(click title above)
NATURAL SELECTION UNGUIDED BY HIGHER CHOICE-MAKING IS NOT A TESTABLE THEORY:
An ambiguous variety of notions, often passing under a common pretext or label of “natural selection,” in inconsistent and confused aspects, is often advanced as if it were a “theory” for explaining why our natural, “physical” environment should have brought forth the origination, competitive adaptation, and group cooperation of the sorts of bacteria, plants, animals, and symbiotic and altruistic societies that we find in our environment. Such notions are often presented in shape-changing or swapping ways, as if they were peas for being passed under a shell game, the hand and mouth being faster than the eye and the comprehension.
Quite a variety of errors in reasoning adopted by proponents of natural selection is well explained by David Stove, in his book, Darwinian Fairytales, 1995. The errors are so fundamental and egregious that the “theory” should better be considered a mere collection of conflicting notions.
Taking one example: Proponents often wish to show natural selection to be a coherent, scientific explanation, both at the level of adaptations by individual mutants and at the level of adaptations by group societies. One problem is that an adaptation that disadvantages the survival and reproduction of the genes of an individual by rendering him less aggressive may advantage the survival and reproduction of the social unit of which such individual is a part by reducing its group disharmony. That is, group dynamics for altruism may favor replication of a recessive gene that can be harmful to individuals.
That is, natural selection, in the sense of selecting for genes most advantaged for survival and replication, will often pull in one direction at the individual level and in another direction at the group level. How, then, could competition to survive and replicate be expected “to choose” which attribute to favor?
Absent some Other Moderating Principle or Source, such a notion of natural selection, by itself, cannot very well be expected to apply equally well, both to individual selection and to group selection (sociobiology). Rather, such a notion of natural selection becomes not a good explanation in itself for all cases of evolutionary change.
Regardless of whether or not considered to be guided by a Meta-Source of higher choice-making, natural selection is not a testable theory.
PURPOSES OF PROPONENTS OF NATURAL SELECTION:
So, what are proponents’ purposes for “Natural Selection,” as an empirically based “theory,” by which to explain origins, adaptations, and choices of perspectives or forms of consciousness or life?
Does Natural Selection inspire or inform us to appreciate:
1) The original cause of our universe;
2) Consciousness, will, and choice-making;
3) How we should participate, artificially, in our processes of natural selection;
4) What, if anything, may limit our imaginative artifices and capacities, conscious perspectives, incomplete frames of reference, and interpretative manipulations of algorithmic functions of math;
5) How we relate, or should relate, to a Demi-Urge;
6) Whether the Demi-Urge (selfish gene?) is concerned with more than just transmitting our sexual reproductions of copies of our genes through time, but may also be concerned with transmitting, improving, or changing our empathies, arts, skills, and capacities to puncture limits through time;
7) How the Demi-Urge may be layered and leveraged in pure mathematics; or
8) How conscious experience and choice-making may be appreciated or enhanced, as skills in modeling and math become enhanced?
In light of chaos theory, butterfly effect, and quantum uncertainty, how can Natural Selection, as any sort of a concrete or exclusive theory, hold any specifically reliable or predictive value by which it could be tested, confirmed, or FALSIFIED? If it does not, does it not become fair to ask whether the purposes of its proponents pertain more to concerns that are moral, amoral, or political than “scientific”?
In what way is science or politics advanced merely by ASSUMING that Nature, apart from receptivity to guidance from a metaphysical Source of conscious empathy or altruism, is the only reasonable explanation for all mortal functions and purposes?
In what way is it (morally?) “REASONABLE” to assume evidence for non-trivial concerns should be sufficient, based only on assumption? In what way is it reasonable to look at the past and assume that, at the time it was in the present, no choices alternative to it were then available? Apart from TRIVIALLY MAPPING our past sequence and labeling it the result as “Natural Selection,” of what practical use is any notion of Natural Selection? Of WHAT PRACTICAL OR MORAL USE is it, for guiding us concerning what decisions we should make now?
In what way is it “reasonable” to assume only “physical” evidence can be pertinent to reasoning about non-trivial concerns, apart from deep consideration of mathematics, intuition, conscious empathy, and altruism? Are not deep mathematics and consciousness also pertinent aspects for empirical appreciation?
In order of derivation, is not perception superior to math, math superior to physics, physics superior to biology (genotypes and phenotypes), and biology superior to geography? Why, then, defer to biologists over mathematicians for anthropic calculations of mathematical probabilities and indications with regard to “evidence” for Natural Selection free of guidance from any conscious, moral, purposeful, or choice-making Source?
Why choose to believe, merely because we, in hindsight, cannot change the past, that neither we nor any higher consciousness (God) has any present participation, in foresight, for choice-making for the future? Why ignore obvious, self-fulfilling, moral aspects of coming together in spiritual forums for seeking to reason together, in altruistic, empathetic, resonating, synchronizing, moral respect of Higher Consciousness?
