Myth of evolution and new drug discovery

[rossum]

You may as well lump all machines together and say they’re all technically related.

We know that machines are designed. We can observe machines being designed here and now. We can talk to the designers. We have ample evidence for the intelligent design of machines by humans. We have no such evidence for the intelligent design of life.

I haven’t seen too many 747’s forming when tornados sweep through junkyards

I mentioned in a previous post that every creationist model of evolution failed because if did not take into account natural selection. Hoyle’s model of evolution fails in exactly the same way because it fails to take into account natural selection. Tornados are reasonable analogues of random mutation, but they do not include natural selection. Any model that does not include natural selection is not a model of evolution. Hoyle’s model is irrelevant to the question it seeks to address. He was an astronomer and Science Fiction author. He was not a biologist.

But evolutionists can insist on such a scenario again and again, going from blind chemicals to nanomachinery to the phenomenal abilities of the human mind and body, despite the fact that the law of entropy inevitably leads to greater chaos in unguided chemical systems.

You fail to understand chemistry. Do you think that it is “blind chance” that two hydrogen atoms link up with exactly one oxygen atom to make a molecule of H[sub]2[/sub]O? It is most certainly not a “blind chance” process. It is a chemical process which is guided by valency. Blind chance has very little to do with it. Your ignorance of science is showing yet again.

The nanomachinery in the cell works by chemistry. We have a number of possible paths by which the nanomachinery of the bacterial flagellum could have evolved: see Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum. Even Professor Behe has abandoned his original assertion that it was impossible for IC systems to evolve. IC systems have been shown to evolve repeatedly and through many pathways. Not only are you lacking in knowledge of chemistry, you are lacking in knowledge of the latest in ID theory.

But what’s happening now is that the creationist side is gaining an increasing number of highly qualified scientists in its ranks. In other words, there are a number of scientists for whom the “facts” of evolution don’t add up.

Yeah, but how many of them are called Steve? The NCSE has over 1,100 different scientists called Steve that support evolution. That is roughly equivalent to 110,000 scientists if all names were allowed.

There is also the Clergy Letter Project, which has the signatures of over 12,000 Christian ministers (and 400 Rabbis) supporting evolution. Creationists are well behind in the numbers game.

I’ve attached a link to an article on Scientists who are rejecting evolution.

christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html

Oh dear. You are being misled by your lying creationist sources again. Have a look at the names on that list more carefully. Take Blaise Pascal. A great scientist, however he is not “rejecting evolution”. He cannot be since he not doing anything at the moment because he is dead. He died in 1662, 197 years before Darwin even published his theory. How on earth could he “reject evolution” when the theory had not yet been thought of? Why do you continue to rely on these lying creationist sources? They lie to you. They lie repeatedly. Why do you not bother to check over the rubbish they write before linking to it? All you are doing is to make my job of debunking creationist websites even easier. Do you really think that the people reading this are that stupid. Even Leonardo da Vinci is on their list as “rejecting evolution” when Leonardo himself is on record as rejecting Noah’s flood. Creationist websites lie, and it is painfully obvious that they do so - they are really not very good at it.

As an exercise go through their list of named scientists and see how many of them died before 1859 when Darwin published. You can also count the number of Steves on the list - I made it one. You need to get the message - creationist websites lie. They seem to have so little respect for the Ten Commandments that they only follow nine of them. Why do you continue to give them credence? They are a disgrace to Christianity.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

I see that the distinctions I made were too subtle for you to grasp, so perhaps I need to expound at greater length next time.

As I said, maybe your arguments were subtle enough for hecd2 to grasp and therefore you convinced him. If so, there’s no need to expound on that for my sake – but if you want to go into further, more detailed explanations, I would like to hear more about this:

… much that is correct about ID theory …

That would be helpful to learn about. I believe you stated that ID was false regarding its science as well as its philosophy. So, it would be interesting to know how much of it could be correct at the same time.

And what were your comments about the percentage of the American population that is creationist supposed to prove?

I didn’t post anything about the percent of the American public. This probably explains why you are asking this question – which is a different topic than the one you were discussing with hecd2. Why don’t we wait to see his response before starting a different set of arguments?

