I recommend a book by Martin Gardner - "Science, Good, Bad, and Bogus." It discusses many claims of scientific proof for psychic powers which have been shown to be false. Sometimes the problem was caused by bad science performed in good faith, but often it was a case of fraud. It's a good book. Gardner focuses on the types of errors investigators make in psychic experiments.

I agree with you, but T Clark was complaining why I said that birds do not count. I said birds do not count because in my previous post I mentioned mammals, not all possible animals. — Eros1982

we turn monogamy into ideal because we want to show that we can differ from other mammals, are two different things. — Eros1982

Many non-human animals; whether they're mammals, birds, or something else, are monogamous. That undermines your argument that human monogamy is somehow exceptional. We're animals too.

birds do not count — Eros1982

That undermines your argument. You wrote:

we are able to connect with people spiritually to such a degree as to set our desires and inclinations under the control of our brains — Eros1982

You claim humans have monogamy because we can connect with people spiritually, but then you say other animals are monogamous for other reasons. I don't find this very convincing. Do you have any evidence.

Because we somehow show we can be different from all mammals... and we are able to connect with people spiritually to such a degree as to set our desires and inclinations under the control of our brains (which often are socially/ethically oriented). — Eros1982

This is why the topic intrigues me. The fact that males and females are dimorphic reminds us of our basic earthly makeup. Our ideas about monogamy are opposed to this, attempting to leave the earth behind in some ways. — Tate

Many bird species are monogamous, as are some mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and fish. I think that casts doubt on any spiritual interpretation of monogamy.

Likewise the fact that the eyes of white men of a certain age tend to be spaced apart just so that they provide improved long distance depth perception, — Tate

Now, Tate... we've already talked about this.

I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from assigning views to me that I did not express. — Tate

You made a specific claim that the relative lack of black quarterbacks in the NFL is because of racial differences in eyesight.

You have stated explicitly and without evidence that, given biological differences between human males and females, human families should be expected to be made up of one male and more than one female or, as you say, harems. You then go on to provide unconvincing and unnecessary explanations.

This is starting to derail — Tate

If it's derailing, it's because of your unsupported and unlikely claims about the social effects of sexual and racial differences.

Does that seem racist to you? — Tate

I didn't say it was racist.

I just thought it was funny. — Tate

That's not true. You didn't say you thought it was funny. You said it was the reason there are fewer black quarterbacks in the NFL than one might expect.

The reason most NFL quarterbacks are white isn't what you'd expect. It's not a history of racism. It's that white males between 32 and 43 have superior long range depth perception. — Tate

I've never heard that. It's kind of stupid because NFL quarterbacks don't call the plays. They don't have to be very intelligent. — Tate

You've avoided the question - do you have any credible evidence about white people's vision vs. black people's? You're using that as evidence that selection of quarterbacks does not reflect racial prejudice. As I noted, a weak argument.

It's not a history of racism. It's that white males between 32 and 43 have superior long range depth perception. Go figure. — Tate

Do you have evidence for this? They used to say it was because black players weren't smart enough. If you don't have specific credible evidence you can share, you should be ashamed of yourself.

For what it's worth, black quarterbacks make up between 15 and 20 percent of quarterbacks in the NFL while black people make up 12 percent of the US population.

From the web:

The evolution of primate monogamy is described as an ordered sequence of choices by generalized, hypothetical females and males. Females first choose whether or not to associate with other females. Predators encourage gregariousness in diurnal primates; however, nocturnality or scarce and evenly distributed food supplies may enforce separation. A testable group size model based on food patch size is developed and qualitatively supported. If females choose solitude, males then choose either to defend a single female and invest in her offspring, or to compete with other males for access to several females, usually by defending a territory or establishing dominance over the home ranges of several females. The decision rests on the defensibility of females and on the availability of an effective form of male parental investment. Both of these factors are dependent on local female population density. A model is developed that assumes that territorial defense is the principal form of male parental investment, and it predicts that monogamy should occur at intermediate densities: at high densities, males should switch to defense of multiple females, and at low densities there is no investment value in male territorial defense. — A T Rutberg

Well, gorillas seem to have survived pretty well using that reproductive system. They've been doing it for 7 million years, so I assume it has the potential to work. — Tate

That's a very weak response. A non sequitur. Human babies take much more care than gorillas. I think you have you're own preconceived notions and are not interested in examining them more thoroughly.

Children of a harem system thrive. — Tate

Do you know that's true? Anyway, only rich guys can have harems. In societies where multiple wives are allowed, most men have only one. Pew says that only 2% of marriages world-wide have more than one wife even though polygamy is legal in many Islamic countries.

Hey, @Jamal. A source I found on the web says polygamy is legal in Russia. Is that true?

This all supposes power on the part of every male in society. — Tate

It only assumes that any society, human or otherwise, will only work if it can take care of it's children.