Even if non-testable, a scientific notion, if “Natural Selection” is one, may help us appreciate the “physical record” of our past, regarding aspects which we are unable now to change.
However, a spiritual notion, such as a notion of “Natural Selection guided by Higher Consciousness,” would more inspire us to come together in good faith and empathy to seek consensus about what we should do with our common future.
MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF NOTIONS OF PURE SELFISHNESS:
Should one very well or reasonably trust an Objectivist-Libertarian-Rand’ian to do the presumptively right or civilized thing when no one is looking?
GAME THEORY AND INTUITION:
MORAL SELECTION OF CHOICES: CONSCIOUSLY WILLED OR NATURALLY DETERMINED?
Rather continuously, each of us participates in experiencing a game for rationalizing that which we want to do next.
Often, a choice or rationalization may have been made or synchronized at a level and time before the nerve impulse for making it has even been instigated or appreciated.
Regardless, respecting any non-trivial choice one makes, one’s senses never inform one of all the specific or measurable data for all pertinent factors by which such choice was made, as synchronized with the wider environment.
How, then, may one rationalize any agency by which unknown measures were factored, in order to produce one’s choice (or gamble)?
In sensing incompleteness in one’s senses, one may, by indirection, reasonably “sense,” “intuit,” or rationalize the involvement of unknown factors.
In turn, habits of rationalization may themselves become instantiated as factors, albeit somewhat abstract, as in circumstantial superstitions, omens, biases, or subconsciously guided random gambles.
Thus, abstract relations may instantiate to guide one to “intuitions,” whether mistaken, conditioned, subconscious, or conscious.
Even so, for non-trivial choices, a mortal always has incomplete information and capacity, whether or not instantiated in some nervous pathway, such that he always engages in incomplete guesswork and rationalization, never knowing the full scope of potentially vital factors.
That is, no non-trivial conscious choice is ever free of some kind or degree of rationalization --- before, during, and after.
Rather, every non-trivial decision entails some aspect of “putting one’s finger to the wind,” as if to ask God (or Nature) to guide one’s intuition.
Somehow, at some level, one rationalizes one’s choices. Not really knowing why, one may call one’s unknown reasons instinct or “intuition” --- regardless of whether later judged “right.”
After all, if one could pre-know one’s correct choices, one would neither be mortal, nor would one be playing the game of life.
GOD:
Perhaps, a Holistic Synchronizer makes our choices, while we participate as appreciative, rationalizing, holographic perspectives.
Perhaps, a spiritually Holistic Consciousness (“God”) of synchronization of perspectives-of-interacting-functions-of-math (mortals) has no choice but to exist, for a purpose of inspiring, and rationalizing what we experience as our “choices” and “whys.”
Perhaps, God is unable consciously to choose to “do nothing,” but is able to choose to put that which God, at various levels of involvement, is relationally or relatively unconscious of, or indifferent to, under the temporal direction and control of pre-set or randomly indifferent and overlapping levels of mathematically fluxing functions and perspectives.
Perhaps higher, fluxing layers of consciousness are leveraged out of slave-like math functions manifested at lower, sometimes “revolting” levels.
Perhaps, under girding the most skilled and powerful levels of mortal consciousness, God subsists as an eternally present Source, which need not learn or acquire skills at all, because IT already knows, and simply uses us as perspectives somehow to enjoy and recycle its arts, perpetually.
Perhaps, every mortal is epiphenomenally derivative of such ultimate, synchronizing Source.
Perhaps, holistic, fulsome, God’s concern is always intervening with our holographic, fractal, perspectives, subject to fluxing kinds and degrees of involvement.
Perhaps, our receptivity to higher guidance and purpose may augur aspects of God’s involvement.
If so, such need not be inconsistent with a notion or appearance of “natural selection” that is guided in respect of God.
Such guidance may be rationalized (philosophically) as a “moral explanation” for inconsistent clouds of confusion that otherwise confound the notion of natural selection.
But, may such guidance also be suggested indirectly (scientifically?), by logic and math?
PURPOSE BEYOND PURE REASON:
For any self-consciousness of perspective (mortal being) to participate in a game of existential experientialism (“life”) is to play within circumscribing rules (“laws of nature”).
Such rules must have derived (artificially?) in respect of some Source (God?) beyond them, in respect of which such rules, by themselves, are incomplete.
Regardless of conceit, mortals are necessarily insensible to such rules or forces as exist beyond nature, such that mortals lack completeness of definition by which, apart from trivialities, ever to be completely “objective” or “reasonable.”
Perspectives of consciousness that share and relate to our universe have capacities to interpret among an overlapping variety of geometrical and mathematical FORMS.