The number of people who reject evolution theory is irrelevant to the truth or error of the theory.

That’s exactly the same argument that ID researchers use (substituting “accept” for “reject”).

Furthermore, any problems alleged or real with evolution theory in no way constitutes evidence for the truth of fundamentalist creationism as an alternative explanation. It may just mean that evolution theory is incomplete and needs still more revision.

It may also mean that evolutionary theory is false.

The large number of people who adhere to creationism, or any other theory, is no proof that the position is basically sound.

As above - exactly the same argument that ID uses. (substitute “evolution” for “creationism”).

Many people believed the Earth is flat, the vast majority in some cultures. For example, the ancient Hebrews and their neighbors believed the earth to be flat. If you told them the Earth is round they would probably say that is impossible. The antipodes would fall off. How many later Europeans believed the Earth was flat even though certain ancient Greeks thinkers conclusively demonstrated that the Earth is round.

Many people believed that human embryos had “gill slits” like their fish ancestors – because that was taught as a fact in evolutionary-biology textbooks. Some people, undoubtely, lost their faith in God because they believed the evolutionary lie. So, I think we should be careful about accepting today’s flat-earther-evolutionists when they make claims that will be shown to be equally, if not more, ridiculous in the future. (But that also is an argument very commonly used among ID theorists – so, take it for what it is).

Truth is not determined by the number of votes a belief gets.

I couldn’t agree more. Thus, Project Steve is a stupid exercise – revealing how defensive evolutionists have become lately. From just a couple of decades ago, when they ruled academia with self-confidence that saw nothing that could possibly challenge them – they’re now creating exercises to count the number of evolutionary-supporters they can find in order to off-set growing skepticism about their beloved Theory.
But as you say, quite rightly – Truth is not determined by the number of Steves one can find.

Truth is independent of the number of people who believe a thing. As far as majorities are concerned, Henry David Thoreau once said, “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.”

That quote could fit quite nicely as a header on any ID-favorable website in the world. It’s an argument that I’ve used also. I can refer to scientists and philosophers who are more credentialed and accomplished than anyone in this discussion – who at the same time, question Darwinian theory. They could be that majority of one.

So the argument, heard many times on CAF, that the “scientific consensus” supports [whatever] is not proof that [whatever] is true. You made that point well and it stands.

Turkey, reportedly has a higher percentage of its population who believe in creationism than does the U.S. This phenomenon is due largely to the efforts of Adnan Oktar. You should read his brief online biography and keep it in mind next time you think there is something totally positive about the percentage of a population the is creationist.

I will admit that this argument is too subtle for me to understand. I would appreciate it if you would dumb-it-down for someone like myself and perhaps others.
First of all, every Catholic must be a Creationist in the wider sense of the term:
newadvent.org/cathen/04475a.htm
We must also be creationists in one of the more narrow senses (direct creation of the human soul).
So, since Mr. Oktar is a Muslim – I can’t see the connection here with my belief that there is something totally positive about having a larger part of the population embrace Catholic teaching.

But rather than comment any further on this, I’d like to understand more precisely what you mean.
What bothers you the most about Mr. Oktar and what does it have to do with whatever it is you’re calling “creationism”?

 

[tjm190]

off-set growing skepticism about their beloved Theory

You wouldn’t happen to have anything that shows a significant decline in the acceptance of evolution in America over the past ten years would you? Otherwise, a skeptic might have to conclude you were lying.

 

[reggieM]

You wouldn’t happen to have anything that shows a significant decline in the acceptance of evolution in America over the past ten years would you? Otherwise, a skeptic might have to conclude you were lying.

A skeptic might conclude that I was lying after he asks me to show something that I never claimed. But that would tell me a lot about the skeptic in question.

In this case, you ask for evidence regarding a 10 year range. This is something you imposed on my comment in order to try to claim that I am “lying”. Why not a 6-month range, or one-week?

“Show me how there’s a decline in the acceptance of evolution in the past week. Can you do it? Huh, huh? Or are you a liar?”

Why not try the year 1984 (prior to the publication of Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis). Count the number of anti-evolution books available, in print, that year – even better, books written by scholars as accomplished as Michael Denton or Michael Behe. Then count the same number available and in-print today in 2009.

