Dawkins- Racial IQ.
alan truelove
Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
social application)
Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
The hereditary basis of the massive ave. IQ deficit of blacks and
hispanics has now been solidly established for over 35 years, and
researchers have moved on to more detailed (genomic) studies (effect
of the age of mother for example). See Plomin "Behavioral Genetics .."
and all kinds of material on the Internet.
This does indeed have some social implications. Example: US State
Universities have- if they choose, and some do- been permitted to
continue some measure of illegal and unfair discrimination against
whites; solely because of the scientific ignorance of a Judge
(O'Connor and a few colleagues) who seems to believe that the black IQ
deficit will somehow disappear over the next "25 years". Fortunately
she and the other incompetent and disaffected judges are now set to be
permanently out-voted (and replaced) due to America's evident turn to
more rational and moral ethics.
The above world-wide researchers are certainly investigating other
"Behavioral Genetic" factors - see Plomin. Criminality, etc. (Although
not much specifically racial so far ..) We shall have to wait a
couple of years and see. So the writings of Rushton, Lynn, Chis Brand
.. are indeed entertaining to any open-minded professional.
bigboard
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
> <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>social application)
>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>
> How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>
> As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
> century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
>
Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
--
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
-- Matt Groening
Tom Sacold
"bigboard" <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:2vrhmqF...@uni-berlin.de...
> Phillip Weston wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
> > <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
> >>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
> >>social application)
> >>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
> >
> > How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
> >
> > As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
> > century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
> >
>
> Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
>
You'll be the next one to the stake !!!!
I suppose that we can be glad that chirstianity has grown up into a
wishy-washy mish-mash of myths and you don't end up being murdered in the
street for making a film.
alan truelove
>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
Well, no problem with his atheism which is refreshing ...
and his Evolutionary writings are mildly interesting ...
but this PC attitude to race differences needs to be nipped in the bud
...
bigboard
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:19:54 +0000, bigboard
> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
>>> <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>social application)
>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>
>>> How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>>
>>> As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
>>> century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
>>>
>>
>>Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
>
> Pardon me, was that your prejudice I stood on?
>
I have no idea what you are talking about.
--
Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
"How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
alan truelove
>wishy-washy mish-mash of myths and you don't end up being murdered in the
>street for making a film.
I believe we should cooperate with the liberal church memberships,
because 'we' agree on most things and they provide a very useful
social function...
Also the C of E provides (-ed) employment for many of my Cambridge
peers, particularly those that were perhaps light in the loafers.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>social application)
>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>
>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
What's your problem with it?
--
cheers
www.libraryofalex.com
Wherever book may be burned, men also, in the end, are burned
bigboard
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:45:10 +0000, bigboard
> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:19:54 +0000, bigboard
>>> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
>>>>> <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>>>social application)
>>>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>>>
>>>>> How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>>>>
>>>>> As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
>>>>> century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
>>>
>>> Pardon me, was that your prejudice I stood on?
>>>
>>
>>I have no idea what you are talking about.
>
> Story of your life.
>
As you have never met me, and know nothing of my life, I'll assume, with
very little chance of being proved wrong, that your statement is as foolish
as every other you make. If all your comments are based on such a dearth of
evidence, then you would be wise to stop making them, for fear of
confirming your idiocy in the eyes of the world.
--
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
bigboard
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:51:24 +0000, bigboard
> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:45:10 +0000, bigboard
>>> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:19:54 +0000, bigboard
>>>>> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
>>>>>>> <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have
>>>>>>>>no social application)
>>>>>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
>>>>>>> century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pardon me, was that your prejudice I stood on?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I have no idea what you are talking about.
>>>
>>> Story of your life.
>>>
>>
>>As you have never met me, and know nothing of my life,
>
> I know enough about you to be aware that you spend a lot of time not
> knowing what others are talking about.
>
You know the same about me as you know about everything else: nothing.
>>I'll assume, with
>>very little chance of being proved wrong, that your statement is as
>>foolish as every other you make. If all your comments are based on such a
>>dearth of evidence, then you would be wise to stop making them, for fear
>>of confirming your idiocy in the eyes of the world.
>
> Using arcane language doesn't conceal the fact that not even your
> insults are original.
>
Arcane? Just because you have a vocabulary smaller than that of a trained
chimpanzee doesn't mean that I should limit my self-expression to suit your
room-temperature I.Q.
Anyway, I'm bored of you now as you're not even a very good troll. Goodbye.
--
"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
die in."
-- George McGovern
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>social application)
>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>
>>>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>
>>What's your problem with it?
>
>I don't like the word "memes".
Seems a small gripe to have
Gropius Riftwynde
<tin...@spodlife.org> wrote:
>alan truelove <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> (Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>> Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>> social application)
>
>Never mind differences between ethnic groups, how much difference
>between anybody does IQ make?
>
>http://www.mensa.org/info.php even boasts that high school dropouts
>and truck drivers can join the high IQ club. Does a high IQ mean
>anything (apart from the ability to score well on IQ tests)?
>
>Tim.
Well, precisely. It can be very well agued that the human race as a
whole obviously has a very low IQ compared to the potential implied by
the IQ concept, and that minor cultural variations between them are
neither here nor there. How do I know that? Because a) it is possible
to imagine an intelligence higher than the curretly human defined one,
and b) because a reasonable number of humans do have a demonstably
high intelligence, irrespective of age, race, colour, etc.
Unfortunately not enough, but give it time.
Mr. Truelove's postings demonstrate a lively mind with a flair for
self-interested research, but very little relative solid
iintelligence. Ah! I hear you say. Intelligence compared to what? and
how do you accurately measure it anyway?
GR
Gropius Riftwynde
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:55:24 +0000, Phillip Weston <m...@privacy.net>
>wrote:
>
>>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>>social application)
>>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>>
>>>>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>>
>>>What's your problem with it?
>>
>>I don't like the word "memes".
>
>Seems a small gripe to have
I suppose it's a small convenient word to have for a concept that's
been around for a few thousand years. It only gives you the gripes if
the author is claimng something new and significant, which he isn't.
GR
Prime Element
news:i70hp056mh8ermu9r...@4ax.com...
> (Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
> Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
> social application)
> Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
> The hereditary basis of the massive ave. IQ deficit of blacks and
> hispanics
No matter about average IQ and how much and in what ways genes and
environment affect it please be advised that "hispanic" is NOT a race.
Francis Turton
Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
like about Dawkins :)
I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
behaviour of genes and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
what I can gather).
This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
George Cox
>
> No matter about average IQ and how much and in what ways genes and
> environment affect it please be advised that "hispanic" is NOT a race.
The notion of race is so vague that it can have no serious use.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>> I suppose it's a small convenient word to have for a concept that's
>> been around for a few thousand years. It only gives you the gripes if
>> the author is claimng something new and significant, which he isn't.
>>
>
>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
>like about Dawkins :)
>
>I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
>behaviour of genes and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
>what I can gather).
Meme is nothing more than 'idea'
>This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
>second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
>more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
There's noting wrong with memes as a concept
Francis Turton
>
> Meme is nothing more than 'idea'
>
>
>>This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
>>second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
>>more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
>
>
> There's noting wrong with memes as a concept
>
I.e. "There's nothing wrong with ideas as an idea". Cool! :)
I don't see why Dawkins didn't say 'idea' if that's what he meant.
Actually, I do: if he used the word 'idea', people would realise he had
nothing new to say.
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
Stefan Patejak
definitions I've run across talk about language, surnames, etc. This
is hardly satisfactory from a biological point of view. One doesn't
become more or less intelligent because your name changes from Zapata
to Schumacher, or vice versa.
Prime Element
news:4198FEF6...@spambtinternet.com.invalid...
Rudolf is a red-nosed reindeer.
