They exist if a physical theory postulates their existence, and that theory is successful in explaining various empirical phenomena.
There are two grounds for contending that X exists: X is a subject of direct experience, or X is postulated by a successful explanatory theory. A theory is successful, of course, when it correctly predicts future experience. — GE Morton
The two stories are a perfect fit. — Querius
Forgive me, but I can't take any argument for a divine creating intelligence seriously. — apokrisis
Theism (of the first cause type) is simply contradictory of Peicean semiosis ... — apokrisis
I do suppose that at some point your emergence narrative also gets passed the phase of nothingness.Your scrambled sentence already begins with the counterfactual definiteness of some set of letters ...
Irrelevant.… a conventional set of marks which I know how to read and thus can tell a gibberish sequence from one that has a reasonable interpretation.
Not an argument. You talk of ‘limitations’, how is that not comparable to constraints?And your citing of Dawkins and evolutionary constraints continues to underline that you are nowhere near the kind of holistic emergence I am talking about.
Random mutations.It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place.
I would have thought 'the placebo effect' provides a cogent example of top-down causation.
— Wayfarer
I agree. Also every post on this forum is a cogent example of top-down causation. Question is, do we find such causation in inanimate nature. — Querius
There is just nothing about this actual observable world which suggests that minds exist outside a state of semiotic complexity. — apokrisis
There is just nothing about this actual observable world which suggests that minds exist outside a state of semiotic complexity. — apokrisis
So, you think that electrons (a fermion) and photons (a boson) don't exist? Rather they are merely part of a "conceptual apparatus"? — tom
We must be careful not to automatically assume that cases of mental causation, such as intention and free will acts, are automatically top-down causation. — Metaphysician Undercover
I do suppose that at some point your emergence narrative also gets passed the phase of nothingness. — Querius
Random mutations. — Querius
I know you react viscerally against anything you perceive as a 'God idea', but consider other models of cosmic order, such as logos, Tao or Dharma. They too suggest a kind of 'intelligible order' but not along the lines of what is usually described as 'theistic personalism'. — Wayfarer
I'm not sure you're getting the meaning of 'top-down' or 'bottom-up'. Intentionality and free will are both 'top-down' practically as a matter of definition; which is why materialists, such as Dennett, are obliged to try and deny them. — Wayfarer
Clearly the free will act begins in the most minute parts of the neurological system, — Metaphysician Undercover
How do you define "top-down"? — Metaphysician Undercover
So sayth the emergent self who is confused about the roles of mutation and selection in evolutionary theory.... the problem is that you don't understand the current science well enough ... — apokrisis
Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations.how does natural selection also create them? — apokrisis
Basic indeed, and I wonder why I have to explain it.It's a basic issue in evolutionary science. — apokrisis
Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations. — Querius
The problem with your claim is that evolutionary theory can explain variety. Variety is explained by random mutations in the DNA.It is a central problem of evolutionary theory that evolution can only explain the reduction in variety. It can't explain the presence of that variety in the first place. — apokrisis
Your response:random mutations. — Querius
Here you are talking about ‘random mutations’ and asked: ‘how does natural selection also create them?’ ...So natural selection can certainly remove those. But how does natural selection also create them?
(It's a basic issue in evolutionary science.) — apokrisis
Your response:Selection obviously does not create variety. Variety is created by random mutations. — Querius
Why are you babbling about mutations? — apokrisis
My point about your weasel was that the letters already exist. So how did that situation develop? Recombination is one thing. But where did that alphabet come from? If you want to say it evolved, run me through the story. — apokrisis
Let me google that for you. — Querius
My claim (see this post) is that Apokrisis' emergence narrative ( see this post) is very similar to Dawkin's Weasel Program. His counter-argument, as I understand it, is that there is a fundamental difference because Dawkin's Weasel has an unexplained starting point and his emergence narrative has not (?).I think this is missing Apokrisis's point. — Pierre-Normand
I hold that naturalistic evolutionary theory is incoherent and I also hold that it does not describe a top-down and/or teleological cause.From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process. — Pierre-Normand
I do not agree that...
I hold that...
and I also hold that... — Querius
This begs the question.