Why not try to find a comparable book in the mid-1980s with the book released this year which is currently (and has been for months) the #1 seller on Amazon in these categories:

#1 in Books > Science > Physics > Cosmology
#1 in Books > Science > Astronomy

But perhaps much easier and rather than giving you any more opportunities to distort what I said, how about this:

**A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism **point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted.
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html

So, there you go. The Pope has stated that there is a growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism.

Perhaps a skeptic, like yourself, will simply claim that he is lying.

 

[itinerant1]

That would be helpful to learn about. I believe you stated that ID was false regarding its science as well as its philosophy. So, it would be interesting to know how much of it could be correct at the same time.

To say how much is true about ID theory would require considering the various views among ID theorists. That would be a bit much.

Even if one takes the assertion that there is design in nature, it is true absolutely, but it becomes a distorted matter with ID theory that mischaracterizes the level of causality at which design is explained as well as how an organism, which necessarily exhibits design originates. Put it simply but in philosophical terms, ID starts with a fact, design, but confuses design with finality. ID theory also confuses ultimate and secondary causes. To put matters bluntly, ID theory hopelessly mucks up the fact of design in nature. Consequently, I cannot support ID theory.

Along with a myriad of flawed objections to evolution theory, ID theorists have a number of valid objections to certain aspects of evolution theory. But one does not need to be an ID supporter to recognize the validity of certain objections. There are some evolutionists who have made the very same objections. So, there is nothing new offered by ID theorists.

ID theorists have not presented any compelling arguments against evolution theory that by their nature would imply that ID theory is the correct, or alternative explanation to origins.

Irreducible complexity is an unproven hypothesis. In fact, it is a dis-proven hypothesis. On the other hand, the general theory of evolution has much scientific evidence in its favor. ID has no, nada, nil, none, zero scientific evidence in its favor because it does not understand the limits of natural science. And neither is ID-ology supported by sound philosophy or Revelation. What more can I say?

 

[reggieM]

What more can I say?

I don’t know. That was absolutely fascinating.

You made the statement:

… much that is correct about ID theory …

I asked you to explain the “much that is correct” and I look at your answer. It is nothing but an attack on ID – repeating the same things you’ve said several times already. The tiny bit that can be extracted out of that where there might be something correct about ID is dismissed as being incorrect after all.

That was just amazing - so, thank you for that.

I’ll wait to see if you get a response to your claim that you’re not using ID arguments in the discussion with hecd2.

 

[itinerant1]

I will admit that this argument is too subtle for me to understand. I would appreciate it if you would dumb-it-down for someone like myself and perhaps others.
First of all, every Catholic must be a Creationist in the wider sense of the term:
newadvent.org/cathen/04475a.htm
We must also be creationists in one of the more narrow senses (direct creation of the human soul).
So, since Mr. Oktar is a Muslim – I can’t see the connection here with my belief that there is something totally positive about having a larger part of the population embrace Catholic teaching.

But rather than comment any further on this, I’d like to understand more precisely what you mean.
What bothers you the most about Mr. Oktar and what does it have to do with whatever it is you’re calling “creationism”?

There is nothing subtle or profound about what I said. I have generally used the terms “creationist” and “creationism” to refer to sectarian and fundamentalist views, and have spelled that out in a number of posts.

You have taken up a different meaning of “creation” and “creationism” that what I am talking about. Of course, in a specific sense all Christians should be creationists in accepting the fact God created all that exists ex nihilo; and Catholics know, or should know, the individual human soul is created directly by God. Either you are making a specious argument by changing uses of the terms or you do not understand my posts.

Fundamentalist creationism believes in a direct creation of the world in six days. Even if they interpret “day” as a thousand years, or some other time period, it remains an unacceptable understanding of creation. The extent of a population that is creationist in this sense is not necessarily a good thing. Creationists views are based on ignorance and misinterpretations of the Bible. What can be good about ignorance and Biblical misinterpretations? Whether it is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim who misinterprets Genesis makes no difference. It is still misinterpretation.