Here's some use for you.
http://www.wku.edu/~darlene.applegate/forensic/lab7.html
Let's not leave genetics out of the picture.
http://ancestrybydna.com/
Also providing DNA "race tests" to law enforcement.
Prime Element
news:419932dc$0$532$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...
Catching criminals and identifying victims of crimes is useful, no? It's
even quite serious.
abelard
<alan_t...@hotmail.com>
typed:
>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>social application)
well dumbo....perhaps you'd like to suggest precisely what social
application it has
>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
didn't take you that long...are you over 14...no, can't be....
far too shallow and immature...or is it sommat about your near
invisible imaginary 'iq'
rest binned due to terminal boredom...
--
web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
energy, education, politics, etc >958,884 document calls in a year
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
abelard
typed:
>Phillip Weston wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:19:54 +0000, bigboard
>> <j...@bigboard.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Phillip Weston wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
>>>> <alan_t...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>>social application)
>>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>>
>>>> How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>>>
>>>> As for The Blind Watchmaker, it read like something from the 19th
>>>> century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
>>>>
>>>
>>>Whereas you've yet to leave the 15th century.
>>
>> Pardon me, was that your prejudice I stood on?
>>
>
>I have no idea what you are talking about.
don't fret yourself...neither has he.
abelard
<alan_t...@hotmail.com>
typed:
>>I suppose that we can be glad that chirstianity has grown up into a
>>wishy-washy mish-mash of myths and you don't end up being murdered in the
>>street for making a film.
>Are you guys mean!
>I believe we should cooperate with the liberal church memberships,
>because 'we' agree on most things and they provide a very useful
>social function...
>Also the C of E provides (-ed) employment for many of my Cambridge
>peers,
which street gang was that?
>particularly those that were perhaps light in the loafers.
indeed your peers
abelard
typed:
>On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:28:20 +0000 (UTC),
>libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:16:29 +0000, Phillip Weston <m...@privacy.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>>>social application)
>>>>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
>>>
>>>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>>
>>What's your problem with it?
>
>I don't like the word "memes".
whoop-de-doo....
abelard
<alan_t...@hotmail.com>
typed:
>
>>How can you take the author of The Selfish Gene seriously?
>
>Well, no problem with his atheism which is refreshing ...
naturaly...you're a moron...
>and his Evolutionary writings are mildly interesting ...
if only you understood them...
>but this PC attitude to race differences needs to be nipped in the bud
while your preposterous ignorance can evoke only hollow laughter and
widespread embarrassment that you dare to open your mouth or type
into a computer.....
abelard
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
typed:
>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
>like about Dawkins :)
why?...that is, why do you have a problem with 'memes'?
>I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
>behaviour of genes
perhaps you can manage a cite for that claim....
>and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
>what I can gather).
not a reasonable analogy....
'paradigm' would be expected to be a superset of 'meme'....
and meme maybe a superset of 'bit'...
it's crude and would require refinement in any conversation....
just like many words much of the time....
>This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
>second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
>more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
no...
George Cox
>
> ...
>
> This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
> second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
> more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
Any one who calls Daniel Dennett a second-rate thinker may have his
(seeming) pomposity excused.
JimC
Stefan Patejak
> For purposes of your argument, how do you define "Hispanic?"
That which is left after you subtract native Portuguese, English,
French, French Creole, Dutch, Quechua and Guarani speakers from Latin
America. The word comes from the way a Mexican says, "He's a
panic." Hispanic.
> Most
> definitions I've run across talk about language, surnames, etc. This
> is hardly satisfactory from a biological point of view.
You got your biological Hispanics, and your wanna be
Hispanics like Jews who emigrate to Argentina. They're not
biological.
> One doesn't
> become more or less intelligent because your name changes from Zapata
> to Schumacher, or vice versa.
I'll say. For one thing, Schumacher is a common name around
Strasbourg, a French city, while Zapata is a common name
in Texas, a state in Bumfuckia.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>> Meme is nothing more than 'idea'
>>
>>
>>>This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
>>>second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a couple
>>>more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
>>
>>
>> There's noting wrong with memes as a concept
>>
>
>I.e. "There's nothing wrong with ideas as an idea". Cool! :)
LOL
>I don't see why Dawkins didn't say 'idea' if that's what he meant.
>Actually, I do: if he used the word 'idea', people would realise he had
>nothing new to say.
Sort of. I think memes is a helpful addition to the language; I guess
it means 'selectable unit of ideas'
Mark Carroll
George Cox <george_...@spambtinternet.com.invalid> wrote:
(snip)
>Any one who calls Daniel Dennett a second-rate thinker may have his
>(seeming) pomposity excused.
(-: I've not actually read any Dennett, although I have something by
him languishing in the cellar awaiting perusal, along with a couple of
things by Pinker. I did like The Selfish Gene at the time I read it,
was in two minds about The Blind Watchmaker, and was distinctly
underwhelmed by The Emperor's New Mind. Yesterday's library haul
included Hawkins' "On Intelligence".
About (handwave) this sort of stuff, who do you think is worth
reading?
(I took the liberty of excising uk.politics.misc from followups as I'm
guessing that this is a bit off-topic for those folks.)
-- Mark
Diversity Isn't A Codeword
> Phillip Weston wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
> >
> >>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
> >>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
> >>social application)
> >>Richard Dawkins appears to be getting soft in his old age.
> >
> >
> > century. "Oooh, I'm an atheist! Aren't I wicked?"
I agree with whomever wrote the above, Richard DAWKins (good name for
a dickhead) is a total knob, a typical atheist cretin, he still
preaches that evolution is fact, even though he knows what a load of
shit it is.
bigboard
And yet he could no doubt learn to snip correctly and avoid attributing
posts to persons other than their real authors.
--
Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow.
Maybe we should think only about today.
Charlie Brown:
No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday
will get better.
abelard
<ma...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
typed:
>In article <41995F75...@spambtinternet.com.invalid>,
>George Cox <george_...@spambtinternet.com.invalid> wrote:
>(snip)
>>Any one who calls Daniel Dennett a second-rate thinker may have his
>>(seeming) pomposity excused.
>
>(-: I've not actually read any Dennett, although I have something by
>him languishing in the cellar awaiting perusal, along with a couple of
>things by Pinker. I did like The Selfish Gene at the time I read it,
>was in two minds about The Blind Watchmaker, and was distinctly
>underwhelmed by The Emperor's New Mind. Yesterday's library haul
>included Hawkins' "On Intelligence".
>
>About (handwave) this sort of stuff, who do you think is worth
>reading?
imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
real world
http://www.abelard.org/reading/rec-hi.htm
matt ridley is more up to date than dawkins and more subtle.....but
2 of dawkins offerings can be useful (as listed)
as suggested by others....dawkins 'atheism' is risible in its
crudity....
i've even watched a theologian tear him to ribbons while dawkins
appeared blithely unaware he was being disassembled.....he should
stick to what he knows...and know what he does not know....
for penrose i have very little time...he's a substantial mathematician
but out of his depth in behaviour (i have found his sections on
godel of use, but more as an awful example)
i have a long deconstruction of godel starting here:-
http://www.abelard.org/metalogic/metalogicA1.htm
hawkins i also regards as pretty much another handwaver but he's
more a *theoretical* physicist....sommat he probably has in common
with penrose.....i am no physicist so am unable to 'appreciate' these
two in depth in that area....
dennet i have scanned and come to the conclusion my time is
better invested elsewhere....
i repeat the first sentence...
imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
real world....
>(I took the liberty of excising uk.politics.misc from followups as I'm
>guessing that this is a bit off-topic for those folks.)
i have replaced it....your action is not normally good practice....
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>About (handwave) this sort of stuff, who do you think is worth
>>reading?
