Your thinking, I believe has serious flaws. If your cognitive faculties are a result of evolution by natural selection and random genetic mutation you don´t have any reason to trust your cognitive faculties. For evolution "aims" to survival and not to produce true beliefs.

Evolution is completely pragmatic process and its end is to produce behavior not beliefs. — nixu

In general, in our long prehistory, false beliefs regarding important practical matters meant premature death by starvation or predation. So, in general, evolution aimed at true beliefs, for survival.

But yes, sometimes delusion was adaptive, and was selected-for, and that's eminently demonstrated by the social-behavior of the species of apes that humans are.

Additionally, our ancestors on the Savanna often didn't have time for thorough analysis, and so "quick-and-dirty" estimates of what was true were often needed. Those quick-and-dirty decisions are part of our instinct, and tend to produce bad societal results.

You seem to be saying that all of us, as apes evolved for survival instead of truth, have very poor credentials for making true statements.

Well yes, you can observe that from the presumably instinct-driven behavior of the various trolls that i've been replying to in various topics at these forums.

No argument there!

Societally, the great social scientists P.T. Barnum and W.C. Fields explained everything:

P.T. Barnum explained that there's a sucker born every minute.

W.C. Fields said, "Never give a sucker an even break."

You needn't look any farther for an explanation for humanity's societal situation, and evidence regarding its "hope" for improvement.

You can also observe instinct-over-truth in the behavior of Western academic philosophers, who seem to be responding to a relentless instinctive drive to creatively, delusionally, make things complicated, so that they'll continue having philosophical "issues" to publish about.

You know, "Publish-Or-Perish".

This does not commit you ontologically to non-existance of truth but it puts you in position in which you have defeator for all of your reasoning.

And yours too, of course.

Are we all mere fallible humans? Sure.

That's why we should expect people to give some verification, justification, for their claims.

I've tried to give justifications and verifications for my metaphysical suggestions.

No metaphysics can be proved. That statement goes back at least to Nagarjuna, who wrote in India during late Roman times.

But the metaphysics that i propose, which i call "Skepticism" makes no assumptions, and posits no brute-facts.

By the Principle of Parsimony, it beats Physicalism, for example, and at least nearly every other metaphysical proposal.

As for my statements about humans being nothing other than animals, and my statement that each of is is nothing other than the animal, the body, that's parsimonious too, because it's the simplest explanation that's consistent with our own experience, and makes no assumptions, and posits no brute-facts.

So yes, we're all fallible humans. So hold us all to a high standard of justification for our philosophical claims.

Michael Ossipoff
1

The disused probe will be garbage when it falls into the Sun, even by the common ordinary definition of garbage: Disused material. — Michael Ossipoff
— Metaphysician Undercover

The probe will not be garbage when it is finished with its mission, it will be incinerated.

Nonsense. I spoke of dumping garbage into the Sun. The probe will indeed be garbage when it's approaching the Sun on a collision-trajectory, before inceneration.,

That's a silly troll-quibble, based on a typical troll misquotation of what I said.

the probe will be useful until it is incinerated, and then it will not be garbage.

It might take a while before the probe's orbit intersects the photosphere or gets close enough to be vaporized. How sure are you that the probe will still be operating, and monitored, at that time?

And if it's vaporized before it enters the photosphere, that bit of vapor will still be garbage.

In any case, the probe will be rendered inoperative before it is vaporized, and so it will be nonfunctional garbage before it's vaporized.

But you're desperate for a quibble.

It will never be garbage.

See above.

You should perhaps direct this argument at all the unused satellites, and other things orbiting the earth, which are garbage, and not yet incinerated.

Orbiting space-garbabe? Well, eventually it could pose some threat to operating, in-use, satellites.

But most things in earth-orbit or solar orbit don't seem, to me, as being as offensive. Land probes on Mars and Venus. Mine the asteroids.I haven't publicly criticized those ideas.

I object to and criticize the suggestion of sending a probe into a gas-giant planet, because it isn't known for sure that there isn't some form of life (less energetic than terrestrial animal-life) that could exist there, based maybe on a different chemistry. ...in which case, such a probe could harm life.

In fact, there are specific suggestions about intentionally sending probes to explore the places where water exists, on some outer-planet-satelllites. But, if the life that those probes are looking for is there, then it will be harmed.

I criticize that too.

But not as much as a solar-probe.

Michael Ossipoff




"I said that sending them into the Sun's corona, and then letting them eventually fall into the sun, is offensive and objectionable. "— Michael Ossipoff

I don't think you've stated very clearly why you think that this is offensive.

I refer you to my previous posts. I've answered that question many times.

At some point you said that it is offense to put garbage near the sun

No. I said that it's offensive to put garbage in the Sun. The corona is part of the Sun.

Additionally, the Parker probe will eventually fall into the Sun unless NASA takes positive action to avoid that.

, but this is an untenable claim because the garbage will be incinerated.

Already answered. See above in this topic.

At another point you said that the earth, and all life derives from the sun, so the sun is somehow sacred
, but this has also been shown to be untenable.

Oh really? I must have missed the proof :)

You seem to believe that the sun should be, for some reason...

...just the reasons that I've already given.

, regarded as inviolable. But how can you support this claim?

See my previous posts in this topic. I don't have time to repeat these answers every time someone asks same question, or makes the same objection.

I'd said:

The difference is that the Earth was never inviolable. We never expected the Earth to be inviolable. — Michael Ossipoff

Why do you expect that the sun should be inviolable?

Already answered, many times.

If, somehow, the answer to your question isn't obvious to you, then I refer you to my previous posts.

If we live on the earth, and make use of all that is the earth, to support our comfortable existence, why should we not do the same with the sun as well?

And the result of our "use" of the Earth, and your support of it, shows how environmentally caring you are.

Trump would be proud of you.

We already use the sun in many ways, beginning with the photosynthesis of plants, which in turn, we use for nutrition.

You're saying that we depend on it. Correct.

Why do you not view the sun as there for us to use responsibly, like we tend to look at everything else?

Right, our "use" of the Earth shows how responsible "we" are.

Michael Ossipoff

Sun big. Parker-probe small.

I've answered that many times. Instead of repeating the answer again for you, i'll refer you to previous posts.

