally whence did we come and where are we going?

Ask any clever adult hominid being from the last 700,000 years of our history these questions and he or she will have a cogent working knowledge of these essential issues and provide you with an answer. Yet scientific materialism as a working way of knowledge has only existed for about the last 350 years. And even today, modern science can only in the most vague and unsatisfying ways answer the primal need of humanity to know who, why, what, how, whence and where of existence.[/QUOTE]

~~~~

An intelligent and thoughtful Post...

"....For time immemorial the human species lived as hunter gatherers in direct naked contact with full force of mysterious nature. For our ancestors the myriad ways of knowing often had little to do with rational inquiry into and modeling of nature. They relied heavily upon genetic memory, traditional knowledge, dreamtime experiences, various shamanistic techniques of consciousness altering, intuition and always a mental cosmic map of reality superimposed upon the environment around them which allowed them to see the numinous nature of the world long lost to us as we attempt (but must ultimately always fail) to be objective...."

I too, am a fan of Jean Auel and, the "Clan of the Cave Bear", Earth's Children series, but 'genetic memory' doesn't exist; we are born, 'tabula rasa', and must learn everything we are to 'know'.

Your theoretical suppositions above, are fine soil for growing fantasies, but are not connected to reality it any way.

'Scientific Materialism', as you call it, has existed forever; it is the means by which manknd perceives reality and passes on that knowledge to others.

There is no Mysticism in reality, as you imply, none; but it does provide good fodder for fictions.

Ami

 

[amicus]

]Stephen, perhaps you should begin by telling us all what you really believe. You know cut the space/time pseudo-science jargon Buzz Lightyear crap and speak to the human identity...

Who do you think are we?

Why do you think we are we here?

What should we do?

How should we do it?

Whence did we come from?

And Where are we going?

These are the basic human existential questions pondered since before we were even homo sapiens and comprehensively answered by every great human mythological tradition on the planet.

My point is that the empirical scientific method - which I highly respect as a research worker myself - actually can not satisfactorily answer a single one of these most basic of all human questions.

True, science has pushed back the frontiers of human ignorance. For instance, evolution satisfactorily answers "where do we come from" to, say, back about 500 million years ago or more, but where the fuck does evolution come from? Science can say nothing very serious about that frontier. Yet there are ways to imagine beyond the frontiers of empiricism, that much is self-evident.

My assertion here is that there exists many ways of seeing and forms of knowledge well beyond the realm we all now gratefully concede to the empirical scientific method.

As an aside, it's interesting that you mentioned the uselessness of hallucinogenic mushrooms or the shamanic tradition since one theory of linguistics is that it was the synesthesia experience that first allowed early hominids to make the psychological connexion between sound and objects and events which resulted in the evolution of syntax (verbs and nouns) and music and onward to poetry and visual representation in cave paintings and carvings...ultimately resulting in our modern consciousness and scientific gestalt which is so far removed from its ancient origins we're totally unaware of its evolution.

Or do you imagine that we sprang fully formed from the head Zeus? That our kind of modern conscious awareness extends back into the last ice age? Shamans were just modern day snake oil salesmen?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)

[/I]

~~~

Excellent Post...and I must stipulate that I read a few responses before coming back....

Who do you think are we?

I don't think, I know, that we are sentient beings evolved from lower species; fact. But then, one could write a book or several on that. smiles...

Why do you think we are we here?

Again, worth a book or several, in both scientific thought and religious. It has been proven in laboratories, that given the right ingredients and environment, that life will emerge the the 'primordial slime', of early Earth, and theoretically, any other suitable combination of events and substances.

What should we do?

Were we born an earthworm, a snail, a rabbit, an elephant or a fish, our choices would be nil, we would be what we were born to be. Other animals, mammals, are subject to social pressures from the pack or the clan, or the group, and would survive or perish depending upon how we conformed to the collective.

As HomoSapiens. defined as 'knowing man', or 'sentient' being, aware of our own existence, we are the most vulnerable of all species that have ever evolved on Earth.

What we should do is inherent in our genes; we are compelled to survive.

Life, is our most basic and essential imperative, to survive, to continue living.

How should we do it?