Sensing a particular pattern, one attaches an interpretation to it, from among possible interpretations of forms stored for our capacitating access (minds).
Having related a presenting pattern to a form selected from among one’s interpretative capacities, one experiences or assigns an EMOTIONAL MEANING to it, i.e., to how it relates to one’s self valuation and inspiration.
Having attached such meaningfulness, one may wish then to COMMUNICATE such meaning to such others as may seem empathetically receptive.
That is, it is unreasonable for a mortal to deny that “reason itself,” unguided by any intuition beyond, is unsatisfactory for completing his or her non-trivial choice-making.
Altruism ---
1) Innate spiritual empathy, in every perspective of Consciousness; vs.
2) Nurture, through culture, education, and inculcation; vs.
3) Nature, in genes, instinct, and natural receptivity to bonding and to habituated neural pathways:
Altruistic feelings may often be thought, generally, to flow most strongly and orderly through self, family, blood relatives, in-law relatives, clan, tribe, nation, trading partners, allies, continent, hemisphere, world, other species, and robots.
Should altruism best be conceptualized as consisting in enlightened empathy (cooperation) or in enlightened selfishness (competition)?
Perhaps, expressions of spiritual levels and degrees of conscious altruism guide our adaptive, competitive, and cooperative efforts and reproductions.
Most fundamentally, interactive altruism seems to stem from some level of identification of, or consciousness of, empathy, which seems often to associate with sharing, in significant respects, models of reality and purposefulness.
Why should higher orders of consciousness empathize more among themselves?
Perhaps, by innate programming, instinct, or intuition, they partake more of one another’s spiritual consciousness and compatible interests, tastes, and affinities.
At lower (more easily manipulated) levels, innate (“physical”) programming may be dominant. Even if “physics” is a lesser form of reality, derivative of higher consciousness and math, such physics remains empirically reliable to the skilled manipulation of higher levels of consciousness over lower levels of mathematical expressions.
That is, higher levels of consciousness can more empirically rely upon projections of detectable directions of mass flows of underlying gangs of lower functions and, where they meet, their random competitions. Such is basis for the appearance or illusion of “physical laws,” i.e., God’s synchronizing expressions in “Nature.”
Even absent governance, members of human societies may be expected altruistically to favor one another over other species. Why? Because civilized society requires culture, which requires inculcation (nurture) of traditions and rules for coextensive cooperation. This leads to organized tribalism, i.e., sociobiology, i.e., altruism within tribes, thus, often, hostility against outside tribes.
In such groups, we often “cooperate to compete,” trying to flourish in our environments. Thus, consciousness acts out its urges to appreciate and understand itself from various perspectives. Enlightened consciousness seeks to avail civilized populations that are stable, sustainable, and surpassable.
Those patterns of consciousness which endure are those which are guided, altruistically, in facilitating the transmission and passing on of appreciation and empathy, at some level of information regarding each one’s existence, within an environment signified and shared with others.
Inasmuch as physics is only a bookmarking derivative, it seems the case that consciousness is what guides and seeks empathetic promotion, to enhance its chances to inculcate and pass on love, altruism, empathy, and information.
Ultimately, it is levels of consciousness, appreciation, and sensateness of information that seek to survive, reproduce, and be passed on, rather than merely derivative, “physical,” biological, genes.
NATURAL SELECTION UNGUIDED BY HIGHER CHOICE-MAKING IS NOT A TESTABLE THEORY:
An ambiguous variety of notions, often passing under a common pretext or label of “natural selection,” in inconsistent and confused aspects, is often advanced as if it were a “theory” for explaining why our natural, “physical” environment should have brought forth the origination, competitive adaptation, and group cooperation of the sorts of bacteria, plants, animals, and symbiotic and altruistic societies that we find in our environment. Such notions are often presented in shape-changing or swapping ways, as if they were peas for being passed under a shell game, the hand and mouth being faster than the eye and the comprehension.
Quite a variety of errors in reasoning adopted by proponents of natural selection is well explained by David Stove, in his book, Darwinian Fairytales, 1995. The errors are so fundamental and egregious that the “theory” should better be considered a mere collection of conflicting notions.
Taking one example: Proponents often wish to show natural selection to be a coherent, scientific explanation, both at the level of adaptations by individual mutants and at the level of adaptations by group societies. One problem is that an adaptation that disadvantages the survival and reproduction of the genes of an individual by rendering him less aggressive may advantage the survival and reproduction of the social unit of which such individual is a part by reducing its group disharmony. That is, group dynamics for altruism may favor replication of a recessive gene that can be harmful to individuals.
That is, natural selection, in the sense of selecting for genes most advantaged for survival and replication, will often pull in one direction at the individual level and in another direction at the group level. How, then, could competition to survive and replicate be expected “to choose” which attribute to favor?