>
>imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
> real world
>http://www.abelard.org/reading/rec-hi.htm
>matt ridley is more up to date than dawkins and more subtle.....but
> 2 of dawkins offerings can be useful (as listed)
> as suggested by others....dawkins 'atheism' is risible in its
> crudity....
> i've even watched a theologian tear him to ribbons while dawkins
> appeared blithely unaware he was being disassembled.....he should
> stick to what he knows...and know what he does not know....
He's good at poking fun at fundies, but he's not well versed enough to
deal with the more sophisticated
>for penrose i have very little time...he's a substantial mathematician
> but out of his depth in behaviour (i have found his sections on
> godel of use, but more as an awful example)
>i have a long deconstruction of godel starting here:-
>http://www.abelard.org/metalogic/metalogicA1.htm
>hawkins i also regards as pretty much another handwaver but he's
> more a *theoretical* physicist....sommat he probably has in common
> with penrose.....i am no physicist so am unable to 'appreciate' these
> two in depth in that area....
They have access to ideas we don't. Their analogies are very useful to
open the mind
>dennet i have scanned and come to the conclusion my time is
> better invested elsewhere....
>
>i repeat the first sentence...
>imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
> real world....
For this stuff, any Buddhist text is better than most. Alan Watts'
"This is it" isn't a bad start... but there's no substitute for
meditation
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
<ma...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Any one who calls Daniel Dennett a second-rate thinker may have his
>>(seeming) pomposity excused.
>
>(-: I've not actually read any Dennett, although I have something by
>him languishing in the cellar awaiting perusal, along with a couple of
>things by Pinker. I did like The Selfish Gene at the time I read it,
>was in two minds about The Blind Watchmaker, and was distinctly
>underwhelmed by The Emperor's New Mind. Yesterday's library haul
>included Hawkins' "On Intelligence".
>
>About (handwave) this sort of stuff, who do you think is worth
>reading?
Given the range of 'this stuff'; Godel Escher and Bach is great fun,
the Extended Phenotype (basically one idea blown out into a book) is a
clever idea, and Russell's Analysis of Mind is a different look at
this problem.
As for evolution or human societies and intelligence generally, Guns
germs and steel and (especially) The wealth and poverty of nations
contain more wisdom than many (even if guns germs and steel suffers
from an overlay of PC nonsense
>(I took the liberty of excising uk.politics.misc from followups as I'm
>guessing that this is a bit off-topic for those folks.)
Please don't! Uk.p.m is a cross-posting haven for all and sundry, and
topics here include everything. If anyone flames you for being off
topic, just refer them to me (rolls up arms...)
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:00:43 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>wrote:
>
>>>About (handwave) this sort of stuff, who do you think is worth
>>>reading?
>>
>>imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
>> real world
>>http://www.abelard.org/reading/rec-hi.htm
>>matt ridley is more up to date than dawkins and more subtle.....but
>> 2 of dawkins offerings can be useful (as listed)
>> as suggested by others....dawkins 'atheism' is risible in its
>> crudity....
>> i've even watched a theologian tear him to ribbons while dawkins
>> appeared blithely unaware he was being disassembled.....he should
>> stick to what he knows...and know what he does not know....
>
>He's good at poking fun at fundies, but he's not well versed enough to
>deal with the more sophisticated
reasonable comment...
>>for penrose i have very little time...he's a substantial mathematician
>> but out of his depth in behaviour (i have found his sections on
>> godel of use, but more as an awful example)
>>i have a long deconstruction of godel starting here:-
>>http://www.abelard.org/metalogic/metalogicA1.htm
>>hawkins i also regards as pretty much another handwaver but he's
>> more a *theoretical* physicist....sommat he probably has in common
>> with penrose.....i am no physicist so am unable to 'appreciate' these
>> two in depth in that area....
>
>They have access to ideas we don't. Their analogies are very useful to
>open the mind
in behaviour i am unconvinced....
minsky has a better, if still inadequate, model.....
http://www.abelard.org/iqedfran/iqedfran.htm#stages is imv a better
approach without the hubris....
we have no (useful?) idea what consciousness means...and probably won't
have for long to come....
first job is to describe it...not try to 'explain' it....
studies in computing will steadily add to understanding...but as you will
well realise i regard godel as empirically unsound...you ain't going
to describe well something as difficult as consciousness, using
empirically unsound language, and a bit of hand waving.....
that is all i see in penrose...minsky is in computers and his feet are
far more firmly on the ground it you want to reach for mechanical
crutches....
>>dennet i have scanned and come to the conclusion my time is
>> better invested elsewhere....
>>
>>i repeat the first sentence...
>>imv you would better orient yourself by focussing more strongly on the
>> real world....
>
>For this stuff, any Buddhist text is better than most.
almost certainly though i have not read the book you cite...
btw...i should possibly have added to my last reply that by 'real
world' i meant ethology (animal behavior) rather that airy fairy
'theorising'
> Alan Watts'
>"This is it" isn't a bad start... but there's no substitute for
>meditation
regards...
Stefan Patejak
> You got your biological Hispanics, and your wanna be
> Hispanics like Jews who emigrate to Argentina. They're not
> biological.
I assume by "biological" Hispanics you mean people descended form the
Iberians, Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Vandals, and Moors;
people like Cervantes and Picasso.
Zapata is a common name in Texas, a state in Bumfuckia.
Don't blame me! I didn't vote for him. (Anyway he's going to make
bumfucking illegal.)
Pepe le Pew
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:21:34 +0000, Francis Turton
> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>
>>> Meme is nothing more than 'idea'
>>>
>>>
>>>> This confusion between analogy and fact often seems to mark out
>>>> second-rate thinkers (Daniel Dennett and David Deutsch to name a
>>>> couple
>>>> more). I guess that probably sounds a bit pompous :\
>>>
>>>
>>> There's noting wrong with memes as a concept
>>>
>>
>> I.e. "There's nothing wrong with ideas as an idea". Cool! :)
>
> LOL
>
>> I don't see why Dawkins didn't say 'idea' if that's what he meant.
>> Actually, I do: if he used the word 'idea', people would realise he had
>> nothing new to say.
>
> Sort of. I think memes is a helpful addition to the language; I guess
> it means 'selectable unit of ideas'
>
Why don't you just look up the word in the bloody dictionary?
http://dictionary.reference.com?search=memes
Later,
Pepe le Pew aka Pat Sullivan
--
PT Barnum was right !
Anubis
wrote:
>we have no (useful?) idea what consciousness means...and probably won't
> have for long to come....
Try Roger Penrose's "correct quantum gravity".
He believes the brain is a quantum mechanical device (and FWIW so do
I) and that we will understand conscious awareness when we understand
what he calls "correct quantum gravity".
Although he spends a lot of energy defending that claim, at the heart
of it is the fact that gravity remains the last mystery to solve and
when it is solved a grand unification will presumably be possible and
one anticipated consequence of that grand unification will be an
understanding of consciousness.
We know something is not right with our primitive classical notions of
space and time, so presumably when we discover correct quantum gravity
we will break thru the illusions surrounding space and time - and that
will lead us to an understanding of how the brain operates.
--
Map Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html
"If you build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. If you
set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life."
Francis Turton
>>> I don't see why Dawkins didn't say 'idea' if that's what he meant.
>>> Actually, I do: if he used the word 'idea', people would realise he had
>>> nothing new to say.
>>
>>
>> Sort of. I think memes is a helpful addition to the language; I guess
>> it means 'selectable unit of ideas'
>>
> Why don't you just look up the word in the bloody dictionary?
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com?search=memes
>
Just read that. Sure sounds like bollocks to me :)
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
Francis Turton
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:16:00 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>>we have no (useful?) idea what consciousness means...and probably won't
>> have for long to come....
>
>
> Try Roger Penrose's "correct quantum gravity".