China is having big social problems now because there are too many men and two few women because of the abandoned one-child policy. The wifeless men are not individually powerful, but as a group they can be disruptive.

I think the reasons are probably pretty prosaic. Human children require a lot of care and use up a lot of resources. Having more than one spouse would not be feasible except for the rich and powerful. Also, without monogamy there would not be enough women for all the men, which would lead to social disruption. I'm pretty sure women would not think it is a very good idea.

As a married human male, I can't imagine having to deal with more than one wife. Just one is hard enough.

An empirical claim is a philosophical claim nitwit. — I like sushi

You should take a look in the Shoutbox. @Hanover and I were just discussing a right wing commentator who wrote that casting a black woman as the lead in "The Little Mermaid" was scientifically inaccurate. I think your comment is almost as dumb.

The last 3 lines of your 5 line paragraph are ad hominem. Just wanted to point that out. — Art48

I made comments referencing your arguments, not you personally. So they are not ad hominem arguments. You shouldn't use jargon you don't understand.

Your OP is fine. Ignore those looking to smear you rather than offer any kind of constructive criticism. — I like sushi

As I noted, I said nothing about Art48, only his arguments. Perhaps I smeared his ideas, but not him personally. The argument in the OP is weak, as are both of your responses to my comment.

You clearly don't believe God exists. In this and other posts you look for psychological reasons why people believe as they do. E.g. Pre-science and scientific mentality; Dormant mind; Faith vs. Intelligence. Your ideas are expressed in condescending language which shows a lack of respect for religious believers. They also show a lack of understanding of human motivation and belief and don't provide any evidence beyond "seems to me."

Just wanted to point that out.

I don't think you're seeing my point — keystone

That's true and I don't think you've seen mine and I don't think either of us is going to change.

Your long-running thread about the Tao Te Ching is full of its guidance and inspiration.
I have tried to internalize it so that it helps on a subconscious level, as well as being
rationally helped and directed by it. WWTTD: what would the Tao do? — 0 thru 9

The Tao Te Ching is the book of the Way, but it's only one way. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of ways in the world. Is that what you mean by guidance? It seems hopelessly broad and vague.

I’ll report back if my feelings on the subject charge after reading the whole thing... — 0 thru 9

Seems like you are talking about conscience. Why do we need a new word when the old one works well?

I forgot to say - Welcome to the forum.

Like with a lottery, to win a lottery is almost impossible, you could play lottery all your life and never win something because the chances you will actually win is astronomically low. Isn't that also for the people living right now on earth in this present? The odds for a humanbeing living right now would be so impossibly high, and yet here we are. — Persain

The probability of dealing a royal straight flush in order in spades from a standard, well-shuffled deck of 52 playing cards is exactly the same as dealing a hand consisting of 3 of diamonds, 7 of spades, Jack of diamonds, 10 of clubs, and Ace of hearts in that order.

The fundamental forces run their couplings. They are all fractured and very different in the cold/large universe of today. But all their strengths and properties (probably) converge at the Planck scale in one simple Grand Unified Theory – a vanilla form of quantum action that is the contents of a general relativity spacetime container of smallest scale. — apokrisis

Thanks.

runs its couplings — apokrisis

I think I understand what you are saying about scaling, but I am not familiar with this phrase. What does it mean?

But physics tells us that this is not fundamental, just a passing stage. The Big Bang had quite a different kind of ontology. And physics has worked up a decent account of the maths required to track how each stage evolved into its next. — apokrisis

Seems like physics is always trying to compress all this multitude of stories about reality at many scales and stages into a single narrative that covers everything at once.

I don't think you and I are disagreeing much.

Since we can't actually complete the computation of an infinite series, we never produce a number. So let's just say that pi is the algorithm. The beauty of the algorithm is that it's definition is entirely finite (I just wrote it in finite characters) and it's execution is potentially infinite (i.e. it would compute to no end). — keystone

I don't see any advantage to the fact that your way of conceptualizing pi is "entirely finite."

If a computer can't do the math (in principle), maybe there's something wrong with the math. — keystone

There's always something wrong with the math. That's why people keep having to add on new concepts to keep up with our understanding of reality.

A number is an object of computation. Computers do stuff with numbers. I don't think you can fill your head with all the digits of the decimal expansion of pi. The best you could do is fill your head with an algorithm for calculating pi. That's what I'm saying exists - the algorithm. — keystone

It is my understanding that computers do not generally store the algorithm for generating pi, they store the actual number rounded to a specified number of decimal laces. If computers think pi is a number, why shouldn't I?

abstract objects are the ideals and reality is just an approximation of the ideal. — keystone

Perhaps Plato and some mathematicians and logicians think this way. Not most people.