Absent some Other Moderating Principle or Source, such a notion of natural selection, by itself, cannot very well be expected to apply equally well, both to individual selection and to group selection (sociobiology). Rather, such a notion of natural selection becomes not a good explanation in itself for all cases of evolutionary change.
Regardless of whether or not considered to be guided by a Meta-Source of higher choice-making, natural selection is not a testable theory.
PURPOSES OF PROPONENTS OF NATURAL SELECTION:
So, what are proponents’ purposes for “Natural Selection,” as an empirically based “theory,” by which to explain origins, adaptations, and choices of perspectives or forms of consciousness or life?
Does Natural Selection inspire or inform us to appreciate:
1) The original cause of our universe;
2) Consciousness, will, and choice-making;
3) How we should participate, artificially, in our processes of natural selection;
4) What, if anything, may limit our imaginative artifices and capacities, conscious perspectives, incomplete frames of reference, and interpretative manipulations of algorithmic functions of math;
5) How we relate, or should relate, to a Demi-Urge;
6) Whether the Demi-Urge (selfish gene?) is concerned with more than just transmitting our sexual reproductions of copies of our genes through time, but may also be concerned with transmitting, improving, or changing our empathies, arts, skills, and capacities to puncture limits through time;
7) How the Demi-Urge may be layered and leveraged in pure mathematics; or
8) How conscious experience and choice-making may be appreciated or enhanced, as skills in modeling and math become enhanced?
In light of chaos theory, butterfly effect, and quantum uncertainty, how can Natural Selection, as any sort of a concrete or exclusive theory, hold any specifically reliable or predictive value by which it could be tested, confirmed, or FALSIFIED? If it does not, does it not become fair to ask whether the purposes of its proponents pertain more to concerns that are moral, amoral, or political than “scientific”?
In what way is science or politics advanced merely by ASSUMING that Nature, apart from receptivity to guidance from a metaphysical Source of conscious empathy or altruism, is the only reasonable explanation for all mortal functions and purposes?
In what way is it (morally?) “REASONABLE” to assume evidence for non-trivial concerns should be sufficient, based only on assumption? In what way is it reasonable to look at the past and assume that, at the time it was in the present, no choices alternative to it were then available? Apart from TRIVIALLY MAPPING our past sequence and labeling it the result as “Natural Selection,” of what practical use is any notion of Natural Selection? Of WHAT PRACTICAL OR MORAL USE is it, for guiding us concerning what decisions we should make now?
In what way is it “reasonable” to assume only “physical” evidence can be pertinent to reasoning about non-trivial concerns, apart from deep consideration of mathematics, intuition, conscious empathy, and altruism? Are not deep mathematics and consciousness also pertinent aspects for empirical appreciation?
In order of derivation, is not perception superior to math, math superior to physics, physics superior to biology (genotypes and phenotypes), and biology superior to geography? Why, then, defer to biologists over mathematicians for anthropic calculations of mathematical probabilities and indications with regard to “evidence” for Natural Selection free of guidance from any conscious, moral, purposeful, or choice-making Source?
Why choose to believe, merely because we, in hindsight, cannot change the past, that neither we nor any higher consciousness (God) has any present participation, in foresight, for choice-making for the future? Why ignore obvious, self-fulfilling, moral aspects of coming together in spiritual forums for seeking to reason together, in altruistic, empathetic, resonating, synchronizing, moral respect of Higher Consciousness?
Even if non-testable, a scientific notion, if “Natural Selection” is one, may help us appreciate the “physical record” of our past, regarding aspects which we are unable now to change.
However, a spiritual notion, such as a notion of “Natural Selection guided by Higher Consciousness,” would more inspire us to come together in good faith and empathy to seek consensus about what we should do with our common future.
MORAL BANKRUPTCY OF NOTIONS OF PURE SELFISHNESS:
Should one very well or reasonably trust an Objectivist-Libertarian-Rand’ian to do the presumptively right or civilized thing when no one is looking?
GAME THEORY AND INTUITION:
MORAL SELECTION OF CHOICES: CONSCIOUSLY WILLED OR NATURALLY DETERMINED?
Rather continuously, each of us participates in experiencing a game for rationalizing that which we want to do next.
Often, a choice or rationalization may have been made or synchronized at a level and time before the nerve impulse for making it has even been instigated or appreciated.
Regardless, respecting any non-trivial choice one makes, one’s senses never inform one of all the specific or measurable data for all pertinent factors by which such choice was made, as synchronized with the wider environment.
How, then, may one rationalize any agency by which unknown measures were factored, in order to produce one’s choice (or gamble)?
In sensing incompleteness in one’s senses, one may, by indirection, reasonably “sense,” “intuit,” or rationalize the involvement of unknown factors.