Michael Ossipoff

should understand the origin of the disk of which their sun is the star performer. — Bitter Crank

As was previously explained, the ecliptic disk was centrifugally spun-out from the forming-Sun.

Michael Ossipoff.

The sun was never inviolable either. — Hanover

Incorrect.

The Sun was inviolable because it was out of reach. The ever-tinkering monkeys couldn't get at it.

They've pretty much trashed their own planet, but, until now, they couldn't get at the Sun.

That's just your baseless assertion. I could just as baselessly declare the earth, mars, oxygen, my cat, or whatever inviolable.

Your basis for not probing the sun is not based upon any scientific concern that we'll lose the sun

I've answered that many times. The probe probably won't harm the Sun.

But the expressed motive for the experiment is the dearth of knowledge about the corona in particular, and about the Sun in general.

I suggest that a lack of knowledge isn't the best basis for making assurances.

Yes, I've given that answer to your argument, every time someone uses that argument.

Additionally (as I've already explained), it's a matter of principle too.

...a principle completely un-perceived by you. There are different kinds of people. That's why the Earth is being trashed too. You don't have to listen to NPR to discover that.

I acknowledge that.

So, can't we just agree to disagree?

, but it's based on some primitive sun worship theology that you can't understand why no one else will adopt.

I didn't say that I don't understand why you don't respect the origin of the Earth and the energy-source of Earth's life. (See above).

You mis-use "Theology". The Sun is something physical. That's different from a god. The word "Theology" is derived from two Greek words meaning "god" and "knowledge".

You're welcome.

I'm glad that I could help you out with your word-usage.

But yes, do "primitive" people seem to have some respect for the Sun, maybe because it's the energy source for life? But you're not primitive. You're scientific, and you don't respect anything (...well maybe Science). Congratulations.

The OP can be summarized as: I worship the sun, do you?

Hyperbole language is one of the most common troll-characteristics.

I respect the Sun. Do I have that in common with "primitive" people? Sure. I don't regard the Sun as being there as a subject for for curious-monkeys' intrusive experiments, or those monkeys' garbage-dumping place.

And, though the experiment probably won't have an "Oops!!" result, the purpose of the experiment is the lack of knowledge about the solar corona in particular, and about the Sun in general. As I said above, a lack of knowledge isn't always the best basis for making assurances.

My initial question was simple enough: I asked if people here found the Parker solar probe objectionable, and I got my answer.

Everyone has had their say.

Of course, their might be some sun worshipers (I'll call them Appolloians) who think the sun can successfully take on all comers and they welcome the beat down the sun will dole out to challengers. That's my view by the way

This planet's monkeys-on-the-rampage probably can't harm the sun. See above.

Michael Ossipoff

You badly misunderstood what you read, BitterCrank.

The formation of the ecliptic disk, spun-out from the contracting forming-Sun isn't my theory. It's the now-accepted explanation for the formation of the ecliptic-disk, from which formed the planets.

Michael Ossipoff

"Well, I was referring to the forming-Sun, at the time of the outspreading of the ecliptic disk, as "the Sun", even if its fusion hadn't ignited.by that time". — Michael Ossipoff

If the forming-Sun, at the time that the ecliptic disk outspread from it,

The disk spreads out?? — noAxioms

Yes.

Gravity is pulling it in, not out.

Yes, gravity is contracting the initial cloud and the forming-Sun.

Angular momentum is conserved

If the radius of a rotating object is decreased, that reduces its moment of inertia. Then, the only way for its angular-momentum to remain constant is for its angular velocity to increase.

Here's the familiar example that's often given:

A figure-skater begins rotating with her arms extended. Then she brings her arms in, and her angular velocity increases.

You seem to envision the process as something like a ball of pizza dough spreading into a disk as it is spun in the air, and thus the planets forming as bits of dough get displaced further out.

Yes, the centrifugal force experienced by material at the solar equator overcomes gravity, and the material spreads out as a disk in the plane of the forming-Sun's equator.

...but I can't take original credit for that explanation. I must admit that others beat me to it.

Say you're stirring your drink. As you stir it faster, the outer part rises up the glass. Centrifugal force drives some of your drink up the sides of the glass, against gravity.

That requires an influx of angular inertia from the pizza guy

Yes, the pizza dough would have had no angular momentum if the pizza-chef hadn't provided it.

The pre-Sun cloud of matter had angular momentum before it began contracting, as so many objects in the universe do.

No pizza-man was needed to add angular momentum during the contraction. It was already there.

But no, the angular momentum needn't have increased during the gravitational contraction. The pre-existing angular momentum, and the conservation of that angular-momentum, meant that, as the rotational radius decreased, thereby decreasing the forming-Sun's moment-of-intertia, the angular velocity had to increase.

Yes, the forming-Sun was a nonrigid mass of material, rather than a rigid-body, but the conservation of angular-momentum still applies.

, an influx that doesn't exist in the forming solar system.

See above. The forming-Sun already had angular-momentum--that of the cloud from which it formed.

No increase in angular-momentum was needed to spin-out the ecliptic disk. The decreasing overall radius of rotation, of the forming-Sun, meant that a large increase of angular-velocity was needed in order to conserve angular momentum.

A large rotating cloud contracts (does not spread out) into a disk

...if only gravitational attraction were operating.

Gravity tended to form a sphere. The pre-existing angular-momentum, and the reduction in moment-of-inertia, inevitably (due to conservation of angular-momentum) resulted in a great increase in angular-velocity, spinning-out the ecliptic disk along the plane of the forming-Sun's equator.

That's not my idea. It's the now-accepted explanation for the formation of the ecliptic disk from which the planets were formed.

, losing mechanical energy (not gaining it)

Mechanical energy (gravitational potential energy) was of course being converted to heat of contraction, so, yes, mechanical energy was being lost.

But no: Angular-momentum wasn't being lost. Angular-momentum is conserved.

Michael Ossipoff

When I said "Chromosphere", I meant "Photosphere".

Michael Ossipoff

We're material beings called animals.

That's all we are.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing disparaging about that.

Animals are an astonishing, impressive result of natural selection.

I discuss that in more detail in the "Implications of Evolution" topic.

I don't agree with you about what the evidence says. There's no evidence that we're other than an animal, a body. There's nothing in our experience that isn't consistent with that.

I should add that I claim that there's no evidence that our world is other than a hypothetical possibility world. ...and that our life is a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story.