Imagine me flipping a coin. While it's in the air is it heads or tails? I'd say it's neither. Instead it has the potential to be heads or tails. Only when it lands does it hold an actual value. In between quantum measurements objects are waves of potential. When they are measured they hold an actual state. I see no reason why the potential should behave the same as the actual so I see no contradiction. In fact, I think if they behaved the same then change would be impossible. — keystone

When I measure light one way, it's always a wave. When I measure it another way, it's always a particle. It's not a wave that becomes a particle. It's always both at the same time.

The universe has a wonderful way of avoiding actual infinities. — keystone

Again, sez you.

I think you and I have taken this as far as we're going to get. I don't see the need for or value of the way of seeing things you propose. You obviously disagree. Neither of us is going to convince the other.

Pi is a ratio. Diameter~circumference. So it is actually an algorithm. And it can vary between 1 and infinity as it is measured in a background space that ranges from a sphere to a hyperbolic metric.

How all that actual physics translates to claims one might want to make about numberlines and irrational values is another issue. — apokrisis

I have no trouble with this way of seeing it.

Maths just defines it and gets on with it. And that is fine. It is what maths does. — apokrisis

Agreed, but I think many people don't see it that way. Some think that math somehow produces reality. That if math doesn't track common sense, everyday reality exactly, there needs to be an explanation. That something is wrong.

But the fact that the real world undermines the simplicities of the metaphysics that maths finds useful is part of the epistemic game here. The more holes there are in the story, the more we can take it as all just a story about reality - that works with “unreasonable effectiveness.” — apokrisis

Agreed. That's consistent with my understanding of metaphysics in general - it is not true or false, it works or it doesn't.

You say there exists a number called pi with infinite digits and you use a truncated approximation of it when you calculate the approximate area of a circle.

I say that what exists is a (finitely defined) algorithm called pi that doesn't halt but you can prematurely terminate it to produce a rational number to calculate the approximate area of a circle. — keystone

I still don't get it. I don't see any advantage in your way of seeing things. For me, pi is clearly a number. I guess numbers and mathematics began with counting. Even that simple step was an simplified abstraction. Since then, the mathematical universe has been expanded to include non-counting elements - 0, rational numbers, negative numbers, real numbers, imaginary numbers. All of those are also simplified abstractions and are also numbers, even if it's hard to find a real world analogue.

Seems like you're asking for an abstract, human invention to match up with your understanding of reality. It doesn't work that way. As they say, the map is not the terrain.

The difference is that you are asserting the existence of an infinite object, something beyond our comprehension. My approach seems more in line with what us engineers actually do, so why bother asserting the existence of something impossible to imagine if you don't even need to? — keystone

A number is not an object. It doesn't have a physical existence. Also, it's not beyond my comprehension. That way of seeing things has always made sense to me.

Do you believe that 0+0+0+0+... can equal anything other than 0? If not, then how can you claim that 0-length points could be combined to form a line having length? — keystone

Abstract entities, i.e. all human concepts, are always simplified reflections of the world. I can't think of any that aren't. That's why math is so wonderful. It's a game of pretend that just happens to work really, really well.

Sounds like double-think from 1984. There are no contradictions in wave-particle duality. — keystone

Of course there are. Particles and waves are different kinds of physical entities. One is extended, spread out, in space and the other is found in a specific location. That's contradictory, and, just like numbers, both are simplified, abstract ideas. The fact that they seem contradictory, at least to most people, is a failure of human imagination.

I'm talking about the philosophy of mathematics, not the application of it. — keystone

Agreed. I think, like many mathematicians, you are expecting math to have a precise correspondence with reality. That never works.

Yes, all reality is void of actual infinities. So why do we need to believe that reality is just an approximation of some ideal infinity-laden object that we can't comprehend or observe? Why can't we stop at reality?...

...They think it's possible only because modern math welcomes actual infinity. If mathematicians rejected actual infinity then I'm sure physicists would be less inclined to accept it. — keystone

That's kind of a circular argument:

You - Mathematics shouldn't include elements with infinite properties because that doesn't match reality. Nothing infinite actually exists.
Me - There are qualified people who believe that infinite phenomena exist.
You - They've been fooled by their reliance on mathematics which include infinite elements.

With circular reasoning. Perhaps a label for endless but not quite infinite in a physical sense ? — magritte

I wasn't endorsing the infinite universe argument, just pointing out that it has been seriously considered by qualified scientists.

objects are finite and processes are potentially infinite — keystone

This may be true, but I don't think everybody qualified to have an opinion agrees with you. There are physicists who believe the universe is infinite. That doesn't really make sense to me, but a lot of things that don't make sense to me turn out to be true, so I'll remain agnostic.

Like many who are philosophically inclined, I am happy to accept actual infinities as a useful mathematical simplification – an epistemic trick – but not something that makes proper ontological sense. — apokrisis

It makes ontological sense to me. I do agree that is a useful, abstract simplification. Really, all math is. All reality is.

