Karma

[wigginhall]

Isn't there also some kind of hostility to the physical?  Or to life, if you like.   It seems preferable to indulge in dreamy speculations about the spiritual, although these are never pinned down to anything specific, or even interesting.   That's why there is often a reversal of arguments - instead of discussing my dreamy speculations, (about which there is very little to say, actually), let's talk about your view that life is physical.   Ew, nasty scientism.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Udayana,

People don't throw out their world views, paradigms, just on speculation or probabilities. There's a long way to go before we understand any of these things in depth.

Why is it at all important to you (bramble, bhs, ... ) that they should?

It isn't, though in general terms the evidence of the harm that faith and dogma can do when their proponents have authority over others suggests that they're worth arguing against in any case.

[wigginhall]

It's the vagueness of a lot of spirituality that bugs me.  It's all abstractions and what-ifs, and very little concrete.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

Another reason might be that it is a reaction to your passionate way of presenting your case, as if it were 100% certainty rather than a %age probability.  I would have thought that scientific pronouncements, especially of the human body and mind, are tentative rather than definitive and conclusive.  In the meantime, perhaps it makes your opponents happier to see consciousness as arising from a greater source than the brain, just as moonlight is not an emergent property of the moon but is a reflection from the sun.

That's not it al all. I've always argued that truth is probabilistic, and for that matter that if the arguments I use could be rebutted then I'd change my mind. The point though is that of course science is tentative and subject to change - any passion on my part is in constantly reminding people of this when they say things like, "science hasn't proved X" when science doesn't deal in proofs, and when they think the absence of a proof for X somehow validates their un-evidenced conjecture Y.   

No doubt too some do feel happier for having their faith beliefs, but that says nothing to whether they're more likely than not to be true. 

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#391

Spoof,

My advice to you is that same as that I gave to Sriram earlier on: try reading Steven Johnson’s “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software”.

Seriously - it’s an entertaining read anyway, and it’ll also explain why your understanding of emergence is wrong. In short, there’s no Hey Presto! about it, for the same reason that termites don't need theodolites and blueprints (let alone a Hey Presto!) to build their mounds. I'll grant you that it's counter-intuitive to start with, but you'll get the hang of it I'm sure.

I don't believe I gave a definition of emergence Hillside. Hopefully your recommended reading is not a rehash of reduction gussying up the power of the previous level and getting emergence merely by piling on more atoms, molecules or even neurons.

If you haven't read that link that Bluehillside provided, you can save yourself some time as all of the examples used illustrate the above. The conclusion? Complexity can arise from something less complex.

Extrapolating from this is what causes the problem, because the real issue to address is that of gain, not increase. A gain cannot come from what is already present, yet it appears that some are wanting to use the idea of emergence to get round this problem.

Take termite mounds. They are made from what is already present and the ability to form them is already present! Furthermore, work is done to create them, so there is no something from nothing problem. What happens inevitably is that there is an extrapolation from this to claim that the termites who create the mounds come from something simpler than termites, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, ... In the beginning, nothing caused something and the something went on to self-enhance itself

Illustrating in another way: Let’s say that all life was wiped out on earth and there were aliens from another planet that came to earth and saw these termite mounds. One of the aliens says, “Those mounds were created”. Another says, “You can’t say that, because then you will have to say, who created that which created the mounds, and you’ll get an infinite regression”. Another says, “Yeah, you’ll also have the problem that postulating some indigenous life-form is an unfalsifiable conjecture”. They then come up with an explanation to say that perhaps the mounds were formed over a long period of time due to unknown natural (non-animal) causes.

The whole thing is counter-intuitive because it is contradicted by what can be observed! Like Richard Dawkins, who has to use terms like the ‘illusion of design’ to get round problems, the explanation exists despite the evidence, not because of it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Isn't there also some kind of hostility to the physical?  Or to life, if you like.   It seems preferable to indulge in dreamy speculations about the spiritual, although these are never pinned down to anything specific, or even interesting.   That's why there is often a reversal of arguments - instead of discussing my dreamy speculations, (about which there is very little to say, actually), let's talk about your view that life is physical.   Ew, nasty scientism.

That's well expressed I think. The absence of any content in claims about "spirit" etc makes them dull at best, and that those who argue for them seem only to able to do so by trying to pick holes in science (by criticising it for failing to do things it never claims to do like provide proofs, or by flat out misrepresenting what it does tell us) seems pretty vapid to me. There's lots that science hasn't discovered, and it often gets things wrong along the way.

So what exactly?   

[wigginhall]

Sword.

Well, a water molecule shows emergent properties, since it can do stuff that oxygen and hydrogen on their own cannot.  And a number of water molecules also show emergence, since they can be wet, which a single molecule cannot be.   And so on. 