In a manner that will insure our survival. The simple answer. But....in a primeval tribe, a slave state, an empire, a dictatorship....or the latest and most humane of all human societal experiments, a free society; the answers differ with each circumstance. I will elucidate if asked.

Whence did we come from?

I think one has to place in context the existence of early man. I try to place myself in the early times of man, questioning, from whence we came, as all societies have.

In those early times, a 'Creator' was the logical answer, as woman bore a child, a lamb bore a kid, a seed sprouted a plant and even dark clouds brought rain; surely a rational path of thought to postulate a creator for man.

But we now know how human babies are started; we know there is no divine intervention, there are no immaculate conceptions, there are only the facts of life.

If it soothes you to believe that all life was, 'created' by a benevolent supreme being, then adhere to your faith.

And Where are we going?

I suggest, that it is the nature of man to hope, wish, believe, and dream of the hereafter. As generations pass from the newborn, to the young, to the middle age, to the old, to death; all realize the mortal nature of man, we live...and we die. It has always been so.

It is not a bad thing to wish for more...I would think it is a natural thing, to wish for, to expect, to look forward to, a life after death....if that is your question.

The scientific, reasonable, rational, logical answer to, 'where are we going?', is simple, nowhere. There is nothing after death. We have but our lives to live and no more.

My assertion here is that there exists many ways of seeing and forms of knowledge well beyond the realm we all now gratefully concede to the empirical scientific method.

Your assertion is accepted as fact by many, but not by me, to put an individual and personal accent to my reply.

I adore Kristen Stewart, who stars in the 'Twilight' series, reasons my own, but I have watched her growth as an actress for years....but I still "know" that vampires and werewolves and ghosts are all feminine fantasies. Just as Dakota Fanning, another child actress, in "Push" conveys the fantasy world of Telepathy and Telekenesis, and add, the "Rowan" series of Anne McCaffrey, for those of you who read....all entertainment...but nothing more....

The life we have, you and I, each one of us, long or short, is all we have. Make the best of it.

Amicus Veritas

 

[amicus]

]His SIL’s apparent proselytizing sounds like a bad sign, that’s true. On the other hand, I’ve been curious enough to poke my nose into astrology just enough to know it’s a system of symbols of vertiginous complexity, a language, if you will.

I didn’t and don’t ‘believe’ in it and don’t even feel any affinity for it, but the pedant in me gets squirmy when I feel the wrong question being asked. That question is typically “and just how are these planets supposed to affect me?” While it’s a good question if someone claims they are (in which case, he’s the one introducing confusion), it’s not at all a good question for understanding what the game is about.

The game is about viewing reality in terms of a certain model, and it’s no more relevant whether there’s really a ‘drive’ in you that corresponds to ‘Venus’ than it is relevant whether there’s really such a thing as ‘self-esteem’. Both have value within a certain discourse, and only in as much as they serve a purpose. It gets retarded when “being a Virgo” becomes a justification and an abdication of free will, but I’ve seen evo biology (for example) used to the same end. Nothing is safe from that.