Your life-experience possiblity-story is a story about an animal's experience--your experience.

I discuss that in detail in the topic "A Uniquely Parsimonious and Skeptical Metaphysics", at the Metaphysics and Epistemology forum.

Michael Ossipoff

Bitter Crank, maybe your astro-history teaching needs a little work. Don't quit your day-job yet.

Before the solar system, there was a nebula in this general region of the MW. Some disturbance (a big one -- probably a relatively nearby super nova) roiled the amorphous nebula and the dust in the nebula started moving. — Bitter Crank

Yes, it seems to me that it has been suggested that a nearby supernova might have produced a compression-wave that compressed some tenuous material enough for it to begin gravitational contraction, resulting in the gravitationally-contracting cloud that became the Sun.

Particles collided, and got bigger, and began to accrete more particles. In the fullness of time, the accretion of particles begat little blobs, little blobs begat bigger blobs, bigger blobs begat still bigger blobs. The nebula, now kind of lumpy-bloby, started to turn--first slowly. As it turned, and as very slight gravitational pull of little blobs gradual attracted more matter and became bigger blobs, the messy-shape of the nebula began to be pulled by gravity into a flattened disk, still with a great deal of dust (organic and inorganic molecules). The biggest blob collected the most stuff and became the center of the disk, and the other blobs were stretched out away from the center, in some sort of order.

No, gravity didn't pull the forming-Sun into a flattened disk. The gravitational attraction would have just formed a sphere. But conservation of angular momentum resulted in the contracting forming-Sun giving rise to the outspreading of an ecliptic disk.

The biggest blogs attracted the most dust -- and the WINNER was... the envelope please, the sun! However there were two runners-up -- the blobs that would in the far distant future bear the names of Jupiter and Saturn.

The planets formed from the ecliiptic disk after it was spread out from the forming-Sun.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the big ball of stuff at the center of the disk got so big that it fell in on itself and got denser and denser and denser...

The forming-Sun, at the time of the formation of the ecliptic-disk, was already the result of continuing gravitational collapse of the initial cloud of material. Gravitational collapse didn't wait until after the spreading of the ecliptic disk.

Michael Ossipoff

Definitions can be different, but not wrong.


Except when they are wrong. — Bitter Crank

Troll-talk.

One part of the definition of a troll is his asserted assumption that what isn't in agreement with him must be wrong..

Michael Ossipoff

On another subject, I don't dispute your definition of the Sun, as beginning with fusion-ignition. Definitions can be different, but not wrong. It isn't something to argue about, wouldn't you say?

I acknowledged your altered definition and still find the planets not coming from it. I called the Sun a central condensing pre-star. Not ignited — noAxioms

Well, I was referring to the forming-Sun, at the time of the outspreading of the ecliptic disk, as "the Sun", even if its fusion hadn't ignited.by that time. You're saying that it wasn't "The Sun" until that fusion-ignition.

Either definition is fine.

Since the Earth and other planets formed from that ecliptic disk, it seems not unreasonable to call that forming-Sun the immediate origin of the planets.

Maybe you'd rather say that, due to the intermediary of the ecliptic disk, the forming-Sun wasn't the immediate origin of the planets, but that seems an unnecessary quibble. The Sun (or the forming-Sun) produced the ecliptic disk that formed the planets. For me, that's enough to call it the Earth's origin.

But this definitional quibbling is unnecessary.

If the forming-Sun, at the time that the ecliptic disk outspread from it, hadn't yet ignited fusion, and if you define the Sun's beginning as that ignition, then the forming-Sun wasn't the Sun yet. Then the ecliptic disk formed from the forming-Sun.

If the facts and the chosen-definitions are like that, then.the forming Sun was the origin of the planets.

With that word-change, we don't disagree. It isn't a significant disagreement.

I'd said:

The formation of the ecliptic disk wasn't a throwiing-out of planets. The planets later formed from the ecliptic disk.

You repled:

You said the sun was "the already compactly-formed sphere that's already emitting some radiation", not the ecliptic disk.

That's right, because i was referring to the forming-Sun at the time that the ecliptic disk spread-out from the forming-Sun.

If you're equating the entire disk to the sun

I'm referring to the ecliptic disk as having formed from the forming-Sun.

, then any landfill is already garbage being dumped into the sun

No, I've just gone over and checked the nearest landfill, and it isn't being dumped into the Sun. It's just sitting there like it was yesterday.

, so the probe is no different than that.

Well, the probe is a little bit different from a terrestrial landfill, because the probe is a projectile that NASA is going to fire through the Sun. (The articles say that the probe will go through the corona, and that the corona is part of the Sun). ...and a projectile that will eventually hit the not-tenuous part of the Sun bounded by the chromosphere. (the luminous sphere whose image is visible on the ground, as spots of light underneath a tree, where sunlight is shining through small gaps between leaves).

So NASA intends to shoot a projectile into the Sun twice--first into the corona, and then into the chromosphere.

Maybe it's better not to shoot anything that you don't intend harm to. ...even if you're (almost) sure that your projectile is harmless. A 300 fps, roughly 1 foot-pound, BB, from a child's low-power BB-gun is harmless if it hits someone's clothes. So do you go downtown and walk down the sidewalk shooting people with a BB gun?

Maybe it just isn't a good gesture.

Michael Ossipoff

So you don't believe that the ecliptic disk was formed via conservation of angular momentum, when the initial cloud contracted?

Well, yours is a minority position, but suit yourself.

On another subject, I don't dispute your definition of the Sun, as beginning with fusion-ignition. Definitions can be different, but not wrong. It isn't something to argue about, wouldn't you say?

The formation of the ecliptic disk wasn't a throwinlg-out of planets. The planets later formed from the ecliptic disk.

Michael Ossipoff

Well, our computers, etc., will be garbage some day as well then. They're disposed of on Earth, for the most part. You seem relatively indifferent about that. — Ciceronianus the White

I didn't say that I'm indifferent about the garbaging of the Earth. In fact, I've said the opposite,above in this topic. I said that the garbaging of the Earth is more likely to harm us, than is the Parker probe's garbaging of the Sun.

Then what's the difference?

The difference is that the Earth was never inviolable. We never expected the Earth to be inviolable.