>
> He believes the brain is a quantum mechanical device (and FWIW so do
> I) and that we will understand conscious awareness when we understand
> what he calls "correct quantum gravity".
>
> Although he spends a lot of energy defending that claim, at the heart
> of it is the fact that gravity remains the last mystery to solve and
> when it is solved a grand unification will presumably be possible and
> one anticipated consequence of that grand unification will be an
> understanding of consciousness.
>
The idea that consciousness is a quantum process seems to have a lot of
favour among scientists at the moment. Nick Herbert broaches this
subject in his excellent book 'Quantum Reality' - though IIRC he doesn't
delve into the notion of quantum gravity.
(I've read Penrose's hypothesis about quantum gravity and consiousness
and found it very difficult to understand; something about the wave
function of a mental process collapsing when it reaches the level of 1
graviton or something; but I didn't understand fundamentally why
consciousness has to have anything to do with gravity. On the one hand I
realise these are difficult concepts to explaing to the lay reader, but
on the other hand, I found Penrose generally rather poor at getting his
point across.)
> We know something is not right with our primitive classical notions of
> space and time, so presumably when we discover correct quantum gravity
> we will break thru the illusions surrounding space and time - and that
> will lead us to an understanding of how the brain operates.
>
This is the point I was making elsewhere - that our notions of the
things that seem to us the very fabric of the universe (space, time,
consciousness) are in fact still very poorly understood and that
whatever *does* finally explain these things will likely revolutionise
our understanding of the universe.
If we don't destroy ourselves before we've got there of course :( (On a
whimsical note here, Douglas Adams and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both
suggest that as soon as a species understands the universe, it may be
inevitable that it instantly anihilates itself :) .)
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>>we have no (useful?) idea what consciousness means...and probably won't
>> have for long to come....
>
>Try Roger Penrose's "correct quantum gravity".
>
>He believes the brain is a quantum mechanical device (and FWIW so do
>I) and that we will understand conscious awareness when we understand
>what he calls "correct quantum gravity".
>
>Although he spends a lot of energy defending that claim, at the heart
>of it is the fact that gravity remains the last mystery to solve and
>when it is solved a grand unification will presumably be possible and
>one anticipated consequence of that grand unification will be an
>understanding of consciousness.
>
>We know something is not right with our primitive classical notions of
>space and time, so presumably when we discover correct quantum gravity
>we will break thru the illusions surrounding space and time - and that
>will lead us to an understanding of how the brain operates.
IIUC, this is based on the fairly tenuous idea that we don't
understand chemistry because it sits between the very micro (quantum
mechanics) and the macro (gravity)
I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
to a complete understanding of consciousness
Prime Element
news:7cdip05699bavur3k...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 05:17:02 -0500, alan truelove
> <alan_t...@hotmail.com>
>
> typed:
>
>>(Reply to a thread on a quasi-professional scientific group about
>>Dawkins latest book in which he claims race differences in IQ have no
>>social application)
>
> well dumbo....perhaps you'd like to suggest precisely what social
> application it has
Well the only "social application" as such that I can think of is in
preventing the racial discrimination known as positive discrimination,
university ethnicity quotas etc. by providing a counterargument to the idea
that underrepresentation of a race is necessarily due to factors other than
ability.
There seems scarcely any situation at all where discriminating against
different races on the basis of their *average* IQ is useful. The only
possible application would have to be some situation where it would be
impossible to give the individual in question an actual IQ test and
therefore not have to estimate IQ just using the data that they are of a
particular race.
Anubis
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>(I've read Penrose's hypothesis about quantum gravity and consiousness
>and found it very difficult to understand; something about the wave
>function of a mental process collapsing when it reaches the level of 1
>graviton or something; but I didn't understand fundamentally why
>consciousness has to have anything to do with gravity. On the one hand I
>realise these are difficult concepts to explaing to the lay reader, but
>on the other hand, I found Penrose generally rather poor at getting his
>point across.)
Be sure to read his latest:
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind
by Roger Penrose
Hardcover - 202 pages (April 1997)
Cambridge Univ Press
I find him rather obscure too.
>If we don't destroy ourselves before we've got there of course :( (On a
>whimsical note here, Douglas Adams and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both
>suggest that as soon as a species understands the universe, it may be
>inevitable that it instantly anihilates itself :) .)
Marquez is fascinated with magical reality. Sometimes I think he may
be right, except the hard-core realist in me comes to the rescue.
When you think about it, landing a man on the Moon is magical reality.
Anubis
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>to a complete understanding of consciousness
According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
are unknowable.
For example it is not possible to know whether any Turing Machine will
halt. We can know in some instances but not in general. If there was a
way to know, it would have to be computable - otherwise how would we
know it. But the Halting Problem tells us that such knowledge is
uncomputable.
If we could compute whether any Turing Machine would halt, then we
could add that calculation to the Turing machine in front and use the
result to do the exact opposite. Now what's the calculation going to
reveal?
If this calculation says that the TM will halt, then the steering
logic will put the TM into an infinite loop. If it says that the TM
will never halt, then the steering logic will execute the halt
instruction.
Such contradictions are unacceptable in an objective realist
Worldview. Such contradictions tell us immediately that such a
scenario is unreal - it cannot exist. Therefore there is no such
calculation and that means the question of whether any Turing Machine
will halt or not is unknowable.
There are other things in reality that are intrinsically unknowable.
For example the time that any radioactive nucleus will decay is
intrinsically unknowable. That can be shown both theoretically in
second order perturbation theory and experimentally with the Mossbauer
effect.
I ought to know - I spent my scientific career studying random
processes in quantum mechanics, both theoretically and experimentally.
What happens to science one we have confronted the boundary of the
unknowable? We learn to live in a stochastic world where the only way
we can know anything is to conduct experiments.
For example, you can always run the particular Turing Machine in
question and if it does halt, that is no longer unknowable for that
particular instance. But in general you can't know because it would
require an infinite amount of runtime to decide experimentally.
What's it like to live in a stochastic world? To some extent we do
because human behavior is not completely predictable - and for the
same basic reasons a Turing Machine is not predictable.
ekur...@whoknowswhere.com
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 20:12:44 +0000 (UTC),
> libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>
>
>>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>>to a complete understanding of consciousness
>
>
> According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
> vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
> are unknowable.
>
> For example it is not possible to know whether any Turing Machine will
> halt. We can know in some instances but not in general. If there was a
> way to know, it would have to be computable - otherwise how would we
> know it. But the Halting Problem tells us that such knowledge is
> uncomputable.
But how do we know that they are "vast". There may be a vast (or
infinite) number of TM's of the above kind, or a vast (or infinite)
number of theorems within an axiom system that we cannot prove, but how
do you get from there to "vast regions of knowledge"?
For most people, "vast regions of knowledge" refers to the long-standing
questions about life, the universe and everything, not whether this or
that TM halts, or when a nucleus will emit the next gamma particle.
> If we could compute whether any Turing Machine would halt, then we
> could add that calculation to the Turing machine in front and use the
> result to do the exact opposite. Now what's the calculation going to
> reveal?
>
> If this calculation says that the TM will halt, then the steering
> logic will put the TM into an infinite loop. If it says that the TM
> will never halt, then the steering logic will execute the halt
> instruction.
>
> Such contradictions are unacceptable in an objective realist
> Worldview. Such contradictions tell us immediately that such a
> scenario is unreal - it cannot exist. Therefore there is no such
> calculation and that means the question of whether any Turing Machine
> will halt or not is unknowable.
>
> There are other things in reality that are intrinsically unknowable.
> For example the time that any radioactive nucleus will decay is
> intrinsically unknowable. That can be shown both theoretically in
> second order perturbation theory and experimentally with the Mossbauer
> effect.