I guess I’m fascinated with misunderstandings and with different discourses clashing. Alternatively, I need to report in the Aspie thread. [/I]

~~~

I have had a long and wonderfully varied life and one episode of said existence, was to hire a Professional Astrologist, to do a program with me on a Talk Radio statiion.

The public loved it, and asked for more. People would call in and tell her their birthdates, down to the hour and minute, and she would tell them who they were and they almost fainted, on air, as to how accurately she depicted their personalities and habits....go figure...

She was ethereal, to say the least, and lived in a dream world, and swore that we were soul mates....but...a story I will not relate....

I chalked it off, and chalk it off, to weak minds that are searching for answers to their confused lives, If you can get 900 people to drink poisoned koolaid and a million people to visit the Vatican on a given day, hell, you can convince anyone of anything.

Have at it!

Amicus Veritas

 

[amicus]

Okay, I'm back and I'm not offended. I was a little testy last night when I was on but that's because I was also over on the GB, defending those docs in London Ontario who didn't feel it was appropriate to prolong the life of baby Joseph Maraachli.

The flack I get from the eyers, the Amis and the JBJs of this forum tell me that my beliefs are far from 100% in consensus with mainstream authoritarian views. As for zealotry...I was a little testy. I was also on my third wee dram. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa...

Were I in the middle ages, I doubt I'd be a Gallileo. That guy was seriously bright. People think of him as an early astronomer but he was so much more. He was professor of mathematics at Padua and one of the first genuine scientists in that he insisted on truth about the world coming from observation and experiment, as opposed to reading it from Aristotle.

He also (horror and heresy) published in both Latin and Italian, thereby allowing the common riff-raff to understand and much worse...question. It took serious cajones to do that. He was hauled up before the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy and he was guilty as sin. The official records speak of his heretical view of heliocentrism, but he was really being punished for bypassing the Church and taking his ideas straight to the people.

That Galileo's book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, had a character named Simplicio (simpleton) whom Galileo said was named after the Aristotelian philosopher Simplicius, when in fact everybody knew that Simplico really represented Pope Urban VIII, with his rigidly fixed insistence the the sun orbited the earth...it didn't help his case very much. Urban was seriously pissed and Galileo was rather lucky to get away with his life. Earlier in Galileo's career, Urban had been quite friendly towards the guy and that is likely why (my opinion) Galileo wasn't torched.

It's easy for me to post my rants in comfort and safety. Were I to do so publicly back in Galileo's time, I would likely have ended up like Giordano Bruno, another outspoken proponent of heliocentrism. The guy also proclaimed that all the stars up there were actually suns and that they likely had planets going around them. He didn't have any friends in high places and ended his career in flames, on Feb. 17, 1600.

Would I have been one of the guys with a pitchfork? I doubt it. Farming is not my thing. Also, like Mark Twain, when I find myself on the side of the majority, I try to pause and reflect. It's a quality I lacked in my misspent youth, which cost me dearly on occasion.

I don't have a clue what I would have been doing had I been born four hundred years earlier. I'm fortunate in that I'm here and now, casting verbal stones at all manner of shamans, priests, astrologers and the Deepak Chopras of this world. As much as they might want me boiled in their snake oil, they're limited to saying, "Of course you want empirical evidence. You're a Taurus! And that proves my point!!" Except it doesn't...

(added)...One more thought...

Recently, the Vatican issued a formal apology over it's persecution of Galileo. As for Bruno, they think they got it right.

"On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, Cardinal Angelo Sodano declared Bruno's death to be a "sad episode". Despite his regret, he defended Bruno's persecutors, maintaining that the Inquisitors were "motivated by the desire to serve the truth and promote the common good, also doing their utmost to save his life" by trying to make him recant and subsequently by appealing the capital punishment with the secular authorities of Rome."
(Seife, Charles, "Vatican Regrets Burning Cosmologist", in ScienceNOW, March 1st, 2000.)

I really don't have a lot of respect for priests of any description.[/QUOTE]

~~~

First time I have ever witnessed someone admitting to cowardice in their comfortable communal existence.

Someone else accused you of cowering within the manstream political atmosphere of Canadian socialism, I tend to agree with their assessment.

You don't have a clue about the essential nature of individual refusals to conform to accepted thought and practice or procedure.

Amicus

 

[amicus]

]I'm glad you didn't take umbrage. Were I not a poor diplomat, a condition I blame entirely on being an Aries D) I would have remembered to point out I like to ask myself the questions I asked you. They've not made me a Galileo either, but at least I get to exercise my contrary streak!

That said, what gave me the urge to give you a poke? Probably my annoyance with modern myths. A bit of them seemed to me reflected in your words and merely gave me a cause.

Take this movie I've seen the other day, Agora. The movie is about the life of Hypatia, the female philosopher. I don't actually know anything about her beyond what you could find in a wiki article, but it was still enough to make me cry “bullshit!” Hypatia, it is true, died at the hands of Christians. That’s nasty enough right there, but the way the story is embellished is propaganda. She’s portrayed as a primitive version of a modern scientist and even conducts experiments (!) while the real Hypatia was a mathematician, a neo-Platonist/Plotinist, and would have abhorred empiricism.

In other words, a modern person would consider her every bit as obscurantist and mystical as her nemeses. The correct way of describing the clash that took her life would be to call it a clash of two religions/philosophies, probably with the usual underlining of politics and interest. Yet the way it’s presented to us it serves only to assign to the past a supposedly eternal antagonism of science and religion.