Though I oppose harmful pollution, what are you going to do with garbage? It isn't feasible to launch it into space, and so it ends up in landfill. Yes, we garbage the Earth that we're standing on. I don' like that either, but there never was a chance that the Earth could have been inviolable.

In contrast, garbaging the Sun, intrusively experimenting on the Sun, is entirely and easily avoidable.

The Sun, then, must have a special, greater significance than the Earth.

See above.

Since the probe will likely be incinerated, it will have a lesser impact on the Sun than our other garbage has on the Earth.

See above.

As that's the case, your objection presumably has nothing to do with any harm to its environment which can be anticipated after the probe becomes garbage.

Incorrect. I've (repeatedly) said that the "justification" for the experiment is science's lack of knowledge about the corona in particular, and the Sun in general. That lack of knowledge can't be the basis for any assurances.

Yes, the probe probably won't do any harm. Probably.

But if it has nothing to do with that, what's the basis of the objection?

I've answered that very, very many times, in this topic.

I can't be expected to repeat it for each person who hasn't read it, above in this topic.

Is it the mere fact that the probe, as it transforms into garbage, does so in the vicinity of the Sun and falls into it?

...sent into the solar corona, and also eventually falling into the Sun.

If that's true then it would appear you believe the Sun should be immaculate, inviolate, untouched by man. Rather like Mary the mother of Jesus in the Catholic tradition (beatæ Mariæ semper Virgini).

You know more about your Catholicism than I do.

But yes, the Sun needn't be regarded as violable by the monkeys that refer to themselves as humans.

Michael Ossipoff

NoAxioms didn't say that. — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, I did say that. — noAxioms

No, you didn't say that.

You didn't say that the Sun formed from a disk of material.

That's what I was correcting BitterCrank about in that passage. ...his use of the word "disk", in BitterCrank's sentence.

The ecliptic disk formed the planets, but not the Sun.

Nobody here has so far agree that the planets formed from the sun. The disk is not the sun. It didn't emit from the star. That's our opinion, and you differ. OK, we get that.

You're quibbling about how we should define the point at which the gravitationally-contracting material became what we could rightly call "the Sun".

When the equatorial disk was formed, it was formed, not from a loose cloud of material, but rather from an already-formed, gravitioinally-contracted, relatively dense sphere of material.

Maybe you're saying that that dense, already-contracted sphere of material wasn't the Sun yet, if it wasn't yet emitting radiation, or generating energy from fusion. That's a matter of definition. It was already a formed compact sphere.

I don't know at what point fusion energy began being generated. But, by the time the equatorial disk was formed, there had already been so much gravitational contraction that surely, due to compression-heating, some radiation was already being emitted from the surface of what you don't want to yet call the Sun.

In actuality the disk formed from the collective center of gravity of the cloud, and the critical mass of the central object that later ignited into the sun is not required for disk and planets to form.

So you're defining 'the Sun" based on fusion-reactions, rather than from the already compactly-formed sphere that's already emitting some radiation (from compression-heating).

Fine. That's an individual matter of definition.

The sun does emit material so I cannot deny that there is some sun material in each planet, but since most of that blows away (especially on the inner planets), I think I can say that nobody is going to agree with your assertion that they were formed directly from the sun's material. The sun does not emit iron and oxygen for instance, and Earth is more of those than anything else.

You're asserting your definition of the Sun that says the Sun didn't exist until it had fusion-reactions.

See above

Having answered you here about that matter, I'm not going to argue any more about your different definiiton regarding when the formed, radiation-emitting, contracted sphere of material became the Sun

Michael Ossipoff

Natural selection was operating many millions of years, a billion or more years, before any of the Nazis were even a gleam in their parents' eye..

The Nazis believed in evolution? Oh, then we'd better all be evolution-deniers.

The Nazis celebrated Christmas. So presumably Rich wants to ban Christmas.

The Nazis drank beer. Then we'd better ban beer.

The Nazis breathed air. Then we'd better not breathe air.

What kind of Nazis will we become if we follow Rich's reasoning?

Michael Ossipoff

While the sun IS the source for solar energy, it isn't the immediate physical origin of the earth. ↪noAxioms
already pointed this out. The disk of dust that spawned our system spawned the sun along with the planets. — Bitter Crank

Incorrect.

NoAxioms didn't say that.

The Sun wasn't formed from a disk of matter. The matter that formed the Sun was a cloud, but it almost surely wasn't a disk.

How did a disk later form?

The gravitational contraction of the cloud that formed the sun resulted, via the law of conservation of angular-momentum, in a disk of material spreading out from the Sun, in what we now call "the plane of the ecliptic". ...a plane perpendicular to the newly-formed Sun's axis of rotation.

Of course the planets were later formed within that ecliptic disk, which took only a small fraction of the Sun's mass.

Aside from that, you're confusing the meaning of "immediate origin".

The Sun was formed from a cloud of material.

Then the planets were later formed from the Sun.

Yes, the Sun was was the immediate origin of the planets. They were formed directly from the Sun's material.

Michael Ossipoff

Is the probe garbage? Why, I wonder. It would seem our computers, laptops, etc. would just as well be garbage. Stop using them and other such things if you find them offensive, lest you add to our violation of the universe. — Ciceronianus the White

The disused probe will be garbage when it falls into the Sun, even by the common ordinary definition of garbage: Disused material.

I didn't say that using materials and manmade things is offensive. I said that sending them into the Sun's corona, and then letting them eventually fall into the sun, is offensive and objectionable.

People here evidently believe that there's literally nothing that should be inviolable by human-monkey tinkering.

...and that not being in agreement with you is the definition of being wrong.

In other topics here, everyone seems to be a science-hater and an evolution-denier.

But here in this topic, people, reverse-chameleon-like, have the ability to remarkably transform themselves to staunch Defenders-Of-Science and Scientificism.

Michael Ossipoff

↪Michael Ossipoff
if the sun is the source of the matter of earth, then something from earth falling into the sun is only solar matter heading back whence it came. — Bitter Crank

I've answered that many times, above in this topic.

...many, many, many, many times.

So I might as well repeat this too:

This topic has devolved to repetition, and nothing but repetition.

We've all had our say.

I wanted to find out how people at this forum feel about this matter.

I've found that out, thank you.