In turn, habits of rationalization may themselves become instantiated as factors, albeit somewhat abstract, as in circumstantial superstitions, omens, biases, or subconsciously guided random gambles.
Thus, abstract relations may instantiate to guide one to “intuitions,” whether mistaken, conditioned, subconscious, or conscious.
Even so, for non-trivial choices, a mortal always has incomplete information and capacity, whether or not instantiated in some nervous pathway, such that he always engages in incomplete guesswork and rationalization, never knowing the full scope of potentially vital factors.
That is, no non-trivial conscious choice is ever free of some kind or degree of rationalization --- before, during, and after.
Rather, every non-trivial decision entails some aspect of “putting one’s finger to the wind,” as if to ask God (or Nature) to guide one’s intuition.
Somehow, at some level, one rationalizes one’s choices. Not really knowing why, one may call one’s unknown reasons instinct or “intuition” --- regardless of whether later judged “right.”
After all, if one could pre-know one’s correct choices, one would neither be mortal, nor would one be playing the game of life.
GOD:
Perhaps, a Holistic Synchronizer makes our choices, while we participate as appreciative, rationalizing, holographic perspectives.
Perhaps, a spiritually Holistic Consciousness (“God”) of synchronization of perspectives-of-interacting-functions-of-math (mortals) has no choice but to exist, for a purpose of inspiring, and rationalizing what we experience as our “choices” and “whys.”
Perhaps, God is unable consciously to choose to “do nothing,” but is able to choose to put that which God, at various levels of involvement, is relationally or relatively unconscious of, or indifferent to, under the temporal direction and control of pre-set or randomly indifferent and overlapping levels of mathematically fluxing functions and perspectives.
Perhaps higher, fluxing layers of consciousness are leveraged out of slave-like math functions manifested at lower, sometimes “revolting” levels.
Perhaps, under girding the most skilled and powerful levels of mortal consciousness, God subsists as an eternally present Source, which need not learn or acquire skills at all, because IT already knows, and simply uses us as perspectives somehow to enjoy and recycle its arts, perpetually.
Perhaps, every mortal is epiphenomenally derivative of such ultimate, synchronizing Source.
Perhaps, holistic, fulsome, God’s concern is always intervening with our holographic, fractal, perspectives, subject to fluxing kinds and degrees of involvement.
Perhaps, our receptivity to higher guidance and purpose may augur aspects of God’s involvement.
If so, such need not be inconsistent with a notion or appearance of “natural selection” that is guided in respect of God.
Such guidance may be rationalized (philosophically) as a “moral explanation” for inconsistent clouds of confusion that otherwise confound the notion of natural selection.
But, may such guidance also be suggested indirectly (scientifically?), by logic and math?
PURPOSE BEYOND PURE REASON:
For any self-consciousness of perspective (mortal being) to participate in a game of existential experientialism (“life”) is to play within circumscribing rules (“laws of nature”).
Such rules must have derived (artificially?) in respect of some Source (God?) beyond them, in respect of which such rules, by themselves, are incomplete.
Regardless of conceit, mortals are necessarily insensible to such rules or forces as exist beyond nature, such that mortals lack completeness of definition by which, apart from trivialities, ever to be completely “objective” or “reasonable.”
Perspectives of consciousness that share and relate to our universe have capacities to interpret among an overlapping variety of geometrical and mathematical FORMS.
Sensing a particular pattern, one attaches an interpretation to it, from among possible interpretations of forms stored for our capacitating access (minds).
Having related a presenting pattern to a form selected from among one’s interpretative capacities, one experiences or assigns an EMOTIONAL MEANING to it, i.e., to how it relates to one’s self valuation and inspiration.
Having attached such meaningfulness, one may wish then to COMMUNICATE such meaning to such others as may seem empathetically receptive.
That is, it is unreasonable for a mortal to deny that “reason itself,” unguided by any intuition beyond, is unsatisfactory for completing his or her non-trivial choice-making.
Altruism ---
1) Innate spiritual empathy, in every perspective of Consciousness; vs.
2) Nurture, through culture, education, and inculcation; vs.
3) Nature, in genes, instinct, and natural receptivity to bonding and to habituated neural pathways:
Altruistic feelings may often be thought, generally, to flow most strongly and orderly through self, family, blood relatives, in-law relatives, clan, tribe, nation, trading partners, allies, continent, hemisphere, world, other species, and robots.
Should altruism best be conceptualized as consisting in enlightened empathy (cooperation) or in enlightened selfishness (competition)?
Perhaps, expressions of spiritual levels and degrees of conscious altruism guide our adaptive, competitive, and cooperative efforts and reproductions.
Most fundamentally, interactive altruism seems to stem from some level of identification of, or consciousness of, empathy, which seems often to associate with sharing, in significant respects, models of reality and purposefulness.
Why should higher orders of consciousness empathize more among themselves?