So the idea of 0D points – some kind of absolute notion of discreteness – is offensive to the ontic intuition. But the same should apply to its dichotomous "other", the idea of an absolute continuity as the alternative.

We need a more subtle metaphysics. We need an intuition that itself sees parts and wholes, the discrete and the continuous, as the two emergent parts of the one common rational operation. — apokrisis

I can imagine these apparently contradictory ways of seeing things could be difficult to grasp, but it's something you need to do if you want to use math. As I said, from the beginning, I could see that resolving this dichotomy is inherent in understanding all of math, at least the more practical math that engineers and scientists use.

What does this mean for number lines? It says that while we must think of the 1D whole being constructed of 0D points, that claim must be logically yoked to its "other" of each 0D point existing to the degree the 1D continuity of the line has in fact been constrained. — apokrisis

Agreed.

I mean it doesn't even make sense to talk about 0D points except in the context, or in contrast, with the presence of the 1D line, right? — apokrisis

Right.

Why can't we just say that pi is not a number? Instead, it is an algorithm (e.g. pick your favorite infinite series for pi) used to generate a number. This algorithm is potentially infinite in that we can never complete it, but we can certainly interrupt it to generate a rational number. If you interrupt it, maybe you'll get 3.14. Actual infinity only comes into play if you claim that the algorithm can be completed, in which case it would generate a real number - a number with actually infinite digits. This is what I would like to challenge. — keystone

I don't understand why you want to challenge this. I use approximations to pi all the time. When I want a quick and dirty approximation of the area of a circle inscribed in a square with sides x, I use 3/4 * x^2. I can round pi off anywhere I like depending on the precision I need. To say that irrational numbers are not really numbers doesn't make any sense to me. Of course they are.

Perhaps I should have written that I believe it is impossible to imagine assembling points to form a continuum. — keystone

I really don't get this. I have no problem imagining continuity arising from discreteness. I learned, saw it, got it, in 6th grade algebra. As @apokrisis wrote in a later post:

We need a more subtle metaphysics. We need an intuition that itself sees parts and wholes, the discrete and the continuous, as the two emergent parts of the one common rational operation. — apokrisis

Holding two apparently contradictory ideas in your mind at the same time is a required skill, e.g. waves and particles. It's no big deal. I learned that, saw that, got that in 12th grade physics.

What advantage is there in seeing things your way. Expecting abstract concepts such as mathematical entities to have some sort of ontological reality doesn't make sense. Mathematicians love math for math's sake. Engineers such as me just want something that works - no ontological interpretation necessary. I assume the same is true for most scientists. How does your way work better than the way it is handled normally?

So basically we are all little bigots from the moment we leave the whomb right up till the moment our upbringing steers us otherwise. — Seeker

I don't think "bigot" is the right word, but certainly babies are fairly rigidly judgmental. What was most interesting to me is that they have a clear sense of the agency and intentions of others. Even at such a young age they recognize the personhood of others, even when those others are stuffed animals.

There are studies with infints that give creatence to the notion of moral intuition. — praxis

Here's a link to Karen Wynn's publications page:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZBkyZBIAAAAJ&hl=en

Here's a link to a 60 Minutes piece on her work with moral judgement in very young children:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU

I would argue that calculus done right (with limits) is all about potential infinities. — keystone

All mathematics is about "potential" entities. So what we gonna do? Round pi off to 3.14? 3.14159? How many decimal places do I need to get to the real pi?

I find it hard to imagine — keystone

History shows that is a bad standard by which to judge a concept.

I'll stop now. I'm not a mathematician, just an engineer like you.

I have never used infinity as anything more than unboundedness. — jgill

That can't be true. Calculus is all about infinity.

Cantor's theological nonsense — jgill

If you believe that mathematics represents some sort of idealistic ultimate reality, perhaps Cantor's infinities could be seen as "theological." But then, all of math is. Math is all fun and games, that just turns out to work. People used to think that "0" is absurd. And negative numbers. And "i."

You are expressing opinions as if they are fact without providing any evidence. I am skeptical that things actually work the way you say they do. It certainly is not consistent with the kinds of positive social behavior I observe in myself and others.

So, what are debates about? Seems like: my philosophy is better than your philosophy. — ArielAssante

The standard by which I judge a philosophy is whether or not it is useful for a particular purpose in a particular situation.

As Noble Dust explained previously, it is necessary to makes us feel an emotion that we don't usually feel. — javi2541997

Well, that's not my definition of art, but, as I told ND, that wasn't really what I was after anyway.

Personally I’m done trying to “define art”. — Noble Dust

Agreed. Even though I said this:

So, by what definition is this art? — T Clark

I'm pretty comfortable with my understanding of what is and isn't art. Again, I just thought it was an interesting perspective.