[wigginhall]

Wiggs,

That's well expressed I think. The absence of any content in claims about "spirit" etc makes them dull at best, and that those who argue for them seem only to able to do so by trying to pick holes in science (by criticising it for failing to do things it never claims to do like provide proofs, or by flat out misrepresenting what it does tell us) seems pretty vapid to me. There's lots that science hasn't discovered, and it often gets things wrong along the way.

So what exactly?

Yes, I lose patience, as after people have cited beauty or consciousness as something that science cannot describe, then what?   It all seems very negative, or a reversed argument.   What exactly does beauty demonstrate, according to them?   We seem to end up with AB's feeble stuff about the soul, about which of course, nothing can be demonstrated.   But it's science which is at fault!

[Sriram]

Did that really address the previous question ? In addition to a taste for avoiding straight answers I note also your taste for quoting cherry picked findings from science wherever you think it supports your ideas    But when science doesn't support your ideas, then it is a case of 'not proved', as in the case of your car/driver analogy, where science says the driver is an emergent property of the car.

When playing chess, is it the spirit that ponders and then chooses the next move, or is it the unconscious mind, or what ?

The driver is an emergent property of the car...?!!  That is a good one that is! 

 And quite an apt example of the way scientists seem to think.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

SOTS,

If you haven't read that link that Bluehillside provided, you can save yourself some time as all of the examples used illustrate the above. The conclusion? Complexity can arise from something less complex.

Extrapolating from this is what causes the problem, because the real issue to address is that of gain, not increase. A gain cannot come from what is already present, yet it appears that some are wanting to use the idea of emergence to get round this problem.

Take termite mounds. They are made from what is already present and the ability to form them is already present! Furthermore, work is done to create them, so there is no something from nothing problem. What happens inevitably is that there is an extrapolation from this to claim that the termites who create the mounds come from something simpler than termites, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, ... In the beginning, nothing caused something and the something went on to self-enhance itself

Illustrating in another way: Let’s say that all life was wiped out on earth and there were aliens from another planet that came to earth and saw these termite mounds. One of the aliens says, “Those mounds were created”. Another says, “You can’t say that, because then you will have to say, who created that which created the mounds, and you’ll get an infinite regression”. Another says, “Yeah, you’ll also have the problem that postulating some indigenous life-form is an unfalsifiable conjecture”. They then come up with an explanation to say that perhaps the mounds were formed over a long period of time due to unknown natural (non-animal) causes.

The whole thing is counter-intuitive because it is contradicted by what can be observed! Like Richard Dawkins, who has to use terms like the ‘illusion of design’ to get round problems, the explanation exists despite the evidence, not because of it.

As you seem to be indifferent to the tsunami of reason and evidence that shows you to be fundamentally wrong about this, for anyone interested the book that undoes you very effectively is Steven Johnson's "The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software".

The clue by the way is that you confuse adaptive with non-adaptive emergent systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system

[wigginhall]

I think there is also science envy at work.   For various reasons, science is denigrated, in favour of what - a few vague speculations, which cannot be pinned down.   But science is really bad, because, well, envy.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Me (Reply 480):

That's well expressed I think. The absence of any content in claims about "spirit" etc makes them dull at best, and that those who argue for them seem only to able to do so by trying to pick holes in science (by criticising it for failing to do things it never claims to do like provide proofs, or by flat out misrepresenting what it does tell us) seems pretty vapid to me. There's lots that science hasn't discovered, and it often gets things wrong along the way.

So what exactly?

Sriram (Reply 483):

The driver is an emergent property of the car...?!!  That is a good one that is!   

And quite an apt example of the way scientists seem to think.

   

QED

[Walter]

If you aren't qualified and don't know what the answer is then how will you recognize the correct answer when it is displayed?

I doubt very much I'll find it on here unless you can provide some definitive answers yourself and if it looks correct I will do further research, if I can be bothered.
Thanks for asking

[bluehillside Retd.]

Walter,

I doubt very much I'll find it on here unless you can provide some definitive answers yourself and if it looks correct I will do further research, if I can be bothered.

Thanks for asking

What makes you think that there is a "definitive answer"? The term "the hard problem of consciousness" exists for a reason...

[Udayana]

BBC R4 just had a very apt short piece (The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry) on lunar influence and how people persist in seeing it despite the stats:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084d8cc

[Walter]

Walter,

What makes you think that there is a "definitive answer"? The term "the hard problem of consciousness" exists for a reason...

Blue, I'm guessing there will be a definitive answer in the future however I find this whole subject rather tedious and will wait for those who work in this field to come up with it.
Each day I shall continue to enjoy life without giving it much thought until such time I loose my marbles like my dear old mum
did.
have a nice day.... 

[ekim]

ekim,

That's not it al all. I've always argued that truth is probabilistic, and for that matter that if the arguments I use could be rebutted then I'd change my mind. The point though is that of course science is tentative and subject to change - any passion on my part is in constantly reminding people of this when they say things like, "science hasn't proved X" when science doesn't deal in proofs, and when they think the absence of a proof for X somehow validates their un-evidenced conjecture Y.   