Incidentally, Bruno’s case (if I recall correctly?) follows a similar mold. He was into esotericism and such like (as was Tycho Brahe), and probably got on the wrong side of the establishment for that more than for science. That doesn’t make his burning less of a crime or the church of the day less of an oppressive institution, but perhaps it serves to remind us to look at conflicts and oppressions as they occur, instead of recognizing only what fits the grand narrative of the battle between science and religion. That narrative is largely a product of the 19th century (check Draper-White thesis) and it’s been controversial ever since, despite the hold it’s got on popular imagination.

As a fellow atheist (albeit not as rancorous toward religion as many), I’ve really got no hidden horse in this race other than a bit of compulsion to question stuff.[/[/I]QUOTE]

~~~

May I offer, that with the 'warming period' in the Earth's climate, the increase in population, the Printing Press, the Age of Reason, that a real and brutal conflict for the minds of men, was in full press.

It has always been, since day one, the conflict between knowledge and faith. Most here, still look to faith, be it religious or collective or even, in Stephen's case, science, to support his beliefs.

Reason and Rationality seem to have no place in today's environment, ala Objectivism...such a sad state of affairs...

ami

 

[stephen55]

The Postmodernism Generator

I remember a similar idea from my misspent youth. Pre- PC days as they were, it was a series of three wheels on a shaft. The wheels had about thirty words apiece. You spun all the wheels and got a three word chance phrase.

The first wheel had a list of pompous sounding adjectives. The second had pompous whatever and the third a bunch of multi-syllable nouns (or whatever it takes to make a grammatically correct phrase).

Presto! Instant meaningless and very excessive gobbledygook. Of course, by chance, every now and then you got a phrase that just might impress someone if you used it quickly and moved on.

 

[amicus]

The Postmodernism Generator

I remember a similar idea from my misspent youth. Pre- PC days as they were, it was a series of three wheels on a shaft. The wheels had about thirty words apiece. You spun all the wheels and got a three word chance phrase.

The first wheel had a list of pompous sounding adjectives. The second had pompous whatever and the third a bunch of multi-syllable nouns (or whatever it takes to make a grammatically correct phrase).

Presto! Instant meaningless and very excessive gobbledygook. Of course, by chance, every now and then you got a phrase that just might impress someone if you used it quickly and moved on.

~~~

I was curious as to how you generated your disconnected and flibbertigibbet thoughts, now I know, grease those fucking wheels, they ain't workin' for ya!

meh



der ami

 

[Stella_Omega]

The Postmodernism Generator

I remember a similar idea from my misspent youth. Pre- PC days as they were, it was a series of three wheels on a shaft. The wheels had about thirty words apiece. You spun all the wheels and got a three word chance phrase.

The first wheel had a list of pompous sounding adjectives. The second had pompous whatever and the third a bunch of multi-syllable nouns (or whatever it takes to make a grammatically correct phrase).

Presto! Instant meaningless and very excessive gobbledygook. Of course, by chance, every now and then you got a phrase that just might impress someone if you used it quickly and moved on.

Ami must have one of those installed in his head-- in leue of a brain.

 

[stephen55]

THOU SHALT NOT...transgress the boundaries...

In fact, almost all human knowledge is unscientific. For instance, this debate isn’t a way of knowing that conforms with the scientific method, yet one could argue that something is happening here that looks very much like the formation, gathering or exchange of knowledge.

These are wonderful points because they go to the heart of the matter. It seems to me that in our attachment to the dichotomy of religion and science, science gets so swollen that in our minds it gobbles up the entire territory of reasonable human activity, while religion gets stuck with a tiny domain of bizarre beliefs and wacky practices. When you divide it up like that, it’s really a no brainer to choose. Yet it’s false to divide it up like that, and the thing that needs to be saved from it isn’t merely religion. Although I’m even willing to argue for religions' good sides, that alone wouldn’t give me enough motivation. What needs to be saved is science itself, and most important, everything ‘in between’—which is to say, the biggest chunk of life.

Stephen, you seem to like your science hard and you don't recognize other kinds of knowledge outside science as valid. (Correct me if I am reading too much into your words there.)