Oktar’s criticisms of evolution are simplistic and stupid even though many people were persuaded by his efforts to promote creationism and debunk evolution (and ID theory). And this is most typical of Christian creationists in America as well. I include most ID theorists, not all though, as being creationist in a pejorative sense of the term. They misinterpret Genesis in that what Genesis teaches about creation is contradicted by ID theory. This gets back to questions you dodged earlier.

If ID theory is not neo-creationism, then how do IC systems originate? I think the obvious conclusion is that ID is creationist in a negative sense of the word. Of course you can arbitrarily deny that ID theory is neo-creationism, but you will need to explain how IC systems could possibly originate. My guess is that you will do anything but respond directly to my question. You talked around the question last time.

 

[itinerant1]

I don’t know. That was absolutely fascinating.

You made the statement:

I asked you to explain the “much that is correct” and I look at your answer. It is nothing but an attack on ID – repeating the same things you’ve said several times already. The tiny bit that can be extracted out of that where there might be something correct about ID is dismissed as being incorrect after all.

That was just amazing - so, thank you for that.

I’ll wait to see if you get a response to your claim that you’re not using ID arguments in the discussion with hecd2.

Don’t expect me to say anything positive either about ID theory or Darwinian ideology. And you are thinking and are hoping with all of your might that hecd2 is right about me making ID arguments. That’s so funny.

 

[reggieM]

You have taken up a different meaning of “creation” and “creationism” that what I am talking about.

You might expect me to read your mind – or you could try to explain what you’re talking about instead of using ambiguous terms.

Either you are making a specious argument by changing uses of the terms or you do not understand my posts.

Given those options – I’ll choose “I don’t understand your posts”.

If ID theory is not neo-creationism, then how do IC systems originate?

You just explained that creationism had to do with the age of the earth, so this is a non sequitur.
But IC systems originate the same way the human person originates. Atheistic-evolution claims that it can explain the origin of human beings since they are a product of matter and physical laws alone. Catholic creationism teaches that this is not true. The IC system that is the human person cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

I think the obvious conclusion is that ID is creationist in a negative sense of the word.

It sounds like you’ve convinced yourself of your own conclusion.

Of course you can arbitrarily deny that ID theory is neo-creationism, but you will need to explain how IC systems could possibly originate.

ID theory merely looks for evidence of design in nature. You’re imposing this new standard on the theory in order to try to discredit it.

I can do the same kind of thing for evolution:

What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the origin of life?
What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the origin of the human soul?
What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the intervention (or non-intervention) of God in nature?

Perhaps you will simply avoid these questions by claiming “Evolutionary theory does not propose to answer any of those questions”.

But I asked those questions – and you won’t answer them. So, by your logic, therefore I am correct and you are not.

Do you see how that is an improper way to continue a discussion on this topic?

I’ll close with this – if it helps you to call ID “creationism” (in your definition of what you want that term to mean) – it doesn’t matter to me. I think you’ve already said it was false and a danger to science and a product of ignorance and confusion … and many such things. So why would adding the “negative sense of the word” creationism have any meaning or value to your point of view?

You hate ID. That is clear. You slipped and said that there was “much that was correct in ID” – for whatever reason. But you don’t think that.

You’ve made it clear that you can find nothing correct or worthwhile in ID at all. You can’t say anything positive about ID - even after claiming it has “much that is true”.

I’m not disputing that. You’ve contradicted yourself once already and simply confirmed what I knew was true.

Next topic?

 

[itinerant1]

Given those options – I’ll choose “I don’t understand your posts”.

That’s easy to do.

You just explained that creationism had to do with the age of the earth, so this is a non sequitur.

Not. It’s a non non sequitur. More than the age of the earth is involved, though that is what people first relate to when they hear the word “creationism”. The creationist’s interpretation of the Creation accounts in Genesis by logical implication, entail notions of God’s creative activity that actually conflict with what Genesis teaches. One ends up with a distorted theology of creation. And that subject requires an entire thread to itself.

But IC systems originate the same way the human person originates.

This is what makes ID theory creationist and just a variant of Protestant creationism. There really is no room in Catholic theology for ongoing special creations of natural systems, notwithstanding the opinions of Bishop Never-Studied-the-Issues and like minded clerics.