Perhaps, by innate programming, instinct, or intuition, they partake more of one another’s spiritual consciousness and compatible interests, tastes, and affinities.
At lower (more easily manipulated) levels, innate (“physical”) programming may be dominant. Even if “physics” is a lesser form of reality, derivative of higher consciousness and math, such physics remains empirically reliable to the skilled manipulation of higher levels of consciousness over lower levels of mathematical expressions.
That is, higher levels of consciousness can more empirically rely upon projections of detectable directions of mass flows of underlying gangs of lower functions and, where they meet, their random competitions. Such is basis for the appearance or illusion of “physical laws,” i.e., God’s synchronizing expressions in “Nature.”
Even absent governance, members of human societies may be expected altruistically to favor one another over other species. Why? Because civilized society requires culture, which requires inculcation (nurture) of traditions and rules for coextensive cooperation. This leads to organized tribalism, i.e., sociobiology, i.e., altruism within tribes, thus, often, hostility against outside tribes.
In such groups, we often “cooperate to compete,” trying to flourish in our environments. Thus, consciousness acts out its urges to appreciate and understand itself from various perspectives. Enlightened consciousness seeks to avail civilized populations that are stable, sustainable, and surpassable.
Those patterns of consciousness which endure are those which are guided, altruistically, in facilitating the transmission and passing on of appreciation and empathy, at some level of information regarding each one’s existence, within an environment signified and shared with others.
Inasmuch as physics is only a bookmarking derivative, it seems the case that consciousness is what guides and seeks empathetic promotion, to enhance its chances to inculcate and pass on love, altruism, empathy, and information.
Ultimately, it is levels of consciousness, appreciation, and sensateness of information that seek to survive, reproduce, and be passed on, rather than merely derivative, “physical,” biological, genes.
4 comments:
Re: Origins and Thinking Critically
Dave,
I thought these you-tube entries were interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwwZG8Mw-M;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HVCDasHKHY;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkFYx3TDMhs&feature=related.
I suspect much of debate --- about whether "natural selection" alone, without conscious participation of “artificial selection” (i.e., Designer), can account for life on earth --- may eventually relate to a question about the most fundamental character of “consciousness” (or “sensateness”). (That is, if scientists can even agree on what they mean by "natural selection.")
I think respected biologists should talk among themselves to see (test?) whether they can agree on just how, and to what extent, biology textbooks should be allowed to articulate why so many scientists do or do not believe in natural selection.
First, however, they need to define their terms, as in:
(1) precisely what do they mean by "natural selection"; and
(2) does the meaning stay the same both for micro (individual) and macro (group, sociobiological) levels; or
(3) do they just play shell games, and switch their definitional-pea back and forth, whenever ambiguity and confusion are convenient to them?
Frankly, I suspect mate-attractiveness (consciousness of group-culture generated approval) may play a big enough role to rule out a simplistically exclusive notion of survival and replication of the genes of the "fittest" genotype.
In other words, random, social-cultural approval (nurture) may often trump (nature) to determine what is "fittest."
Moreover, becoming not to give a damn about social conventions will also, depending on situational context, often be advantageous. (Witness: Wise guys.)
And, the race does not always go to the smartest, flashiest, healthiest, fastest, strongest, most persistent, most devious, most aggressive, most empathetic or charming, or most sociopathic.
Sometimes, the race simply goes to the most agreeably "average." (Witness: Obama).
Given how very ambiguous the word "fittest" is seen to be, how is anything very rigorous or scientific said, merely by suggesting that the "fittest" propagators of genes will tend to survive and replicate?
In discussing evolution, are biologists doing anything more than merely defining "fittest" in hindsight?
If so, one hardly needs either a crystal ball or a science degree to appraise what was "fittest." By definition, whatever occurred must have been "fittest."
But, that is trivial, not rigorously scientific.
If such a trivial notion of survival of the fittest can be taught as "science," why not a notion of a possibly implicated designer (or space alien)?
If the notion of a designer guiding selection should only be taught as philosophy, not as science, what about the notion of natural selection? How can the notion of natural selection be said to be rigorously scientific, in any sense of being specifically testable, predictive, reliable, or falsifiable?
Are we just in one of those mass hysteria fads, like hula hoops, where everyone is falling for a Dawkins con job, as he goes about selling his books?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/change_some_may_not_want_you_t.html:
Part of the problem is this: The words "science," "philosophy," and "religion" tend not to be as precise as laymen often think, but are pressed to serve a lot of ambiguous concerns.
But, if scientists wish to restrict the debate to precise terms, then should they not provide and adhere to precise definitions? I suspect smart philosophers could duel them on any ground they may choose, but only ask that they put away or candidly admit the 3 card Monty and shell game ploys. As things stand, too many sheltered, nerdy momma-boy scientists conceit to think no one else should be allowed to play with their balls. :)
I suspect many scientists tend to suppose notions often falling under a general heading of "natural selection" are "scientific," when such notions may more fairly be considered as philosophical or faith based.