I'm not so sure I like my science hard but I do like it clean. As I wrote earlier, a pet peeve of mine is when science and math are used outside of their area to bolster an idea in some other field that should have been supported by reasoning within that field.

Hence, writing about Alan Sokal's parody of postmodern thought and reasoning in his spoof sent to Social Text.

Of course I recognize knowledge outside of science as valid. Like Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, the two physicists who wrote Fashionable Nonsense, I have no problem with and respect for psychology, sociology, philosophy...as long as they are the results of legitimate scholarship and not something like The Postmodern Generator.

As a retired family doc I have no expertise in any of those fields but I do recognize (most) bullshit when I see it.

An example from Jacques Lacan, who for reasons beyond me was thought of as a brilliant and leading psychoanalyst. Just remember that in this quote, Lacan is talking about neurotics and the origins of neurosis.

"This diagram (the Mobius strip) can be considered the basis of a sort of essential inscription at the origin, in the knot which constitutes the subject. This goes much further than you may think at first, because you can search for the sort of surface able to receive such inscriptions. You can perhaps see that the sphere, that old symbol of totality, is unsuitable. A torus, a Klein bottle, a cross-cut surface, are able to receive such a cut. And this diversity is important because it explained many things of the structure of mental disease. If one can symbolize the subject by this one fundamental cut, in the same way that one can show that a cut on a torus represents the neurotic subject, and on another cross-cut surface to another sort of mental disease."

This sort of psycho-babble horse-shit, a completely insane way of trying to categorize mental illnesses as features of a branch of mathematics called topology (or vice versa...with Lacan, it's impossible to tell), not only gets published and studied, it gets applauded and lauded.

"Lacan is, as he says himself, a crystal clear author."
------Jean-Claude Milner, L'oevre claire, 1995, p.7

I'll give a bottle of scotch to anyone who can explain what a cut through a Klein bottle (which is a topological abstract that cannot exist in three dimensions of space but requires four dimensions) has to do with mental illness.

While Lacan's idiocy may be crystal clear to Jean-Claude Milner, I can only suggest that says more about Milner than it does about Lacan.

Moving on. Yes, this thread has generated some ideas in a way that has nothing to do with the scientific method. Which is as it should be because it started as a poke at Ami's reverence for all things Rand.

My original spoof on economics and philosophy that started this thread...

Things used to cost, roughly, a dollar a pound. That was some time ago. So was Ayn Rand.

The key to true happiness is to keep breathing, so don't smoke. You tend to live about as long as your lungs function. Ayn Rand died of lung cancer.

...had nothing to do with any irreverence for the two fields. It was purely a display of my irreverence for Ayn (Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) Rand.

My only claim to expertise is in family medicine. My masters in biochemistry is so rusty that I keep it hidden. If I were to attend a graduate level colloquium in biochemistry tomorrow, I suspect the speakers might as well give their talks in Greek, for all the understanding I would get out of it.

As for the dichotomy between science and religion, in my view it's not so much a division that appeals to some of us, it's a division at the roots of the two fields. It's not false to do so. In fact it's necessary. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Yes, a vast amount of human knowledge has nothing to do with science. I have no problem with that and welcome going back and forth about philosophy, religion, politics, economics and all of the thousands of areas outside of science. In doing so, I'm just as opinionated and amateur as the next.

Just don't transgress the boundaries.

 

[stephen55]

Randian Philosophy for Dummies...

Stephen, your 'practical', cost/benefit ratio,(saving 500 children beats keeping a vegative, terminall ill child alive for a few more months) is logical as hell and just as cold as outer space, and you just don't see it, or get it...

It is an magnificent, grandiose humanitarian gesture for civilized western nations to devote time, energy and resources to save those 500 needy children, but it is a wasted effort until we can bring western civilization and the concept of individual human rights to those backwards nations,

Amicus Veritas

Do I detect a bit of cognitive dissonance here?

I think that for a half a million, giving 500 children a long and useful life is a good thing and beats keeping one poor, brain dead terminally ill child going for a few more months...and I'm the cold one?

How someone could hold those two views at the same time is...interesting...

For the New Intellectual, by Ayn Rand comes to mind. But then, perhaps it's out of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness.