No doubt too some do feel happier for having their faith beliefs, but that says nothing to whether they're more likely than not to be true.

OK, perhaps I misjudged some of your replies.

Happiness/joy is a great motivator and perhaps there are some who see this as an emergent property of their faith practices and this is their truth and that gathering second hand factual information has a submergent effect rather than emergent.

[Walter]

BBC R4 just had a very apt short piece (The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry) on lunar influence and how people persist in seeing it despite the stats:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084d8cc

Udayana
thanks for a very interesting link. what did you think of the program?

[SusanDoris]

SOTS,

As you seem to be indifferent to the tsunami of reason and evidence that shows you to be fundamentally wrong about this, for anyone interested the book that undoes your misunderstanding very effectively is Steven Johnson's "The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software".

I have just rung NLB to see if by any chance it is available in talking books, but not so. How many pages does it have? I'm wondering whether it would be something my reader could read to me. 

In my (now strongly held!) opinionSotS posts reveal an overweening  belief in his own superior intellect - quite unjustified!

[torridon]

#391
If you haven't read that link that Bluehillside provided, you can save yourself some time as all of the examples used illustrate the above. The conclusion? Complexity can arise from something less complex.

Extrapolating from this is what causes the problem, because the real issue to address is that of gain, not increase. A gain cannot come from what is already present, yet it appears that some are wanting to use the idea of emergence to get round this problem.

Take termite mounds. They are made from what is already present and the ability to form them is already present! Furthermore, work is done to create them, so there is no something from nothing problem. What happens inevitably is that there is an extrapolation from this to claim that the termites who create the mounds come from something simpler than termites, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, which in turn came from something simpler than itself, ... In the beginning, nothing caused something and the something went on to self-enhance itself

Illustrating in another way: Let’s say that all life was wiped out on earth and there were aliens from another planet that came to earth and saw these termite mounds. One of the aliens says, “Those mounds were created”. Another says, “You can’t say that, because then you will have to say, who created that which created the mounds, and you’ll get an infinite regression”. Another says, “Yeah, you’ll also have the problem that postulating some indigenous life-form is an unfalsifiable conjecture”. They then come up with an explanation to say that perhaps the mounds were formed over a long period of time due to unknown natural (non-animal) causes.

The whole thing is counter-intuitive because it is contradicted by what can be observed! Like Richard Dawkins, who has to use terms like the ‘illusion of design’ to get round problems, the explanation exists despite the evidence, not because of it.

Not quite clear what you are saying here. The idea of emergence expresses the principle that complexity arises from simpler origins.  We see houses made of little bricks but we don't see little bricks made of houses.  There is a unidirectional arrow to the complexity curve, and this is the base reason why concepts of intelligent design are fundamentally flawed as they run counter to this principle. Some people have tried to make a counter claim to the principle of emergence as a means to explain conscious intentionality, it is known as downward causation, Sean Carroll has a blog post on it here http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/08/01/downward-causation/

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Susan,

I have just rung NLB to see if by any chance it is available in talking books, but not so. How many pages does it have? I'm wondering whether it would be something my reader could read to me. 

In my (now strongly held!) opinionSotS posts reveal an overweening  belief in his own superior intellect - quite unjustified!

That's a shame - it's also a very god read. My copy has 288 pages in total.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

In my (now strongly held!) opinionSotS posts reveal an overweening  belief in his own superior intellect - quite unjustified!

And when you post like this SusanDoris, you are just showing yourself up to be a hypocrite as you are doing the same thing you are accusing me of.

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

Not quite clear what you are saying here. The idea of emergence expresses the principle that complexity arises from simpler origins.  We see houses made of little bricks but we don't see little bricks made of houses.  There is a unidirectional arrow to the complexity curve, and this is the base reason why concepts of intelligent design are fundamentally flawed. Some people have tried to make a counter claim to the principle of emergence as a means to explain conscious intentionality, it is known as downward causation, Sean Carroll has a blog post on it here http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/08/01/downward-causation/

It's actually worse than that. Yes, emergence is unidirectional but a house is a non-adaptive system - it doesn't self-organise into something else. Emergence also produces though adaptive systems - like stock markets and street neighbourhoods - that do change, and that SOTS's critique fails to recognise.

[Udayana]

Udayana
thanks for a very interesting link. what did you think of the program?

I thought it was spot on. Shows the use of stats and how people's own experiences and outlook can skew their perceptions. Confirmation bias is always in play.

Hannah Fry has done quite a bit of good work recently.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SOTS,

And when you post like this SusanDoris, you are just showing yourself up to be a hypocrite as you are doing the same thing you are accusing me of.

No. Susan had the good grace to preface her remark with "in my opinion".