It sounds like you’ve convinced yourself of your own conclusion.

I am convinced because it is a conclusion that is thought out. However, any compelling evidence to the contrary will require me to re-examine my view.

ID theory merely looks for evidence of design in nature. You’re imposing this new standard on the theory in order to try to discredit it.

What do you think this “standard” is and what is “new” about it?

I can do the same kind of thing for evolution:

You could, but that would be a different track and you would be committing the ID fallacy of over-shooting the boundaries of the natural sciences.

What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the origin of life?
What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the origin of the human soul?
What evidence does evolutionary theory give for the intervention (or non-intervention) of God in nature?

Perhaps you will simply avoid these questions by claiming “Evolutionary theory does not propose to answer any of those questions”.

But I asked those questions – and you won’t answer them. So, by your logic, therefore I am correct and you are not.

Do you see how that is an improper way to continue a discussion on this topic?

I can’t agree with your logic one iota, dude. You are asking questions of science that are beyond the scope and limit of the natural sciences. You want blood from a turnip. Darwinian ideology will accommodate you, but not evolution science. The gist of the matter is that, you and the ID theorists and many evolutionists do not recognize the proper scope and limit of the natural sciences.

The question of the origin of life I will leave for later for the specific reasons that abiognesis is a pillar of neo-Darwinian theory, but evolution theory itself is not dependent on abiogenesis. Another reason is that T.H. Huxley rightly considered abiogenesis to be based on a sort of “philosophic faith”. My next reason is science has some interesting things to say about abiogenesis that are worth considering and may not necessarily conflict with Creation. So, I am still pondering the philosophical implications of abiogenesis.

 

[reggieM]

I can’t agree with your logic one iota, dude. You are asking questions of science that are beyond the scope and limit of the natural sciences.

You asked a question that was beyond the scope and limit of what ID proposes. Can you see why I made that point? You were doing exactly the same thing by imposing something on ID that it does not seek to answer.

That should be about all I’ll have to say to you on this topic, itinerant1. Thanks for the discussion.

 

[itinerant1]

You hate ID. That is clear. You slipped and said that there was “much that was correct in ID” – for whatever reason. But you don’t think that.

No slip… Do you realize this conversation started because you misinterpreted my statement. I said something to the effect whether you understood much that was correct about ID theory. This means “How much do you correctly understand about ID theory.” I was not saying that there is much that is correct about the theory, only whether you correctly understood much about it.

I could say it another way for clarification here. How much do you understand correctly about the highly incorrect theory of ID? Was your original misinterpretation a result of wishful thinking on your part?

Also, I don’t hate ID as much as I love truth.

 

[reggieM]

I was not saying that there is much that is correct about the theory, only whether you correctly understood much about it.

I quoted you directly twice. You’re now simply denying what you said.
That doesn’t bother me that much.
I was interested in your views and I think I understand them well enough now.
Beyond that, I can’t see any point in continuing the discussion.
Thanks again.

 

[itinerant1]

You asked a question that was beyond the scope and limit of what ID proposes. Can you see why I made that point? You were doing exactly the same thing by imposing something on ID that it does not seek to answer.

That should be about all I’ll have to say to you on this topic, itinerant1. Thanks for the discussion.

You missed the mark again, because ID theorists have speculated on possible answers and have proposed certain things. Your post supports my original concern, which was that you don’t seem to understand much about ID theory. QED

 

[hecd2]

hecd2:

Well, while acknowledging that there is a very long road to travel, I also think that you are mischaracterising the successes of neuroscience and brain research of the last couple of decades. Not only would you deny to future brain researchers any hope of success, but you also deny any past success. Well, natural scientists have proven the baleful predictions of philosophers, theologians and politicians wrong enough times in the past not to give up a project because some non-scientists think that it is hopeless.

Proving philosophers wrong is easy when modern philosophy is so dis-ordered. Relativity theory and non-Euclidean geometries have put Kant’s ridiculous epistemology in a bind.