>
> I ought to know - I spent my scientific career studying random
> processes in quantum mechanics, both theoretically and experimentally.
>
> What happens to science one we have confronted the boundary of the
> unknowable? We learn to live in a stochastic world where the only way
> we can know anything is to conduct experiments.
It really depends on what is on this side of the knowable. Do we really
care about knowing everything, or just certain things relevant to the
nature of our existence?
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>>to a complete understanding of consciousness
>
>According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
>vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
>are unknowable.
Maybe. Goedel doesn't claim this though, IIUC. Only that there are
unknowable things in axiomatic systems. That we 'know' they are wrong
implies that the human brain is not axiomatic. But I accept that there
are multiple other readings of his work
>For example it is not possible to know whether any Turing Machine will
>halt. We can know in some instances but not in general. If there was a
>way to know, it would have to be computable - otherwise how would we
>know it. But the Halting Problem tells us that such knowledge is
>uncomputable.
Agreed
>If we could compute whether any Turing Machine would halt, then we
>could add that calculation to the Turing machine in front and use the
>result to do the exact opposite. Now what's the calculation going to
>reveal?
>
>If this calculation says that the TM will halt, then the steering
>logic will put the TM into an infinite loop. If it says that the TM
>will never halt, then the steering logic will execute the halt
>instruction.
>
>Such contradictions are unacceptable in an objective realist
>Worldview. Such contradictions tell us immediately that such a
>scenario is unreal - it cannot exist. Therefore there is no such
>calculation and that means the question of whether any Turing Machine
>will halt or not is unknowable.
>
>There are other things in reality that are intrinsically unknowable.
>For example the time that any radioactive nucleus will decay is
>intrinsically unknowable. That can be shown both theoretically in
>second order perturbation theory and experimentally with the Mossbauer
>effect.
>
>I ought to know - I spent my scientific career studying random
>processes in quantum mechanics, both theoretically and experimentally.
>
>What happens to science one we have confronted the boundary of the
>unknowable? We learn to live in a stochastic world where the only way
>we can know anything is to conduct experiments.
Agreed
>For example, you can always run the particular Turing Machine in
>question and if it does halt, that is no longer unknowable for that
>particular instance. But in general you can't know because it would
>require an infinite amount of runtime to decide experimentally.
>
>What's it like to live in a stochastic world? To some extent we do
>because human behavior is not completely predictable - and for the
>same basic reasons a Turing Machine is not predictable.
Agreed
Roy Jose Lorr
abelard wrote:
>
> --
> web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
> energy, education, politics, etc >958,884 document calls in a year
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
> the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
> good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
> only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just back from visiting to your web site for the first time:
--
The last stage of
utopian sentimentalism
is homicidal mania.
John Morrison
> Prime Element wrote:
>>
>> No matter about average IQ and how much and in what ways genes and
>> environment affect it please be advised that "hispanic" is NOT a
>> race.
>
> The notion of race is so vague that it can have no serious use.
However, please note that "Hispanic" (and, FWIW, "Semitic") are
perfectly acceptable, provided that they are used to refer to (reasonably
closely related) groups of languages.
John
johnDOTmorrisonATtescoDOTnet
--
"During a wedding ceremony, members of the audience cried. Scientists
examined the tears. They determined the liquid was eye dew." - Peter L.
Montgomery
BigCheese
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:e21lp0d3aof80akar...@4ax.com...
However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
alan truelove
>Well the only "social application" as such that I can think of is in
>preventing the racial discrimination known as positive discrimination,
>university ethnicity quotas etc. by providing a counterargument to the idea
>that underrepresentation of a race is necessarily due to factors other than
>ability.
>
>There seems scarcely any situation at all where discriminating against
>different races on the basis of their *average* IQ is useful. The only
>possible application would have to be some situation where it would be
>impossible to give the individual in question an actual IQ test and
>therefore not have to estimate IQ just using the data that they are of a
>particular race.
Yes you have expressed this very well.
And this is precisely the way it has worked out over the last 30 years
in the US, and most of the sophisticated States (Calif, Texas etc)
Other social applications would be speculative, and must await a
genomic basis (if at all)- eg if it is found that one race tends to be
criminal, then .. (etc etc)
This is where Rushton et al come in.
I'm amazed this thread went on so long - it was merely to point out
that Dawkins is being a twit in his comment. At least he is not
trying to lie and say there are no genetically caused racial
differences.
Naich
> There seems scarcely any situation at all where discriminating against
> different races on the basis of their *average* IQ is useful. The only
> possible application would have to be some situation where it would be
> impossible to give the individual in question an actual IQ test and
> therefore not have to estimate IQ just using the data that they are of a
> particular race.
But it's pointless applying average IQs to individuals as the difference
in average IQs is tiny compared to the range of IQs of individuals.
Naich.
--
http://www.fuzzyblobs.com .......... My blurry pics.
http://www.maggenhoof.co.uk/thoday . Improving our new dump.
http://www.veggiefoodguide.co.uk ... Time for some nice food.
http://www.sodwork.com ............. Right. I've had enough.
Motto: Me a skeptic? I hope you have proof.
Roy Jose Lorr
Francis Turton wrote:
Coming face to face with God (when presumably man reveals the
last secret in the universe) is instant anihilation.
Paul Grimes
His main reason for arguing that quantum gravity (actually he argues that
the quantum measurement process is an important part in solving both the
problems of quantum gravity and consciousness) has something to do with
consciousness is that consciousness is required by his earlier arguments to
be non-computable, and all current theories of physics are believed to be
computable in principle. Therefore the only remaining area where something
non-computational could happen is during the quantum measurement process,
for which we have no consistent theories at the moment.
It took me a couple of reads of both the Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of
the Mind to get all of his argument, and I've done the Part III Physics
Quantum Information course.
Paul
Anubis
>But how do we know that they are "vast". There may be a vast (or
>infinite) number of TM's of the above kind, or a vast (or infinite)
>number of theorems within an axiom system that we cannot prove, but how
>do you get from there to "vast regions of knowledge"?
>For most people, "vast regions of knowledge" refers to the long-standing
>questions about life, the universe and everything, not whether this or
>that TM halts, or when a nucleus will emit the next gamma particle.
Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
Anubis
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>That we 'know' they are wrong
>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic.
Indeed, the brain is quantum mechanical. But the point is that however
you arrive at what you claim is the correct answer in a Godel system,
you cannot prove it.
Turing's uncomputable numbers and Godel's Theorem derive from the same
source, namely Cantor Diagonal. Russell should be consulted for the
repercussions of that.
A barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves.
Who shaves the barber?
Anubis
>However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
That's because you are too dull to understand it.
ekur...@whoknowswhere.com
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:37:57 -0500, ekur...@WhoKnowsWhere.com wrote:
>
>
>>But how do we know that they are "vast". There may be a vast (or
>>infinite) number of TM's of the above kind, or a vast (or infinite)
>>number of theorems within an axiom system that we cannot prove, but how
>>do you get from there to "vast regions of knowledge"?
>
>
>>For most people, "vast regions of knowledge" refers to the long-standing
>>questions about life, the universe and everything, not whether this or
>>that TM halts, or when a nucleus will emit the next gamma particle.
>
>
> Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
> extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
> would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
>
anyone is fooled by your evasion?
BigCheese
"Anubis" <s...@sob.com> wrote in message
news:419b78d2...@news-server.houston.rr.com...
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:00:20 -0000, "BigCheese" <n...@here.com> wrote:
>
> >However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
>
> That's because you are too dull to understand it.
That must be it. Or perhaps I'm bright enough to see it for what it is.
Who can say?
abelard
typed:
>On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:09:49 +0000 (UTC),
>libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>
>>That we 'know' they are wrong
>>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic.