Insofar as notions under the rubric of natural selection that are not amenable of measure, testing, confirmation, or falsification, it seems odd that such notions should be considered as more appropriate for a science class than a philosophy class. Alternatively, if philosophical aspects of natural selection are thought appropriate for a science class, then why not also the philosophical aspects of a supernatural or meta-source notion of empathetic Consciousness (aka, God)?
****
See http://www.evolutionnews.org/.
See http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/reviewing_jerry_coyne_part_2_f.html:
“Faith is fidelity to a unified understanding of reality, even though the evidence is necessarily incomplete. Chesterton explained his faith in Christ as a consequence of his experience that Christianity fits life ‘like a key fits a lock.’ For many aspects of belief, Christians accept the experiences of others, because it is not possible for each of us to have the full array of personal experiences, and we trust the experiences of others if those experiences are consistent with what we have personally come to understand.”
....
“Even leading scientists tend to specialize so intensely that much of the evidence in their own broader scientific field is outside of their personal experience.
Scientific belief and religious belief are both based largely on faith, understood as the belief in the implications of the evidence, even when some of the implications extend beyond the raw evidence.”
....
“Science is the study of the natural world, and specifically, it is the study of natural effects. There is nothing in science or in the philosophy of science that coherently rules out extra-(super) natural causes. In fact, extra-natural causes are the basis for some of our most successful science. Cosmology is based on Big Bang theory, which posits creation ex-nihilo, which by definition is extra-natural. There is no reason to insist that effects in the natural world must be the result of natural causes. And if extra-natural causes are necessary to explain nature (as is the case for the origin of the universe), then religion, understood as the study of the broader metaphysical issues, seems necessary to science.”
“Atheists such as Dr. Coyne have ideological reasons to ascribe a different standard of credibility to their own beliefs than to those of others. If Darwinism were subjected to rigorous critique on a level with other religious/scientific beliefs, it would collapse in short time. Darwinists need to insulate their theory from criticism, so they misrepresent the religious nature of Darwinism — by insisting that it is pure 'science' — and they use the federal courts to prohibit any discussion of Darwinism's weaknesses in public schools. Their reluctance to permit even a whisper of critique of their theory in schools speaks to the fragility of their ideology. It's evident that they believe that Darwin's theory won't even withstand the scrutiny of schoolchildren.
To answer the question ‘can science and religion be reconciled,’ one must first ask it in a way that can be answered. Can evolutionary change be reconciled with Christianity? Can biological information be reconciled with atheism? Coyne elides these essential subtleties. He doesn’t even ask coherent questions.
I suspect that Dr. Coyne, an atheist, understands these questions all too well, and doesn't like the answers.”
****
http://redassmoderates.blogspot.com/:
There seems little reason to believe that God could not be teleological and still lack full consciousness on all levels of all experiences of all perspectives to come.
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http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/the_strange_case_of_little_gre_2.html:
“... as Whittaker Chambers put it in Witness, “Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible.””
....
“Our country’s moral order derives, of course, from other sources too, independent of the Bible. But without a spiritual heritage, our identity as a nation would be substantially crippled. That may be why versions of patriotism denatured by the subtraction of this faith element often seem kind of lame and uninspiring.
So it goes, too, in the rest of the Western world. It’s no wonder that the most highly secularized nations—those in Western Europe—also have the hardest time explaining why they have a right to defend their own historically Christian cultures from the fundamentalist Muslim culture that—and here we return to LGF—blogger Charles Johnson regards with understandable anxiety and dismay.
Yet if Johnson and like-minded conservatives had their way on the evolution issue, basically banishing challenges to Darwinism from public life, they might well succeed only in hastening the very fate—the West’s increasing capitulation to terror—that they otherwise so earnestly and effectively warn us against.”
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http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/origin_of_life_researchers_int.html:
“... intelligent agency is now being cited as a refutation of intelligent agency. For some materialists, it seems that no form of evidence can count against their viewpoint.”
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http://redassmoderates.blogspot.com/:
Atheists’ “proof”:
Assume there is no supernatural source of Consciousness; therefore, there is no supernatural source of Consciousness.
****
May not God mathematically, synchronously, meaningfully, and on various overlapping levels and functions, all at once, multitask, through the perspectives of each of us? Why suppose God, accessing math, should be more limited than math?
****
Vaunted atheists, riding on the coattails of successful Christian nations, tend often to discount moral arguments by pointing out how their values, habits, and empathies are often conditioned and inculcated just as well by their upbringing and culture as for any theist.