Michael Ossipoff

"I just don't think it's necessary to garbage the sun too". — Michael Ossipoff


Doing anything that would detract from the sun's character is beyond our operational capabilities. — Bitter Crank

1. The experiment is being done precisely because so little is known about the solar corona in particular, and the Sun in general. When little is known, that lack of knowledge isn't the best basis for making assurances.

The Parker probe probably won't noticeably affect the Sun? Probably not. Is "probably" good enough when it's about the origin of the Earth and us, and the energy-source for life on Earth?


2. You're missing the point. It's the thought, the gesture, that counts.

So we have no reason to not toss garbage into the sun just because it's probably too big to be affected by us?

Someone justified the garbage-ing by referring to the Sun as a "ball of gas".

Well, not an ordinary ball of gas. A sphere of gas about 100 times the Earth's diameter, and about a million times the Earth's volume. And, as I said, the immediate origin of our planet and everything on it, including us.

Not only is it the celestial object that is absolutely essential to life on Earth, but it's also the most prominent celestial object in our sky every day.

As I said earlier:

You go outside, surrounded by green-leaved trees, in the (thermal-convenctive) breeze, the sun warming your face, and say, "Ah yes, lets intrusively experiment on the Sun and then dump garbage into it!"

Michael Ossipoff

An animal is a purposefully-responsive device resulting from natural selection. — Michael Ossipoff

If that sounds disparaging, it certainly isn't intended in that way.

It's astonishing and impressive beyond words what evolution produced when it produced the animals, including us!

Michael Ossipoff

I believe what he means is that despite having highly evolved intelligence, our initial drives and instincts, as well as everything we experience, are biological in nature. — CasKev

Exactly.

Michael Ossipoff

"Then share with us one piece of evidence that we're other than animals." — Michael Ossipoff


How are you defining animal? — Andrew4Handel

To biologists, I guess an animal is a member of the kingdom Animalia.

The definition of that kingdom has been changing lately, partly because of DNA stidies.

But here's what I mean by "animal":

An animal is a purposefully-responsive device resulting from natural selection.

We have Shakespeare, Einstein, Bach, Language, Mathematics, Science, Internet,Psychotherapy, Computer Programming, Schools, Cookery, Philosophy, Psychology, Art, Music, medicine...

Yes, but a bird can fly unassisted, and an octopus can change its color and make an ink-smokescreen to escape from predators. Can you do that?

Michael Ossipoff

A white-smocked scientist with a clipboard looks at MRI & EKG of your brain — Michael Ossipoff

Oops! When I said "EKG" I meant "EEG".

Michael Ossipoff

"There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that we’re anything other than animals." — Michael Ossipoff


This is categorically false, assuming "our" refers to the entirety of humanity throughout all of history. — Noble Dust

Then share with us one piece of evidence that we're other than animals.

There's nothing in your experience that isn't consistent with your being an animal and nothing more.

Michael Ossipoff

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"But philosophers love to theorize. It’s their livelihood, so we can’t blame them". — Michael Ossipoff


I study philosophy purely out of interest, and the necessity of asking such questions. I recommend it. — Wayfarer

Likewise. So do I.

But I was talking about academic philosophers. They have an additional incentive--the Publish-Or-Perish imperative that i referred to.

When philosophers invent a make-work problem, to complicate something that's simple, so that they'll have more to publish about, that goes beyond liking philosophy.

The Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness is a fictitious make-work "problem".

Even when I was in junior-highschool (pre-secondary school, now called "middle-school") it was obvious that there is nothing surprising about our "first-person experience". That an animal evolved with its natural-selectoin-designed life-purposes would have feelings, sensations, preferences, etc. was just obvious and unsurprising.

You look at a mousetrap, and don't see any consciousness.

Suppose science knew the full details of how the brain works. A white-smocked scientist with a clipboard looks at MRI & EKG of your brain, and says, " I can see exactly how this device works, but I don't see the Consciousness, the 1st-Person Experience! Inexplicable!"

Nonsense. Why should he expect to experience or see your 1st-person experience.

Physicalists have gotten themselves (and anyone who listens to them) all confused.

By the way, not only is an animal's 1st person point-of-view perfectly valid, but it's actually the only really valid point of view in this life.

That's because your "1st-person" experience" is exactly what your life-experience possibility-story is about.
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People who claim that there's a Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness have, so far, been unable or unwilling to defend that belief. I've told why your problem is fictitious.

The absence of any defense of your claim is, itself, an answer. It's an admission that you can't justify your claim about there being a Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness..

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is imminent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire.

The exact detailed mechanism? Who knows? i don't. Maybe there are scientists who do. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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I think there is a clear difference between mechanism and sensation.

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Of course.
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It is possible to build unconscious sensors that avoid fire. You only need to make unconscious sensors that create automatic behaviour leading to a machine avoiding heat.

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Of course. You’re speaking of a simplified analog of us. Different in degree from us.
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Basically, if you want to go into it, and philosophers-of-mind do want to go into it, then yes, we’re all purposefully-responsive devices, as is the machine you described.
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…like a mouse-trap, a refrigerator-light-switch, or a thermostat.
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Only that. No need for such mystical, supernatural, spiritualist mumbo-jumbo as supervenience, ephiphenomena, or emergent-properties.
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We know enough about neurons and about physics to see that it does not present a framework for explaining experience

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Why would you expect experience to come directly out of the 3rd-person view of the observing scientist, via biology and physics?
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I completely agree if you doubt that approach.
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But I took the time to explain, at great length, why “1st person experience” is inevitable for an animal, designed as animals are, to purposefully respond to their surroundings.
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How could it be otherwise??
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You’ve entirely ignored what I said on that matter. Rebuttal doesn’t consist of repeated denial without replying.

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There are famous physicists who have supported the position of idealism which incorporates mind into reality as fundamental. Including Sir James Jeans, Sir Arthur eddington and Martin Rees. In this sense consciousness is not seen as merely an emergent property of the brain. A similar position is held by panpsychism.

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…believing in Mind as a separate metaphysical substance.
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Mumbo-jumbo.
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Idealism is a kind of metaphysics. I’m an idealist. But you’re still the animal.

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It has been recognised from time immemorial that there is a problem in describing physical objects and mental states using the same terminology.