>
>Indeed, the brain is quantum mechanical.
would you like to back that dubious assertion....
might it not be just as fascile to say the brain was causal.....
the brain is real...it 'is' not 'quantum' or 'causal'...
it is real!
it all depends on what is 'is' as a great man recently told you buffoons!
of course you then set about persecuting him as you do all those
who tell you the truths/facts you don't wish to hear!
>But the point is that however
>you arrive at what you claim is the correct answer in a Godel system,
>you cannot prove it.
depends on how you interpret the word 'prove'....
>Turing's uncomputable numbers and Godel's Theorem derive from the same
>source, namely Cantor Diagonal. Russell should be consulted for the
>repercussions of that.
cantor is crap....interesting....but unsound.....
a crazy god botherer...
godel went mad....
russell gave up on the stuff because it blew his head away....
the only sane one among them was turing....and he killed himself.....
and he only part grasped it improperly...
http://www.abelard.org/metalogic/metalogicB1.htm
there is a good reason for these people losing their marbles as far as i
am concerned....the whole aristotelian system is fundamentally
flawed....
i can show you pretty precisely why....
the system itself is out of touch with reality....you plunge too deeply
into it without an anchor and you tend to go mad....
ie, you lose touch with reality....
i have developed an anchor...
http://www.abelard.org/reality.htm
>A barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves.
>Who shaves the barber?
for what is wrong with turing, cantor, russell and godel.....
http://www.abelard.org/metalogic/metalogicA3.htm
regards....
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:18:59 GMT, s...@sob.com (Anubis) wrote:
>
>>>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>>>to a complete understanding of consciousness
>>
>>According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
>>vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
>>are unknowable.
>
>Maybe. Goedel doesn't claim this though, IIUC. Only that there are
>unknowable things in axiomatic systems. That we 'know' they are wrong
>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic. But I accept that there
>are multiple other readings of his work
we know by metalogic...ie by looking down on the system that
has thrown up the problem....
when we correct for that problem by godel reasoning we can then
generate another analogous problem in the new correctied/improved/
extended system...etc.....
what do you mean by 'not axiomatic'?
do you claim the brain is not digital?
do you claim we don't calculate the quantum sausage machine
outside digital means?
what is 'space'?...how you gonna count it using digits?
yet we move 'in' it....
just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
our food by iteration and approximation....
regards....
Anubis
wrote:
>It took me a couple of reads of both the Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of
>the Mind to get all of his argument,
Consider reading:
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind
by Roger Penrose
Hardcover - 202 pages (April 1997)
Cambridge Univ Press
followed by these books.
Fine has debated Penrose about this CQG-Consciousness theory
The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory
by Arthur Fine
Paperback Reprint edition (October 1988)
University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226249476
These are heavy reading so I recommend skimming them for highlights.
It's good to see Physicists become skilled at metaphysics for a
change, before they wander off in the weeds like most do.
Search for a Naturalistic World View:
Scientific Method and Epistemology
by Abner Shimony
Hardcover Vol 1 (June 1993)
Cambridge Univ Pr
Search for a Naturalistic World View:
Natural Science and Metaphysics
by Abner Shimony
Paperback Vol 2 (June 1993)
Cambridge Univ Pr
>and I've done the Part III Physics Quantum Information course.
The most ridiculous thing about Penrose's otherwise brilliant
hypothesis was those "microtubules". One does not need any weird
tubules to support quantum activity. After all, the brain is
"attached" to the quantum vacuum by virtue of its electromagnetic
activity.
BTW, if you accept that the brain is quantum mechanical in nature and
that the connection to the vacuum is by the electromagnetic field
generated by neural activity, then somehow the electromagnetic
properties of neural network is quantum mechanical.
For example the fact that neurons work by discrete digital pulse
trains and activation thresholds may be characteristic of quantum
fields that has not been discovered to date. I know of no one pursuing
that line of investigation.
In any event, the thing I do not like about Penrose's latest attempts
to support his hypothesis is his use of the machinery of the
Copenhagen Interpretation to model the collapse of the wavevector.
As you know from your study of Quantum Information Theory, there are
better explanations, e.g,.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9610005
Tiday's Physicists maintain that the Copenhagen Interpretation is now
defunct based on the revelations of quantum entanglement and quantum
information theory of the past 25 years.
As Albert Einstein remarked to Neils Bohr as they were observing a
full Moon one night, "You don't seriously believe the Moon disappears
when you stop looking at it?" Arthur Fine (op. cit.) comments that
Bohr was never the same after that encounter with Einstein.
Anubis
>> Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
>> extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
>> would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
>If you can't answer the questions, why not just say so? Do you think
>anyone is fooled by your evasion?
<yawn>
Anubis
>> >However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
>> That's because you are too dull to understand it.
>That must be it. Or perhaps I'm bright enough to see it for what it is.
>Who can say?
I can. You are too dull to understand it.
Francis Turton
>>If we don't destroy ourselves before we've got there of course :( (On a
>>whimsical note here, Douglas Adams and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both
>>suggest that as soon as a species understands the universe, it may be
>>inevitable that it instantly anihilates itself :) .)
>
>
> Coming face to face with God (when presumably man reveals the
> last secret in the universe) is instant anihilation.
>
I wasn't claiming that this was a fact. But ironically, we currently
seem to be making good progress on both the scientific and the
self-annihilation fronts, so maybe there's something in it? :)
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
BigCheese
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:49:10 -0000, "BigCheese" <n...@here.com> wrote:
>
> >> >However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
>
> >> That's because you are too dull to understand it.
>
> >That must be it. Or perhaps I'm bright enough to see it for what it is.
>
> >Who can say?
>
> I can. You are too dull to understand it.
Indeed.
Anyone who takes the name of an Egyptian God must see himself as something
special.
Whereas someone as dull as me just sees you as a pretentious twat.
Francis Turton
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:25:29 +0000, Francis Turton
> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>
>
>>(I've read Penrose's hypothesis about quantum gravity and consiousness
>>and found it very difficult to understand; something about the wave
>>function of a mental process collapsing when it reaches the level of 1
>>graviton or something; but I didn't understand fundamentally why
>>consciousness has to have anything to do with gravity. On the one hand I
>>realise these are difficult concepts to explaing to the lay reader, but
>>on the other hand, I found Penrose generally rather poor at getting his
>>point across.)
>
>
> Be sure to read his latest:
>
> The Large, the Small and the Human Mind
> by Roger Penrose
> Hardcover - 202 pages (April 1997)
> Cambridge Univ Press
>
> I find him rather obscure too.
>
He seems a likeable chap and full of interesting ideas, but hopeless at
putting himself in the position of people who don't spend their days
solving mathematical conundrums.
>
>>If we don't destroy ourselves before we've got there of course :( (On a
>>whimsical note here, Douglas Adams and Gabriel Garcia Marquez both
>>suggest that as soon as a species understands the universe, it may be
>>inevitable that it instantly anihilates itself :) .)
>
>
> Marquez is fascinated with magical reality. Sometimes I think he may
> be right, except the hard-core realist in me comes to the rescue.
>
I don't think you can talk of Marquez being 'right' or 'wrong', given
that he's a writer of fiction. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' I see as
a (pessimistic) perspective on the human condition, but no more right or
wrong than any other perspective - just more beguiling than many :)
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
BigCheese
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:37:57 -0500, ekur...@WhoKnowsWhere.com wrote:
>
> >But how do we know that they are "vast". There may be a vast (or
> >infinite) number of TM's of the above kind, or a vast (or infinite)
> >number of theorems within an axiom system that we cannot prove, but how
> >do you get from there to "vast regions of knowledge"?
>
> >For most people, "vast regions of knowledge" refers to the long-standing
> >questions about life, the universe and everything, not whether this or
> >that TM halts, or when a nucleus will emit the next gamma particle.