It is your opinion, entirely unsupported, that modern philosophy is especially disordered. It is true that philosophy has always been a hopelessly inefficacious means to attain knowledge about reality, but your unbalanced attachment to scholasticism leads you into making rather silly claims like this. I’m interested, as an aside, why you think that relativirty and non-Euclidean geometry are problems for Kantian epistemology.

Theologian can be wrong, too. They disagree about many things. But when there is a conflict between theologians, philosophers, and scientists (in any combination), then it needs to be determined whether the conflict is real or apparent. If the conflict is real, then it needs to be determined which one is wrong. Simple as that, though determining who is wrong can be exceedingly difficult in some matters.

I don’t disagree in principle with any of this, but in this particular case, I reject the idea that scholastic ideas have any validity whatsoever in determining what is and is not a appropriate area of investigation for scientists. And as I said, neuroscientists will ignore similar attempts to constrain their work and just get on with understanding how brain activity maps to mind phenomena and other aspects of how the mind works.

And you did recognise the fallacy of using our putative inability to explain mind processes as proof that they have an immaterial foundation?

Certainly I realize that, which is why I have not made that argument.

I don’t think that’s quite true. Picking over previous posts to prove points can be a sterile exercise so I don’t plan to do it now. So let’s just say that you accept that if it is indeed true that we are unable to explain the mind then that is not an argument in favour of the immaterial basis of the mind.

Proof of the immateriality of the intellect and its concepts stands on its own philosophical base.

I know you think that, and you have been promising us the proof for some time. In your own time now.

If brain studies have anything to contribute to the mind-body problem, then well and good. I am all for it. I see, though as well, how scientific data is capable of diverse interpretations. This observation is clearly exemplified in chimp language studies, which by the way, can exhibit less than rigorous scientific investigative procedures and post-investigative conclusions.

I don’t disagree with any of that. Nevertheless, for the specific neuroscience work we have been discussing, it is quite clear that a specific network encodes not just a percept but a concept - the idea of an individual abstracted from a specific instance - not proof of monism but another nail in the coffin of dualism.
Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[grannymh]

Picking over previous posts to prove points can be a sterile exercise so I don’t plan to do it now.

I’ll drink my Pepsi to that. However, my reason is that I can’t remember where I said what.
So I will comment just on the last 7 words of post 749.

another nail in the coffin of dualism.
Alec
evolutionpages.com

If you are referring to Cartesian dualism, please hand me a hammer.
Seriously, not only has Descartes caused problems regarding the nature of the human being
but now I am reading about his views regarding animal sentience
in an essay by The Revd Professor Andrew Linzey.

 

[hecd2]

False presumption. I’m not sure how you came up with “Platonic philosophy”. You will see why I assert what I did in my responses to your inadequate arguments.

The concept of universals as having real existence independent of particulars originates with Plato’s realism. But whatever brand of realism you subscribe to, and whether it is rooted in Platonic realism or something else, you failed to support your bare assertion that ancient and mediaeval psychology exhibits more perceptive and accurate insights than modern psychology in the understanding of concepts. You haven’t told us with what criteria you judge the accuracy and perception of the insights and you certainly haven’t shown how one set of ideas better meets the criteria than the other. You are in the habit of throwing out these gnomic statements about the superiority of scholastic philosophy, but you never defend them, leading me to conclude that your adherence to Thomism is prejudiced rather than reasoned.

Nominalism is a denial of universals, which is characteristic of sensists. In fact, you might want to explain how your brand of nominalism is not sensist.

It’s not sensist in the sense that I do not hold that what we can sense is all that exists. However, I do hold that what realists call universals represent semantic categories and not real entities.

Existing universals are, as I previously pointed out, categories of particular things or their properties - our understanding of universals depends on convention, language, culture, education and rule, and are not immutable. Give me any universal, and I can almost guarantee that I will be able to give you several interpretations of it. (the whole realist concept of universals can be undermined by a brief analysis of colour - shall we go there?)

Let us go there. I would be interested in your argument against universals.