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…and, in particular, the same point-of-view.
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It’s a problem made-up by philosophers-of-mind.
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It was not a problem posited merely by Televangelicals or something. I was quite materialist and atheistic

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I’m neither. But we’re still animals. Period.
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before I studied philosophy of mind and psychology. I find most religious people I speak don't even understand the problem so it is not clear that dualism of the mind body problem emerges from religion.
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It certainly needn’t. I’m religious, and Idealist.
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But we’re still just animals. That’s the simple and best description of what we are. …avoiding the spiritualist, mystical mumbo-jumbo of the philosophy-of-mind.
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I suggest that you disregard philosophy-of-mind, and then the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness will vanish.
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Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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The animal is designed, by natural selection (please give it the benefit of the doubt for the time-being) to protect itself, to avoid damage. If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is immanent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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What you're not addressing is whether this has anything to say about the problems of philosophy.

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Then I’ll say it now: It doesn’t.
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But there’s an unnecessary, made-up problem of philosophy, (the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness), and, in fact there’s an unnecessary, fiction-based branch of philosophy (philosophy of mind), tries to make a philosophy and a philosophical problem about something that, rightly, is purely a scientific matter.
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One can agree that the theory of evolution by natural selection is a sound theory, and yet dispute that it has anything much to say about the problems of philosophy.

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Quite rightly.
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Most often, however, what happens is the lazy assumption, which you have made above, that as we are 'just animals'

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There’s nothing in our experience to suggest that we’re anything other than animals.
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And, that being so, there’s no reason to diddle about “epiphenomena”, “supervenience”, or “emergent-properties”, etc. …in search of what and how we are. Philosophers-of-mind are misguided, confused supernatural spiritualists.
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Yes, we’re different from the other animals in some ways: language, technology, etc. So what?
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Different animals do different things and have different ways of coping with their surroundings.
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Yes, the word “Lazy” could describe a contrast with the hardworking academic philosophers who have industriously invented the make-work philosophy-of-mind.
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I give them credit for industrious fictional creativity.
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, then what there is to know about such questions must be knowable, in principle, in terms of biology.

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Well, I’d instead say that your own experience as a person (by which I mean “human animal”) is what you know from. Expecting your experience to be seen or shared by a scientist who is studying your physical makeup, is part of what leads to the fallacious “Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness”. That “problem” can, in one way, be regarded as a fallacy that confuses different points-of-view.
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Maybe it’s the result of some people clinging to the pseudoscientific belief that the only reality, the only valid point-of-view is the objective, externally-viewed, 3rd-person point-of view—which of course isn’t anyone’s point-of-view.
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…and which doesn’t leave any room for animals to have a valid point-of-view. …hence the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness.
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However, I dispute that h. sapiens is 'just an animal' at all.

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What else then?
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No one denies that we’re different from other animals in significant ways. Animals aren’t all the same.
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Certainly, from the perspective of biology, humans are a 'species of primate'.

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…but probably not entirely primate, as I was saying.
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But to then try and understand uniquely human abilities such as language, reasoning, art and imagination, in evolutionary terms, is what is called 'biological reductionism'.

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With all of our unique traits, we’re not an easy animal give a detailed evolutionary explanation of. That doesn’t mean that we’re other than an animal.
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I don't think you're in the least unusual in having such ideas, after all, everyone knows that we are just animals

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…everyone except philosophers-of-mind.
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, and only what evolution has created.

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Since Darwin, yes.
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It is the folk wisdom of the day.

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No, it’s established science, increasingly universally-accepted since 1854.
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If we aren’t animals, then what do you say that we are?
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Maybe I should explain why I emphasize “You’re the animal”:
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I mean that there’s no need for the mystical, magical, spiritualist mumbo-jumbo about “epiphenomena”, “supervenience”, or “emergent-properties”. And there’s no need to be surprised that animals, including us, have 1st person experience. That’s to be expected, for the reasons that I described.
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It’s a question of from what point-of-view you want to speak of us. The simplest description of what we are is just to say that we’re the animal.
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I usually follow that statement with “…period.”, to emphasize that no other explanation or description of us, or theorizing is needed.
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But philosophers love to theorize. It’s their livelihood, so we can’t blame them.
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Michael Ossipoff

I overspoke a bit, because of course no metaphysics can be proved.

So all that I can say on that matter is that it seems to me that there's probably reincarnation, because it's implied by the most parsimonious metaphysics. ...and that I wouldn't expect there to be detailed reports of previous lives, because, by that metaphysics, they aren't expected.

Yes, I was going to say that too: Detailed past-life reports are difficult to debunk or verify.

Either way, you pretty much have to take the word of some author. ...unless you have the time, money and opportunity to go out and do all the field-work, and the meticulous checking.

So the matter of likelihood is all that can be stated.

Michael Ossipoff


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But that photo, and the abuses of the various abusers, says nothing whatsoever about issue #2 that I answered about in my previous post.

Is evasion of answers to one's claims statements sometimes used to justify abuses?

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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My answer was that those sensations are natural-selection's way of incentivizing you to get your hand out of the fire. — Michael Ossipoff

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You replied:
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That I not an explanation causal or otherwise.

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It would be great if natural selection had given me wings so I could fly to the shops.

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You make it sound like evolution just conjures things up if they would be useful.

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Now if determinists are right (they aren't) we couldn't act on out pain and also there are lots of pains we can't act on including toothache and headaches, severe pain at the final stages of cancer and so on.

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Just because consciousness has its uses does not mean it can avoid having a biochemical or technical/theoretical causal explanation. If neuronal activity causes pain then how?

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You have an unjustified overconfidence.

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You’re quite right, that, if I want to attribute something to natural-selection, then I have to answer your objection to natural selection. I have to answer your objection regarding the arrival of new attributes. I intend to address that question.
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There are two different issues in this discussion:
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1. How could natural selection explain new attributes or new anatomical features?
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2. Physicalists claim that first-person experience is baffling, unexplicable, and seemingly impossible, given that the body is a physical object observed by a scientist.
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(The Physicalists’ “Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness”)
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Yes, #1 must be addressed if I attribute something to natural-selection. But #1 is less interesting, because it’s just a matter of evolutionary-mechanics.
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So I’m addressing #2 first. …and asking that natural-selection be provisionally accepted for the time-being, when I use it to explain the animal’s inclinations when answering #2.
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So, leaving aside #1,what do you say about my arguments that I’ve been posting regarding issue #2?