>
> Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
> extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
> would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
Wot like you ?
;)
Francis Turton
>
> just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
> our food by iteration and approximation....
>
What do you mean by 'are/maybe (sic) digital'?
Actually, what do you mean by that whole sentence? Or is it pointless
asking?
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
Francis Turton
> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:36:39 +0000, Francis Turton
> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
>
> typed:
>
>
>>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
>>like about Dawkins :)
>
>
> why?...that is, why do you have a problem with 'memes'?
>
As I said, I haven't read his books, but his arguments sound a bit flash
and meretricious to me. I'm always inclined to be sceptical about
writers with a penchant for neologisms - they can often be a way of
creating the illusion that something new and exciting is being proposed,
when it isn't.
>
>>I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
>>behaviour of genes
>
>
> perhaps you can manage a cite for that claim....
>
No, sorry. It may be a misinterpretation in which case I apologise both
to Mr. Dawkins and to yourself.
I have read and watched interviews with Dawkins and been unimpressed
with his arguments (e.g. that I mentioned from his conversation with Sue
Lawley - or perhaps it was Anthony Clare now I think about it). I have
assumed that these are summaries of the ideas he expresses in his books,
and therefore have not bothered reading his books.
Some might disagree but I think it is often possible to tell how a
writer's mind works, and therefore whether they are worth reading, from
the way they express themselves in interviews.
>
>>and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
>>what I can gather).
>
>
> not a reasonable analogy....
> 'paradigm' would be expected to be a superset of 'meme'....
> and meme maybe a superset of 'bit'...
Please yourself, though I've no idea what you're on about...
--- www.dogsticks.org ---
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>>That we 'know' they are wrong
>>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic.
>
>Indeed, the brain is quantum mechanical. But the point is that however
>you arrive at what you claim is the correct answer in a Godel system,
>you cannot prove it.
>
>Turing's uncomputable numbers and Godel's Theorem derive from the same
>source, namely Cantor Diagonal. Russell should be consulted for the
>repercussions of that.
>
>A barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves.
>Who shaves the barber?
Yeah. Change the frame of reference
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>>>>to a complete understanding of consciousness
>>>
>>>According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
>>>vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
>>>are unknowable.
>>
>>Maybe. Goedel doesn't claim this though, IIUC. Only that there are
>>unknowable things in axiomatic systems. That we 'know' they are wrong
>>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic. But I accept that there
>>are multiple other readings of his work
>
>we know by metalogic...ie by looking down on the system that
> has thrown up the problem....
>when we correct for that problem by godel reasoning we can then
> generate another analogous problem in the new correctied/improved/
> extended system...etc.....
>
>what do you mean by 'not axiomatic'?
That there is not a single, consistent underlying set of rules through
which all humans (any humans?) make decisions and create logical
systems.
>do you claim the brain is not digital?
No, I make no claims about digital nature or otherwise. Though I
believe it is not binary digital - some signals are stronger than
others
>do you claim we don't calculate the quantum sausage machine
> outside digital means?
Don't understand the question
>what is 'space'?...how you gonna count it using digits?
> yet we move 'in' it....
>
>just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
> our food by iteration and approximation....
Agreed
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>Turing's uncomputable numbers and Godel's Theorem derive from the same
>>source, namely Cantor Diagonal. Russell should be consulted for the
>>repercussions of that.
>
>cantor is crap....interesting....but unsound.....
'Unsound' '=' no real world referents?
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>>>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
>>>like about Dawkins :)
>>
>>
>> why?...that is, why do you have a problem with 'memes'?
>>
>
>As I said, I haven't read his books, but his arguments sound a bit flash
>and meretricious to me. I'm always inclined to be sceptical about
>writers with a penchant for neologisms - they can often be a way of
>creating the illusion that something new and exciting is being proposed,
>when it isn't.
Memes is a pretty small chapter at the end of a book correctly
describing evolution
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:36:54 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>wrote:
>
>>>>>I think other gaps in our knowledge will require filling before we get
>>>>>to a complete understanding of consciousness
>>>>
>>>>According to Turing, Goedel and Chaitin, to name just a few, there are
>>>>vast regions of knowledge that we will never understand because they
>>>>are unknowable.
>>>
>>>Maybe. Goedel doesn't claim this though, IIUC. Only that there are
>>>unknowable things in axiomatic systems. That we 'know' they are wrong
>>>implies that the human brain is not axiomatic. But I accept that there
>>>are multiple other readings of his work
>>
>>we know by metalogic...ie by looking down on the system that
>> has thrown up the problem....
>>when we correct for that problem by godel reasoning we can then
>> generate another analogous problem in the new correctied/improved/
>> extended system...etc.....
>>
>>what do you mean by 'not axiomatic'?
>
>That there is not a single, consistent underlying set of rules through
>which all humans (any humans?) make decisions and create logical
>systems.
ok a bit..godel does not claim 'wrong'...he claims an either/or
(in)consistent or (in)complete....
q. where do you propose these 'systems' exist in the real world?
i claim they are individuals(technical meaning) in individual heads....
i claim universals only exist as individuals in individual (people's)
heads....
clear?
>>do you claim the brain is not digital?
>
>No, I make no claims about digital nature or otherwise. Though I
>believe it is not binary digital - some signals are stronger than
>others
fine by me....but as far as i know those degrees are also digital....
you might wish to suggest 'chaotic' in a math sense....as perhaps
a 'better' approach than 'quantum'.....
or you may prefer 'so complex we don't have a hope of coping
with it yet'....
>>do you claim we don't calculate the quantum sausage machine
>> outside digital means?
>
>Don't understand the question
people calculate quantum sums(equations)...the methods used are
digital....of do you wish to argue otherwise?
(there are two possible levels to this...internal processing...and
computer or paper calculations
>>what is 'space'?...how you gonna count it using digits?
>> yet we move 'in' it....
>>
>>just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
>> our food by iteration and approximation....
>
>Agreed
relief!
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:29:54 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>wrote:
>
>>>Turing's uncomputable numbers and Godel's Theorem derive from the same
>>>source, namely Cantor Diagonal. Russell should be consulted for the
>>>repercussions of that.
>>
>>cantor is crap....interesting....but unsound.....
>
>'Unsound' '=' no real world referents?
i'll go further....(with regard to the core structure of aristotelean
logic...cantor just adds more to the pile...)
:-and contradicts empirical evidence
regards...
abelard
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
typed:
>abelard wrote:
>
>>
>> just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
>> our food by iteration and approximation....
>What do you mean by 'are/maybe (sic) digital'?
there is no strong reason (yet) of which i am aware to regard the
brain other than digitally....
we move through space....i will presume we don't do that by
(discrete) digital jumps.....
until i have a better notion of your internal semantics it is difficult
to discern where your difficulties lie....
are is part of the verb 'to be'....the verb 'to be' is fraught in common
usage....
'maybe' gives you room to probe.....it is less inclined to be read
(clumsily) as an 'authoritarian' claim, than are sentences including
the verb 'to be'....
>Actually, what do you mean by that whole sentence? Or is it pointless
>asking?
i have no idea...depends on how much you can learn or follow....
Anubis
wrote:
>the only sane one among them was turing....and he killed himself.....
Turing did not commit suicide. He was fosterized.
>there is a good reason for these people losing their marbles as far as i
> am concerned....the whole aristotelian system is fundamentally
> flawed....
You indeed do love mysticism. It's kinda fun to read, sorta like the
Gabriel Garcia Marquez' version of philosophy.
The main problem is that it cannot compete with Aristotilean logic in
terms of accomplishments. How many mystics have won the Nobel Prize in
Physics?
Anubis
wrote:
>we move through space....i will presume we don't do that by
> (discrete) digital jumps.....
What scientific evidence do you have to support that claim?
