But doing the wrong thing based on what we think we know about global-warming/climate-change is a VERY expensive mistake. — Agree-to-Disagree

You aren't sufficiently informed, to speak with anywhere near the authority you pretend to. The VERY expensive mistake, of allowing the CO2 levels to continue to rise, has been ongoing for decades.

The notion of dumping sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere has been under consideration for a long time:

Mikhail Budyko is believed to have been the first, in 1974, to put forth the concept of artificial solar radiation management with stratospheric sulfate aerosols if global warming ever became a pressing issue.[150] Such controversial climate engineering proposals for global dimming have sometimes been called a "Budyko Blanket".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection#History

It's indicative of how bad we have let it get, that polluting the atmosphere in additional ways has to be considered as a possible option.

I agree there are many facts about perception, including scientific observations about how it works, but that wasn't my point: the point was that whether it is 'direct' or 'indirect' is a matter of looking at it from different perspectives, using different definitions of 'direct' and 'indirect'. Perhaps the terms 'mediate' and 'immediate' would be better alternatives. Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways. — Janus

Makes sense. Thanks for elaborating.

It is possible that more than one way of thinking about things is valid, in one way or another. But surely some sort of selection will be needed sooner or later. — Ludwig V

I'm inclined to see, thinking of things from a variety of perspectves as a matter of ongoing epistemic necessity. I couldn't do my job, without frequently changing the conceptual framework I am using to consider things. Why would some sort of selection be necessary?

...As I attempted to describe in a post above, Shannon bracketed the meaningful realm of Information mathematically, within a broad range of possibilities from [100% to 0% (White or Black pixels) ] (typically expressed as "1/0" {all or nothing})*1. But the meaningful information is limited to the [something] range between {99% and 1%} : shades of gray.

Those extreme (all or nothing) cases are completely meaningless {entropic} except to denote statistical probabilities. Hence, digital computer "bits" are inherently open & undefined, allowing them to communicate almost infinite expressions of meaning... — Gnomon

Gnonsense.

Many Scientist deny vaccines too because DNA is a fractal and splicing shit into and out of a fractal necessarily ruin said fractal unless developed specifically for that DNA. — Vaskane

Can you cite any articles in scientific journals saying anything like that?

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect.So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem? — Janus

It makes more sense to me to think that there are a great many facts of the matter, only some of which we know, but some of those facts can be fairly well understood.

memory recall should be limited to that of a mortal lifespan whereby 7 or 8 decades-old memories are continually "overwritten" by new memories so that an "immortal" remains a psychologically human mortal — 180 Proof

Do these ex-mortals have to pay their way? There's going to be an energy requirement. Why think that humanity wouldn't shut you down, at some point in time, rather than pay the bill?

And we can see very clearly the mess many of them are making in god's name. — Tom Storm

Indeed. Global warming denial tends to be big among the religious.

Were any of the six fundamental constraints different in very small ways, matter would not form, 'the universe' would comprise plasma or something. — Wayfarer

Plasma or something is not nothing.

But that’s where the cosmological constants and fine-tuned universe arguments come into play - Martin Rees' 'six numbers'. They themselves might not amount to laws, but they're constraints in the absence of which nothing would exist... — Wayfarer

No, not constraints in the absence of which nothing would exist. Something would exist, we just wouldn't be a part of what exists.

What we see when we see the cup is not something separate from or independent from what we call it and what we use it for. — Fooloso4

Is that consistent with me using a cup to trap a spider?

People surely have the ability to see ways of using things, in ways no one has before. So surely what we 'see' is more than just previously recognized linguistic and usage associations?

Perhaps jgill had in mind, something along the lines of the following:

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/11/05/antisemitic-hatred-in-palestinian-schoolbooks/

...I can really see how eyes might roll at this presentation - particularly its bankrolling by the Templeton Foundation. — Wayfarer

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-money-behind-the-climate-denial-movement-180948204/

You basically can make the division between those that promote and love the polarization and then those old school people who care about getting things done. — ssu

:up:

It's a metaphor, yet at the same time central to the theory. I think this lives on in the popular mind where we speak of the 'wonders' of evolution, as if evolution itself were an agent, when in reality, the only agents in the frame are organisms themselves. — Wayfarer

As the Wikipedia I linked says: [My emphasis.]