I said it would be brief. What a person blind from birth, or a person suffering from red monochromacy, or from deuteranopia, or from anomalous trichromacy, or you or I mean by red are all different. It can mean the appearance of things that most of us agree to be red, or things that an individual perceives to be the same colour as other things he thinks are red or objects that he has been told are red or light between 625 and 675 nm. Is light at 600nm red or orange - some say one, some say the other. How about 700nm. When does light stop being red and become infrared (or black as we might call it). An object might look red to a person with normal colour vision, but might have its peak of emission in the IR. Is it red, or infrared? Most people would say it was red, but suppose humans had infrared sensitive light receptors. Do claret, crimson, pink, maroon, ruby, gules mean the same as red? Is a red face or is red gold actually red? What about an object with the potential to reflect red light fixed at 40m on the sea floor? The upshot of all this is that there is no such thing as universal redness that means the exactly the same to everyone. We classify things as red by convention and we often disagree if we have uncommon or defective vision or if we think about the definition in different ways or if the objects properties are borderline. Redness means nothing without vision - it lies in a minute slice - from 625 nanometres to 675 nanometres of the electromagnetic spectrum that extends from billions of light years down to a picometre. It means nothing without our senses or in the absence of matter-energy and its naming is a convention. We have decided, because most of us perceive light in a particular part of the EM spectrum differently from light in other parts of the spectrum, to call that particular part of the spectrum red, but it is neither universal nor divorced from our senses. The most that we can say is that redness is that property of objects (actually light) which appears to the vision of most of us with the qualia that we agree by conventioin to call red, which we have subsequently learned is a synonym for photons in a particular energy range. Redness is a category just as dogginess is a category and buildinghood is a category of objects or their properties, used linguistically by convention.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

But even if we grant the existence of universals in the realist sense, as existing in a supernatural domain, rabbitness engaged in hoppingness and nibblingness the greenness under the shadowness of buildingness , how on earth does your conclusion that the physical brain cannot produce them follow? You’ll have to do more than assert that it is impossible by showing us why this limitation exists, because there is no reason in principle why a particular neural network should not be recruited by the developing brain to encode the concept of say green-ness - to fire up when a green object is presented to the sight and consciously noticed, when the word green is heard or uttered or typed or thought about - the firing of that network being the mind’s representation of the universal; or, for another network to fire up when the concept of building is presented to the consciousness, by sight, word, sound, memory or reflection, the firing of that network being the mind’s representation of that universal. Just as different networks would represent particular things or particular aspects of particular things.

On the contrary it sets *you *a rather tough challenge, which so far you have avoided, which is to support what you have only asserted - that it is impossible for a physical brain to represent a universal concept (realist universals granted only for the sake of the argument, as neither you nor anyone else can demonstrate the reality of universals). You have been brilliant so far at asserting your position but rather less good at backing up your assertions with evidence or logical arguments.

You need to explain hypothetically or theoretically how what is particular and limited, i.e.matter and energy, can have universal designation.

I have no idea what that sentence means or whether it actually has a meaning.

Your side-stepping of the issue is achieved by proffering what appears to me as a totally inadequate definition of universal.

Well, let’s have your definition of universal, and let’s see how you defend its existence. Then, let’s see how you support your assertion that matter-energy *cannot *represent such a thing.

And a vague reference to what neural networks might be capable of, which is pure speculation, does not constitute much of an argument, if any at all.

Well, of course, it’s not pure speculation as we have already seen that there is evidence for direct correlates between neural entities and *concepts *in the mind (work that you wish would go away but which will only get more compelling and insistent with time). But in any case, since you are arguing for the unnecessary complication, it is for you to show why that complication is needed and therefore for you to show why, in principle, a particular neural network cannot be recruited by the developing brain to represent a particular concept.

The most that should be argued from is what is currently known, and that includes but is not limited to the properties of matter and energy,

Well what is currently *known *about this subject is that brain is necessary for mind and that there are close correlates between the processes of one and the other.

I have nothing further to prove. I rest on the necessity of brain for mind and the absence of evidence or argument for its insufficiency. If you have such evidence or argument present it, but the repetition of the mantric assertion that matter-energy cannot do this or that without showing why it cannot, does not constitute an argument.

Alec
evolutionopages.com

 

[redneck22]

Alec
evolutionopages.com

You link is messed up

 

[hecd2]

You link is messed up

Glad you enjoy visiting. Here you go:

Alec
evolutionpages.com