Yup, yup, yup...The Idiots Guide to the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Amicus.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Do I detect a bit of cognitive dissonance here?

How someone could hold those two views at the same time is...interesting...

For the New Intellectual, by Ayn Rand comes to mind. But then, perhaps it's out of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness.

Yup, yup, yup...The Idiots Guide to the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Amicus.

Well, they are the same view, actually. What Ami is saying here is that it's better to NOT save 500 needy children, obviously. They are a drag on society.

If you can use the excuse that one terminally ill child needs those resources, use that excuse by all means. Maybe people won't notice your hidden reasoning. And it's better that the resources are wasted than used to save 500 dregs of society. That's what I read in Ami's words.

I think Ayn Rand would agree and approve. Ami is a good acolyte.

What doesn't cognate though, is his anti-abortion stance. If 500 children who are alive right now shouldn't be helped, why let them be born in the first place? After all, the birth process takes resources in one way or another--money, of course being the most important one if you're Amicus Vewitus.

 

[Pure]

note to lust.

lust: At the risk of confusing the issue, I think the first question must be whether the universe - and therefore our existence - is deterministic. That is to say... do we operate as free agents in possession of free will?

To be free agents our "minds" must be largely, maybe totally, independent from our "bodies." It's a long story, but basically if we are simply Pavlovically responding to hormones, environmental influences and genetics then we don't have the ability to choose between various options that existence offers us, we can only react biomechanically to stimuli.

Likewise, if the whole universe is deterministic, that is if the first atom bumped into the second and forced it into the third and so on down the line so that if some super being was to possess every physical measurement it could determine the future a billion years hence, then we have no free will either. (Any neither would the super being, for that matter.)

Before one decides if we live in a deterministic universe or indeed have free will consider that either way we clearly possess the "illusion" of free will ...

this, along with some of your other examples illustrates what's beyond the scope of science, e.g. proving the existence of an external world, or even 'explaining' the housewife's choice of products while shopping in the supermarket. generally i take your point that lots of human knowledge does not have a proper scientific basis, and in most cases it COULD not.

turning to the old chestnut "do humans have 'free will'? or do they make 'free choices'? it's clear this cannot be answered by a scientific investigation. but before we proceed, let's distinguish two versions of free choice. one version, i will call Free Choice is proposed to escape the web of determinism. IOW, "Free Choice" is the INcompatibilist version of 'free choice'). however even if there are Free Choices, this does of itself, mean that one can study human behavior/activity scientifically.

it's true IF we want to keep our belief in our Free Choices, then doing 'science' about them pushes us in the opposite direction. to start 'doing science' is to assume determinism. let's take the example of a man's choice of a mate; let's say he is dark Italian and she is blond, Swedish. clearly most of his peers did NOT make this choice: they married brunettes, generally, and mostly Italians. need we say he 'freely choose' to make a different selection?

an investigation of the fellow might reveal any number of factors to explain what he did, e.g. he was disaffected with Italian society; had travelled to Sweden and loved it, etc. to the extent that we appeal to these factors, his choice becomes understandable, perhaps even predictable, or at least not surprising any more.

it's worth also speaking of this 'feeling' or possibly 'illusion' that we have regarding 'free choice.' does this suggest Free Choice exists, i.e as something outside determinism? is such a choice something not experienced deterministically? i'm referring to 'compatibilist' arguments, for what might be called 'soft determinism.' for example, i go to Baskin Robbins and choose my favorite, their chocolate fudge ice cream. i think about it; i deliberate and remember previous enjoyable experiences. etc. at some point it becomes clear to me that chocolate fudge is what i truly desire, and desire most. and i choose accordingly.

arguably, there is determinism here, *and we want it to be so.* my previous experiences with that ice cream ARE relevant, and my existing likes, as well. so does my 'free choice' mean that i must have to ability to jump out of my own history; and the 'influence' of my desires, as they are? do i want it to be the case, that i walk out of Baskin Robbins, with an avocado ice cream cone, and be unable to discover a reason why? iow, NONE of my desires related to that kind of ice cream, but somehow i chose it? there seems to be no reason to want to 'out run' or leave behind my existing desires. IOW, a version of 'free choice' is compatible with determinism, thus human 'soft' free choices [but not Free Choices] are containable in the deterministic web.

in short, i think science applied to humans in action founders because of lack of objective data.. the existence of free choice or 'Free Choice', even, would NOT prevent us from doing science on humans.