Even if the reproductive advantage is very slight, over many generations any advantageous heritable trait becomes dominant in the population. In this way the natural environment of an organism "selects for" traits that confer a reproductive advantage, causing evolutionary change, as Darwin described.[58] This gives the appearance of purpose, but in natural selection there is no intentional choice.[a] Artificial selection is purposive where natural selection is not, though biologists often use teleological language to describe it.

It is mostly a matter of teleological language being more expedient for conveying things evolutionary. It is much more linguistically cumbersome to discuss natural selection ateliologically. Teleology isn't central to the theory, as the scare quotes around "selects for" indicate.

:up:

For philosophical purposes, I'm not bound to that physically focused meaning. — Gnomon

Then to be clear you ought to use distinct terminology. (I suggest "gnatural selection".) You wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that you are talking about the same thing as scientifically informed people are talking about.

But the notion of natural selection suggests some kind of universal teleological agency... — Gnomon

Only if one elects to remain ignorant as to what biologists mean by natural selection.

People who deny reality are usually people with mental problems... — Alkis Piskas

Or philosophers. :razz:

Adaption to the environment is a different thing to general intelligence. — Wayfarer

Yes, there are an enormous number of ways to be adapted to environments.

General intelligence may provide for greater versatility, but it saying that is all that it does rather sells it short. — Wayfarer

Did anyone say that in this thread? I'm fairly confident that nobody did.

Often before, I've seen a lot of the sort of straw manning you are doing here. I find it really tiresome. I'd appreciate if you could try to cut back on the habit.

I know evolutionary biology quite well... — Wayfarer

I suppose "quite well" is relative to one's own perspective. Your comments show that there is a lot of room for improvement.

Although you would have to have some appreciation of philosophy, as distinct from science, to appreciate that, I expect. — Wayfarer

That is quite a conceit.

I’ve always felt that the idea that life, or for that matter cosmic order, is a chance occurrence is a profoundly unscientific attitude. — Wayfarer

Fortunately for the theory of evolution, it is not "the idea that life, or for that matter cosmic order, is a chance occurrence". The theory of evolution is supported by an enormous amount of scientific evidence, which is being added to daily. I recommend giving that evidence some serious consideration if you want to know yourself better.

I’ve often felt like asking, is the idea that evolutionary biology tends towards higher levels of intelligence within the scope of evolutionary theory? — Wayfarer

Of course. Abilities like being able to outrun, outclimb, outhink... tend to be adaptive. Why would you think otherwise?

That you are now reading this sentence is true. Now it isn't. :wink: — Banno

Of course. :up:

"Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." — Pantagruel

Old Niels seems to have been a bit hyperbolic on that one. Everything we call real cannot be regarded as understood, seems a bit more reasonable to me.

...the essential fact of telos... — Pantagruel

What is that?

The good news is that one can articulate all of the crap one doesn't believe in, and that will piss off everyone more than throwing a tantrum. — BC

:up: :lol:

I find that for many traditionally religious people, religious doctrines are something one either believes or doesn't believe, not something that would be subject to empirical study or experience. — baker

There is a pretty huge spectrum on that matter. Here in the US there is no shortage of Christians who believe that people should have Christian beliefs.

Then Trump again expanded his rhetoric.

“I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants,” he said, reading from the teleprompter. “If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel,” he continued, apparently ad-libbing, “if you don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t — if you sympathize with the jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in. Right?” — Washington Post

LINK

This sort of rhetoric appeals to a high percentage of US Christians.

He's arguing, there is no superior source of insight to science. So that is more than 'remotely like that'; it is actually that. — Wayfarer

No. You are simply reading your preconceptions into the quotes you posted.

If someone offered you a million dollars on the condition you could never drink again...I wouldn't take the money. — RogueAI

If someone is making the offer, please send them my way. I'd take the million in a heartbeat.

What I object to with determinism as usually presented is, 'hey we (scientists) know what the real causes of everything is...' — Wayfarer

Who really says anything remotely like that? You seem to enjoy posting quotes from people who you see as supporting your view. Why resort to a straw man in the case of views you disagree with? It comes across to me as anti-physicalist propagandizing. Why don't you provide quotes, of actual statements made by the people whose views you oppose, rather than put words in the mouth of a figment of your imagination?