This is well and good, but it lets them off the hook when it ignores how their values, habits, and empathies would have been conditioned or inculcated but for the fact that they had been brought up in a culture whose moral momentum was already successfully chugging along under variously assimilated religious and spiritual notions about God and moral meaningfulness beyond one's own selfish earthly life.
Atheists should be asked:
1) Have they studied the moral and empathetic values of any successful culture in which there is not an underpinning of spiritually based moral instruction; and
2) Regardless, how civilizing or worthwhile do they think their values would have become had they been brought up in a completely atheistic society and nation;
3) When in history have atheists ever successfully shown backbone to resist moral corruptions and depravities that are destabilizing to civilization (i.e., bestiality, polygamy, gay marriage, devaluation of life, and erasure of defining cultural and national boundaries)?
See http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/the_strange_case_of_little_gre_2.html:
“... as Whittaker Chambers put it in Witness, “Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible.””
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/change_some_may_not_want_you_t.html:
MCS:
Perhaps, Atheist Scientists should simply define “science” in a way that precludes consideration of whether their definition is soundly based.
That is, they could conceit to win their debate with Theistic Philosophers simply be definition!
Thus, they might define “science”: as that practice or art which is devoted to advancing or changing perspectives and models by which we may enhance methods for manipulating physically measurable phenomena within our environment, without any direct or indirect reference (or deference) to any meta-source of consciousness that is higher than, or beyond, mankind.
Alternatively, we may provide separate science classes for our students:
1) One, called Atheistic Science of Biology.
2) Another, called Philosophical Science of Biology.
Or, if that is not exclusive and exhaustive enough to satisfy quibblers, we could add 3rd, 4th, and 5th kinds of science classes, i.e.:
3) Science of Philosophy, i.e., a class for the collection of mathematical measurements of observable phenomena, for seeking to adduce or synthesize a Unifying Understanding (“Theory Of Everything”) of all perspectives of phenomena (or, so long as that remains unobtained or unobtainable, for seeking powerful ways to replicate, leverage, and otherwise manipulate perspectives of phenomena).
4) Philosophy of Science, i.e., a class for investigating why a unifying synthesis for mortal comprehension of all non-trivial phenomena may remain beyond our measurable adducement, even if not beyond our necessarily intuitive and civilizing appreciation.
5) Politics of Science, i.e., a class for investigating how the funding and semantics for “scientific inquiries” is affected by the politics and moral values of the sponsoring society.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/change_some_may_not_want_you_t.html:
Two Iron:
I agree. LGF just ain't the same. It seems to have gone into an Ayn Rand death spiral.
Gene Man:
I almost guarantee a few things:
1) The zoo of particles we find will ever continue to increase.
2) Die hards will continue to say something "like" a god particle (or unicorn particle) will eventually be found.
3) More and more empirically minded people will come to intuit that the "god particle" may better be conceived as a function of pure mathematics.
And what is IT that has power, by imaging functions among pure mathematics, to translate to our presentation myriad impressions of "physicality"?
Well, Meta-Source of Consciousness (aka, God) seems as good a name as any other.
In any event, we, as derivative and limited perspectives of IT, will never, while mortal, grasp IT, except from artistic, metaphorical, and figurative perspectives.
This is not because God is a "trickster."
It is just that God is beyond our complete, measurable, and non-intuitive kin --- at least, while we are mortal.
Which is not to say that God is irrelevant to our intuitive reception, humble empathy, and basis for sharing and enjoying civilizing and inspiring metaphors among ourselves.
I doubt we will ever "unify" science to a grand theory of everything. We may eventually reduce much of the math of our little window on existence. But as to the fundamental "nature" of existential Consciousness, I don't think so.
Meanwhile, "Bright" Rumplestiltskin Scientists will continue to ridicule and rage that the rest of us dare to name and pay respect to that which they prefer should go unnamed and unmentioned.
SUB: THE SCIENCE OF COSMOLOGY-VEDAS: UNITY IN DIVERSITY
COSMOLOGY WORLD PEACE-KNOWLEDGE EXPANSION
Dr Vidyardhi Nanduri promotes the Unity in Science and Philosophy through Cosmology Vedas Interlinks
PURPOSE OF INTERLINKS:
1. The Science of Philosophy: Divinity, Vedas, Upanishads, Temples & Yoga
2. Philosophy of Science : Plasmas, Electro-magnetic fields and Cosmology
3. Resource : Reflectors,3-Tier Consciousness, Source, Fields and Flows
4. Noble Cause : Human-Being, Environment, Divine Nature and Harmony
BOOKS BY VIDYARDHI NANDURI
Google : Cosmology Vedas Interlinks or ebookomatic dot com –Books-- Nanduri
NOTES: Most of your arguments and part of replies lead to above.
East-West Interaction helps you a direct Avenue- Cosmology Definition provides the answers
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