 

[Pure]

reply to lust II

lustIn fact, almost all human knowledge is unscientific. For instance, this debate isn’t a way of knowing that conforms with the scientific method, yet one could argue that something is happening here that looks very much like the formation, gathering or exchange of knowledge.

I’ve tried to show that the definition of science is all about the method of science. Any human cognitive activity outside the narrow bounds of a scientific inquiry process is simply not hard science. Talking about “believing” in the outcomes of science is in fact, deeply unscientific, yet how else can lay people talk about science? Btw, everyone is a layperson outside their field of expertise.

this is well put, but the point can be made stronger, imo. not only is lots of human knowledge unscientific [not derived by scientific method], but these areas are NOT susceptible to scientific accounts, IN PRINCIPLE.

possibly your example of the woman in the supermarket, making choices for the family meals, was intended to illustrate this point. it's unclear.

science must deal in *objective data*. what's observed by the original investigator must be observable by others. better, the *measurements* of the original person must be corroborated.
BUT in the case of lots of human actions, they arise, in part, because of inner events, i.e., features of the actor's experience.

he sees the okra on his plate and pushes the plate away. it's his *feeling of disgust* that accounts for the choice, he says, and this (if mild) is simply not subject to objective data gathering. similarly, one person in a paint shop avoids a particular shade of yellow; says it's distasteful and reminds her of a baby's poop. another person has no such associations, *despite haveing seen baby's poop.*

it is some feature of experience which makes the difference. and this 'feature'** is not subject to objective documentation.


in sum, a scientific account of events such as these, would seem to be precluded, at least in a straightforward and convenient way. (obviously brain scans can be brought in, to objectively measure precursors of actions, but i suspect the same actions (of the same agent) have DIFFERENT precursors, and in any case the account is terribly messy and inelegant.)

---
** especially if subtle or mild. clearly the extremes of fear, anxiety, disgust, etc are visible, observable and documentable.

 

[Dragonlipz]

Well, they are the same view, actually. What Ami is saying here is that it's better to NOT save 500 needy children, obviously. They are a drag on society.

If you can use the excuse that one terminally ill child needs those resources, use that excuse by all means. Maybe people won't notice your hidden reasoning. And it's better that the resources are wasted than used to save 500 dregs of society. That's what I read in Ami's words.

I think Ayn Rand would agree and approve. Ami is a good acolyte.

What doesn't cognate though, is his anti-abortion stance. If 500 children who are alive right now shouldn't be helped, why let them be born in the first place? After all, the birth process takes resources in one way or another--money, of course being the most important one if you're Amicus Vewitus.[/QUOTE

Stella, as usual you've pointed out the factual and illogical inconsistencies promoted by the sad, pathetic hypocrite who calls himself Amicus. I say he's sad because he really is: there's no satisfaction seeing every conviction you've ever held ground into history's dust by a universe that holds no truck for the wrong-headed.
Truly pathetic is the lack of learning and wisdom that his self-described life experiences deny him. The great and wisest of we humankind learned from their experiences and shared that wisdom - they didn't let it crab their souls and rob them of that essential humanity we all share......
Peace.......

 

[lustatopia]

Ami said that:

'genetic memory' doesn't exist; we are born, 'tabula rasa', and must learn everything we are to 'know'

.

I think Stephen also questioned its usage as mystical nonsense.

But in fact it's a modern term used in evolutionary molecular biology. It's use to describe the way the process of natural selection is encoded into the genetic material which ultimately uses this blueprint or "genetic memory" to form a piece of the genotype. As phenotypes we are simply hard copies of our code - genotype - and ultimately the physical manifestation of millions of genetic memories.

For instance, ancient hominids who could form syntax had a reproductive advantage over those who couldn't. An evolutionary biologist might well make the statement, "the ability to use syntax was naturally selected for in ancient hominids and became part of our genetic memory."

It's really has nothing to do with Larmackism or mysticism.