That's where it becomes scientistic rather than scientific - everything has to be explainable within the procrustean bed of physical causation. — Wayfarer

I generally see people's use of "scientistic" as indicative of an anti-science bias on their part. Anyway, you are putting up a strawman again, and trying to paint physicalists with views they do not hold.

The simple fact is that you haven't considered physicalism in a charitable way, and so don't know what it is like to look at things from a physicalist perspective. It's not that "everything has to be explainable within the procrustean bed of physical causation." It that those who seriously study the causation of things, find through life experience that explanations that don't conform to the Procrustean bed, never seem to yield reliable predictions.

Science is enforced humility:

What is the core, immutable quality of science?

It's not formal publication, it's not peer review, it's not properly citing sources. It's not "the scientific method" (whatever that means). It's not replicability. It's not even Popperian falsificationism – the approach that admits we never exactly prove things, but only establish them as very likely by repeated failed attempts to disprove them.

Underlying all those things is something more fundamental. Humility.

Everyone knows it's good to be able to admit when we've been wrong about something. We all like to see that quality in others. We all like to think that we possess it ourselves – although, needless to say, in our case it never comes up, because we don't make mistakes. And there's the rub. It goes very, very strongly against the grain for us to admit the possibility of error in our own work. That aversion is so strong that we need to take special measures to protect ourselves from it.

If science was merely a matter of increasing the sum of human knowledge, it would be enough for us all to note our thoughts on blogs and move on. But science that we can build on needs to be right. That means that when we're wrong – and we will be from time to time, unless we're doing terribly unambitious work – our wrong results need to be corrected.

It's because we're not humble by nature – because we need to have humility formally imposed on us – that we need the scaffolding provided by all those things we mentioned at the start.

You don't understand the perspective, because you simply don't have the life experience required to have developed such a perspective. By all means, demonstrate something that doesn't fit the Procrustean bed, but I'm not going to hold my breath, nor spend a lot of time addressing quotes of the sort you like to post in the meantime.

Ironically it presupposes dualism, because it imagines the felt quality of experience as something "ghostly" that exists over and above the neuronal processes.

:100:

So many of the arguments against physicalism presuppose dualism, and are simply question begging. I think we are so encultured to thinking dualistically about mind and body that (at least in the West) it is hard for people to recognize that they are begging the question.

I added a link just before your post showed up. It's a very brief discussion of the differences.

The argument against free will always seems to undermine the point of philosophical dialogue. I mean, if one’s opinions are determined prior to discussion, how could any act of rational persuasion prevail? Nobody could ever change their mind about anything, if it were true. — Wayfarer

You are mistaking determinism for fatalism. On determinism your mind can change in response to events. The way things are determined is ongoing and there is no reason to think that events occurring in philosophical dialogs can't change our minds.

https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/fatalism/determinism-vs-fatalism

It seems to me as if you are aren't really engaging with my question, and are instead presenting a red herring.

Do you think you can know the initial conditions of a system with perfect precision? Is this something you have done?

...if you know the initial conditions of a system with perfect precision, you can predict its future state with certainty. In quantum mechanics, this determinism is replaced by inherent probabilistic behavior. — Wayfarer

Is the determinism replaced, or is it simply the case that you can't know the initial conditions of a system with perfect precision?

In AI news...

But are machines capable of this type of thinking? In the late 1980s, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn, philosophers and cognitive scientists, posited that artificial neural networks -- the engines that drive artificial intelligence and machine learning -- are not capable of making these connections, known as "compositional generalizations." However, in the decades since, scientists have been developing ways to instill this capacity in neural networks and related technologies, but with mixed success, thereby keeping alive this decades-old debate.

"For 35 years, researchers in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and philosophy have been debating whether neural networks can achieve human-like systematic generalization," says Brenden Lake, an assistant professor in NYU's Center for Data Science and Department of Psychology and one of the authors of the paper. "We have shown, for the first time, that a generic neural network can mimic or exceed human systematic generalization in a head-to-head comparison."

Any question in which the object is beyond description is incorrect. — Rocco Rosano

Is it incorrect to ask what the value of π is?

Keep thinking about it.

That sounds like a circular statement. — Corvus

Might that be because you equate "logic" with "thought"?

Contentless logic is a pseudo logic, or logic in just a shell with no meaning. — Corvus

Yes, that is kind of the point. When you understand logic you understand that any meaning it has is a logical consequence of the inputs to the logic, and the inputs are not logic. It's good to be able to recognize the distinction.