But then, explaining free will in terms of neurological events is the essence of the very 'physicalist principles' which you then go on to reject. That is 'neurological reductionism'.
Again, I don't think you get the distinction between top-down and bottom up. — Wayfarer
Well, I gave an example of the neutron's properties being determined by its being situated in an atom. — Wayfarer
Because it is a case where a subject's belief produces a physical result; belief is 'top down', because it belongs to a higher level of organisation than the molecular and cellular structure of the patient. — Wayfarer
It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. They then had teleology in the sense that their parts became functional organs and they acquired autonomous behaviors. — Pierre-Normand
I agree with your clear analyses.This perspective assumes that the atom is the cause of the relationships which constitute it. From the premise that a cause is necessarily prior in time to the effect, this means that the atom must exist before the relationships which constitute it exist. To my mind, this is impossible, to say that a thing exists prior to the existence of its constituent parts. To resolve this, we could say that the idea of the atom exists prior to the constituent parts, as the "blueprints" for the atom, but then we are no longer referring to the atom itself, but a Neo-Platonic "Form" of the atom, which acts as the cause of existence of the atom. — Metaphysician Undercover
To cut a long story short, it is 'limits' all the way down, up and sideways. — Querius
You cannot pass this off as apokrisis' point, because this is completely distinct from and inconsistent with, what apokrisis argues. Apokrisis assigns telos to the universe in general, so it is not as if telos emerges with the existence of life, it was a property of the universe already. — Metaphysician Undercover
I also wanted to add, regarding the alphabet of life, that each life form has, in a clear sense, an alphabet of its own. — Pierre-Normand
We cannot ignore the facts of neurological involvement in the free will act. The question for the metaphysician is the cause of such activity. It seems very clear that the activity of the nervous system is the cause of the activity of the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover
In that case there are only ~3 life forms - prions, viruses (based on RNA) and everything else (based on DNA). — tom
The constraint, as a cause, is inherently passive. It functions as a cause merely by affecting an occurring activity. This presupposes the existence of the activity. So the constraint is a cause only if there is activity. Therefore we still need to consider "cause" in its true primary sense, as the activity itself, which is required in order that a constraint may be capable of being a cause. If we focus on the constraints, as causes, and divide constraints into top-down and bottom-up constraints, we have simply distracted our attention from the true, primary cause, the activity itself, which is being constrained. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we focus on the constraints, as causes, and divide constraints into top-down and bottom-up constraints, — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree. “Real existing” is a crucial qualifier here, since if constraints have no ontology, how can they have causal powers? Consider a bucket filled with water. If we term the bucket a ‘constraint’, then indeed one can say that the bucket causes (or influences) the water to have a certain shape. But how does this apply to a universe floating in nothingness? Assuming that this universe has a certain shape, we cannot coherently say that ‘nothingness’ causes the shape of this universe, because nothingness cannot have causal power, cannot constrain anything. So unless we are talking about “real existing” constraints, like buckets, we cannot coherently talk about them as being causal actors.When we look at what the laws refer to as real existing "constraints", we can refer to those constraints as "causes".
But this is to use "cause" in the sense of an influence, something which affects activity. We can say that these constraints have an affect on specific activities, and in this sense they are causes. — Metaphysician Undercover
But this movement towards complexity didn't have any autonomous teleology since the complex molecules, or their parts, didn't have any organic function. It is only when early replicators not only were passively selected by environment pressure according to fitness, but also began to strive to survive and replicate, that they could be considered alive. They then had teleology in the sense that their parts became functional organs and they acquired autonomous behaviors. — Pierre-Normand
Thus, the alphabet of life -- what is being varied, mutated and selected by environmental pressures -- doesn't consist in meaningless nucleotide sequences. It rather consists in functional (and thus meaningful) elements of anatomy, physiology and behavior. This teleology is manifested in the structure of whole organisms, and their organs, only in the ecological context of the holistic forms of life that they instantiate. From the moment of abiogenesis onwards natural selection became a top-down (and teleological) causal process. — Pierre-Normand
But how does this apply to a universe floating in nothingness? Assuming that this universe has a certain shape, we cannot coherently say that ‘nothingness’ causes the shape of this universe, because nothingness cannot have causal power, cannot constrain anything. — Querius
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