Now, let me quote something you said in your most recent post about issue

ust because consciousness has its uses does not mean it can avoid having a biochemical or technical/theoretical causal explanation. If neuronal activity causes pain then how? — Andrew4Handel

If you're referring to the detailed mechanism, that's something to ask neurologists. Maybe they know the details, and maybe they don't.

But it isn't inexplicable at all.

The animal is designed, by natural selectoin (please give it the benefit of the doubt for the time-being) to protect itself, to avoid damage. If your hand contacts fire, the pain tells you that damage is occurring, or is immanent. And it makes you want to get your hand out of the fire.

The exact detailed mechanism? Who knows? i don't. Maybe there are scientists who do.

But, even without knowing the exact detailed mechanism the explanation in the paragraph before last is sufficient to make the pain not be inexplicable.

The animal, for its purposeful response to its environments needs to have all sorts of feelings, sensations, preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc.

How could that not be "first-person".

It's inevitable if the animal is to act in response to its surroundings for some purpose, like survival and reporducton.

So, you have those feelings, sensations, preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc.

That's hardly surprising.

isn't it what you'd expect?

Michael Ossipoff

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Even those people don't remember a previous life. — Michael Ossipoff


Memory in the form of instincts, inherited traits and abilities is remembering. — Rich

Ok, fair enough. I was just referring to the kind of remembering by which someone could actually say that they've previously lived.

What you are saying that it's that people don't seem to remember past physical lives, but apparently some claim that they do.

Haven't some of them been debunked?

There are various explanations for reported past lives:

1. The person genuinely remembers a past life.

2. Intentional hoax, fraud by the individual in question or hir (his/her) parents.

3. More or less subconscious coaxing by parents

4. The child has heard conversations about historical times and historical people (including people who weren't famous)

5. The author of the book that describes the "seemingly true" cases is a liar or hoaxer.

Don't underestimate #5.

A person can quote something from a book, and say, "Aright, how do you explain that?!!"

The author made it up.

And yes, that's been well documented in numerous occasions, from UFO's to all sorts of other kinds of things.

With so many prosaic explanations for someone telling details of a past life, there's no need to assume the explanation (genuinely true reports) that, itself, doesn't have any known explanation.

Skepticism implies reincarnation, but not reporting of details of a past life.

We x even can't remember in most cases even what happens in one physical life.

Quite so.

Michael Ossipoff

While the sun IS the source for solar energy, it isn't the immediate physical origin of the earth. ↪noAxioms
already pointed this out. The disk of dust that spawned our system spawned the sun along with the planets. — Bitter Crank

No, that cloud of matter that formed the Sun isn't the immediate origin of the Earth. After that cloud originated the Sun, the Sun originated the planets, via a disk of material that spread out in the plane of the ecliptic, in keeping with conservation of angular momentum.

So, yes the Sun is the immediate origin of the Earth.

Eventually the sun will take back everything it allegedly gave us.

...and (to our great credit) it won't be our doing.

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Towards the effective end of its yellow*** star life, it will enlarge beyond the orbit of earth -- which won't be vaporized, but will be rather thoroughly fried. Eventually the sun will collapse into a dwarf and earth will be a ball of rock which won't host life again (not enough time, not enough energy, no water, no more water-bearing bodies falling on it in huge numbers, etc.)

The sun is entirely capable of dealing with anything we send its way.

That has been said many times in this topic, and I've been agreeing, every time, that it's probably so.

I've been repeatedly copying and re-posting my answers to that. Now, I'll just refer you to them, above in this topic.

If you want to worry about a long term problem, worry about plastics. The billions of tons of plastic that we let loose into the environment are practically immortal. The plastic out of which your oatmeal bowl was made may not be in the shape of a bowl by the time the sun overtakes the earth and burns up all the crap once and for all time, but all of it will be in little pieces somewhere (unless it gets incinerated first by our efforts).

I'm not saying that I support the garbaging of the Earth. I just don't think it's necessary to garbage the sun too.

(...even though were garbaging the Earth worse, and the garbaging of the Earth is much more likely to bring us harm.)

Michael Ossipoff

Andrew4Handel said things that led me to believe that he supported the Physicalists' Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness. He seemed to be saying, with Physicalists, that it's puzzling that there could be first-person experience.

But maybe he was just saying, as you suggested, that science doesn't know the mechanisms--a true statement, of course.

I have not heard an explanation for example of why biochemical activity at neuronal synapses would lead to a private subjective severe pain sensation. — Andrew4Handel

My answer was that those sensations are natural-selection's way of incentivizing you to get your hand out of the fire.

Michael Ossipoff

Yes, Andrew4Handel didn't support Sapolsky's statement.

Well, there doesn't seem to be disagreement after all.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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Hanover's definition of "stupid":

"Not in agreement with Hanover.' — Michael Ossipoff

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Not really. My comment was insulting, sure, and I should have picked another word, but, really, you're arguing that we shouldn't send a probe to the sun because the sun is super special and should be spared earthly particles that are sent up to look at it?
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…no a subject for intrusive experiments, yes.

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How is that a defensible position?

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In the ways that I described in my initial post of this topic, and have been re-posting ever since.
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It's not like we're spitting on God or something.

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You said it, I didn’t.
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Good description of the experiment. It sounds as if you’ve understood the character of it.
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I get that what we say here is irrelevant in that no one would actually listen to us when deciding what to do

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A safe bet.
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, but I can think of few worse reasons to call off the sun probe than because it's a cosmic insult.

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Fine, then may someone call it off for a better reason.
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Let's suppose Trump declared tomorrow there was not to be a sun probe because sun area is inviolable by man. That'd go down as a really stupid decision, right?

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Wrong. It would be a good decision. But what it would “go down as” (“…be perceived by most people as”) is another subject.
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You’ve already shared with us your name-calling opinion--thanks.
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But if he calls it off for budgetary reasons, that would be good enough.
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But let’s not get into politics.
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I’d said:

This discussion has devolved to repetition, and nothing other than repetition.

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I suggest that we've all had our say.

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Hasn't this discussion run its course and reached its conclusion? — Michael Ossipoff

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You reply:
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You think you can just tell people you've heard enough and they'll be quiet for you? I think the conversation will organically end, like when people are tired of talking about it, not when someone else decides it's quiet time.

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I’m just saying that the discussion has devolved to repetition, and nothing but repetition.
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Michael Ossipoff

I have not heard an explanation for example of why biochemical activity at neuronal synapses would lead to a private subjective severe pain sensation. Or why any physical activity should lead to an observer, subjectivity and sensation. Hopefully you can see the difference between someone examining my body and brain when I report pain and myself having the actual experience. — Andrew4Handel

That's the animal's (your) view, perception, of its natural-selection-caused incentivization to get its fingers out of the fire, to avoid damage.

What makes Andrew4Handel think that someone else examining him should feel his pain. If the examiner stubs his toe, then he'll feel his own pain.

Michael Ossipoff

Andrew4Handel said:
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We know that we have vivid private experiences but these are not seen in the brain and there is no real explanation as how they emerge from the brain if they do. — Andrew4Handel

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I replied:
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What utter nonsense. — Michael Ossipoff

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Wafarer says:
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No, Andrew4Handel is entirely correct in that. Science has no account of how experience arises from what it knows about neurology and the like.
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No problem. If all Andrew4Handel meant was to bemoan the fact that science hasn’t mapped out the entire workings of the brain, then I owe him an apology.
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Let it never be said that I never admit when I’ve been wrong.
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But Andrew4Handel sure seemed be echoing the confused-Physicalist’s Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness, which asserts a belief in Consciousness or Mind as something apart from the body…and then desperately tries to explain away what those same Physicalists have unnecessarily and un-validly decided to assert belief in… explain it away by means of such mystical mumbo-jumbo as Epiphenomena, Supervenience (There’s nothing to do the “supervening”), and Emergent Properties.
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…bring it into existence with magical mystical mumbo-jumbo, and then try to explain it with more magical mystical mumbo-jumbo.
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Of course, it knows a ton of stuff about neurology, far more than was known 20 or 50 or 100 years ago, but the 'hard problem of consciousness' is recognised by many scientists and philosophers as exactly that - a problem of the kind to which there isn't even an imagined solution.

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…because the “problem” is ridiculous and fictional.
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…because the “problem” is the making of hard-working academic philosophers with a need to featherbed their livelihood, and publish rather than perish.
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Because unlike any amount of scientific knowledge of neurology, experience is first person.

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What did you expect? Is it really surprising that an animal has perceptions, sensations, preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc? How else do you expect it to respond to its surroundings in an adaptive manner that natural-selection calls for.
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And, as an animal, should you be surprised that you have those perceptions, sensations, preferences, likes, dislikes, fears, etc?
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What are those if not “first-person” with respect to that animal? What else would you expect?
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Is it somehow surprising that the experience and point-of-view of an animal observed by a scientist is different from that of the scientist who is observing or studying the animal?
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…even if you’re that animal?
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That’s what I mean when I say that Physicalists have gotten themselves all snarled-up with their Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness, which is only of their own confused imagining.
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You’ve been reading the Physicalists, and believing them.
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“The animal (that's you) has to be designed to do things.”— Michael Ossipoff
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A million monkeys, with a millon typewriters, couldn't produce the above.

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The could, and they do.
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…just as evolved monkeys went to the Moon in 1969.
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But, lest you be insulted when I call us “evolved monkeys”, I hasten to add that we probably aren’t all primate.
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There’s strongly convincing evidence that, in addition to the Primates, there’s another order of Mammalia in our family tree:
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The order Artiodactyla.
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The Even-Toed Hooved Mammals.
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Pigs, in particular.
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So, I didn’t mean to insult you. We aren’t merely from the apes. We’re part pig, too.
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From what I’ve heard and read about chimpanzees, and about pigs, I suggest that we inherited our worst attributes from the Primate side of the family.
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Michael Ossipoff

↪Michael Ossipoff
I don't think you realize how absolutely massive and hot the sun is compared to anything we could lob into it. Even if it was done for the specific purpose of destroying it, I don't think humanity could muster more than a petty insult to the sun. — Joseph

I'm not saying that the probe is going to result in an "Oops!!" moment. It probably won't. But is "probably" good enough, when we're talking about the source of energy for Earth's life? — Michael Ossipoff

Maybe, even probably, the Sun will be unaffected. You could argue that all of the solar-system's matter originated in the Sun anyway, and that the probe is quite small in comparison to the sun.

But the motivation for the experiment is that little is known about the corona in particular, and about the Sun in general. And, if little is known, that means that things can't be predicted or assured with certainty.

The Sun probably won't be affected? Sure. But is probably good enough, when it involves the energy-source on which Earth's life depends? — Michael Ossipoff

I'm saying that it's objectionable and offensive as a matter of principle. — Michael Ossipoff

But, even just on principle, given that the Sun is the origin of the Earth and us, and given that, in our sky every day, it's the energy-source for Earth's life, isn't there something offensive and objectionable about throwing our garbage into it, or even doing investigative flybys through the solar corona? — Michael Ossipoff

This discussion has devolved to repetition, and nothing other than repetition.

I suggest that we've all had our say.

Hasn't this discussion run its course and reached its conclusion?

Michael Ossipoff

"Is there anything that's inviolable?" — Michael Ossipoff


The basis of your objection to the probe is that the sun is sacred?

I've already answered that:
— Hanover

"I don't see why we should view the Sun as sacred." — darthbarracuda

It's just the energy-source, immediate physical origin, and immediate physical reason for for Earth's life. — Michael Ossipoff

Both sides of this question have had their say.

Now there's only repetition.

I said what I wanted to say.

Then you said what you wanted to say.

I'd say this discussion has run its course, in this forum-topic.


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You don't see this objection as stupid?


Hanover's definition of "stupid":

"Not in agreement with Hanover.'

To be "stupid" an objection would have to first be demonstrated as objectively incorrect.

...other than because it's different from Hanover's opinion.

Be proud of yourself, Hanover--you're what discredit's the Internet.

I'm sure the sun encounters far greater threats from random debris on a day to day basis (Icarus, for instance) without us having to worry about a tiny chunk of steel getting too close to it. — Hanover

...not to mention nearby supernovae, and the Sun's eventual depletion of fuel.

Hello? We didn't build and send those things.

Our role needn't extend to intrusively experiments on the Earth's energy source.

Michael Ossipoff