Anubis
wrote:
>i claim they are individuals(technical meaning) in individual heads....
>i claim universals only exist as individuals in individual (people's)
> heads....
The perfect circle is one such universal. And indeed it is the result
of subjective brain activity. There are no such things as perfect
circles in the objective world.
So how can such entities be involved in landing a man on the Moon? Put
another way, knowledge of the perfect circle and all that is implied
by such knowledge is critical to landing a man on the Moon. Without
such knowledge, landing a man on the Moon would have been a random
event.
How is it that the subjective world, whose objects are not part of the
objective world, are critical to certain events in the objective
world? Eugene Wigner asked this question many decades ago and no one
has provided a satisfactory answer.
>people calculate quantum sums(equations)...the methods used are
> digital....of do you wish to argue otherwise?
Schrodinger's Equation is a differential equation, not a digital
equation.
I am afraid you have wandered into the weeds from lack of experience
in science.
Anubis
>> >> >However you dress it up, you still talk bollocks.
>> >> That's because you are too dull to understand it.
>> >That must be it. Or perhaps I'm bright enough to see it for what it is.
>> >Who can say?
>> I can. You are too dull to understand it.
>Indeed.
>Anyone who takes the name of an Egyptian God must see himself as something
>special.
>Whereas someone as dull as me just sees you as a pretentious twat.
<yawn>
Anubis
>> Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
>> extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
>> would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
>Wot like you ?
Yes, like me.
Anubis
The only book more boring than One Hundred Days is Famous Jewish
Athletes.
[You can score points if you can tell us where that came from].
Roy Jose Lorr
Francis Turton wrote:
It is in our nature to self destruct.
--
The last stage of
utopian sentimentalism
is homicidal mania.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>Schrodinger's Equation is a differential equation, not a digital
>equation.
How would you characterise the difference?
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>we know by metalogic...ie by looking down on the system that
>>> has thrown up the problem....
>>>when we correct for that problem by godel reasoning we can then
>>> generate another analogous problem in the new correctied/improved/
>>> extended system...etc.....
>>>
>>>what do you mean by 'not axiomatic'?
>>
>>That there is not a single, consistent underlying set of rules through
>>which all humans (any humans?) make decisions and create logical
>>systems.
>
>ok a bit..godel does not claim 'wrong'...he claims an either/or
> (in)consistent or (in)complete....
Indeed
>q. where do you propose these 'systems' exist in the real world?
>i claim they are individuals(technical meaning) in individual heads....
>i claim universals only exist as individuals in individual (people's)
> heads....
>
>clear?
Yes. The real world equivalents are the expectations hard-wired into
people's heads at birth and during the first few years. For example,
the law of the excluded middle is one pretty much everyone starts
with, some few abandon.
>>>do you claim the brain is not digital?
>>
>>No, I make no claims about digital nature or otherwise. Though I
>>believe it is not binary digital - some signals are stronger than
>>others
>
>fine by me....but as far as i know those degrees are also digital....
At some point of regression, everything is 'digital' according to QM.
There is for example, a size that is the smallest size possible.
>you might wish to suggest 'chaotic' in a math sense....as perhaps
> a 'better' approach than 'quantum'.....
>or you may prefer 'so complex we don't have a hope of coping
> with it yet'....
Both :)
>>>do you claim we don't calculate the quantum sausage machine
>>> outside digital means?
>>
>>Don't understand the question
>
>people calculate quantum sums(equations)...the methods used are
> digital....of do you wish to argue otherwise?
No, that's fine.
>(there are two possible levels to this...internal processing...and
> computer or paper calculations
Agreed. THe first I don't think we can say anything about. The second
is digital
Francis Turton
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:54:09 +0000, Francis Turton
> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org> wrote:
>
>
>>I don't think you can talk of Marquez being 'right' or 'wrong', given
>>that he's a writer of fiction. 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' I see as
>>a (pessimistic) perspective on the human condition, but no more right or
>>wrong than any other perspective - just more beguiling than many :)
>
>
> The only book more boring than One Hundred Days is Famous Jewish
> Athletes.
>
> [You can score points if you can tell us where that came from].
>
Don't flatter yourself that I give a s***.
Is there anybody in MENSA who isn't a deluded, pretentious bore?
Francis Turton
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:58:55 +0000, Francis Turton
> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
>
> typed:
>
>
>>abelard wrote:
>>
>>
>>>just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
>>> our food by iteration and approximation....
>
>
>>What do you mean by 'are/maybe (sic) digital'?
>
>
> there is no strong reason (yet) of which i am aware to regard the
> brain other than digitally....
>
That doesn't answer my question. I know of no strong reason to regard
the brain *as* digital (I'm making a leap of faith by assuming you mean
the brain processes 'on' and 'off' signals like a computer - assuming,
liberally, that you mean anything at all).
> we move through space....i will presume we don't do that by
> (discrete) digital jumps.....
>
> until i have a better notion of your internal semantics it is difficult
> to discern where your difficulties lie....
>
> are is part of the verb 'to be'....the verb 'to be' is fraught in common
> usage....
> 'maybe' gives you room to probe.....it is less inclined to be read
> (clumsily) as an 'authoritarian' claim, than are sentences including
> the verb 'to be'....
>
>
>>Actually, what do you mean by that whole sentence? Or is it pointless
>>asking?
>
>
> i have no idea...depends on how much you can learn or follow....
>
Oh, never mind.
BigCheese
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:55:53 -0000, "BigCheese" <n...@here.com> wrote:
>
> >> Both Physics and Metaphysics inform us that indeed such considerations
> >> extend to questions about "life, the universe and everything". But you
> >> would have to be skilled in those subjects to understand it.
>
> >Wot like you ?
>
> Yes, like me.
>
<yawn>
Roy Jose Lorr
Francis Turton wrote:
> abelard wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:36:39 +0000, Francis Turton
> > <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
> >
> > typed:
> >
> >
> >>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
> >>like about Dawkins :)
> >
> >
> > why?...that is, why do you have a problem with 'memes'?
> >
>
> As I said, I haven't read his books, but his arguments sound a bit flash
> and meretricious to me. I'm always inclined to be sceptical about
> writers with a penchant for neologisms - they can often be a way of
> creating the illusion that something new and exciting is being proposed,
> when it isn't.
They can also be manifestations of a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia.
The inmates truly do run the asylum.
>
>
> >
> >>I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
> >>behaviour of genes
> >
> >
> > perhaps you can manage a cite for that claim....
> >
>
> No, sorry. It may be a misinterpretation in which case I apologise both
> to Mr. Dawkins and to yourself.
>
> I have read and watched interviews with Dawkins and been unimpressed
> with his arguments (e.g. that I mentioned from his conversation with Sue
> Lawley - or perhaps it was Anthony Clare now I think about it). I have
> assumed that these are summaries of the ideas he expresses in his books,
> and therefore have not bothered reading his books.
>
> Some might disagree but I think it is often possible to tell how a
> writer's mind works, and therefore whether they are worth reading, from
> the way they express themselves in interviews.
>
> >
> >>and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
> >>what I can gather).
> >
> >
> > not a reasonable analogy....
> > 'paradigm' would be expected to be a superset of 'meme'....
> > and meme maybe a superset of 'bit'...
>
> Please yourself, though I've no idea what you're on about...
>
> --- www.dogsticks.org ---
--
abelard
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
typed:
>abelard wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:36:39 +0000, Francis Turton
>> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
>>
>> typed:
>>
>>
>>>Actually, I forgot to mention memes - they're the third thing I don't
>>>like about Dawkins :)
>>
>>
>> why?...that is, why do you have a problem with 'memes'?
>>
>
>As I said, I haven't read his books, but his arguments sound a bit flash
>and meretricious to me. I'm always inclined to be sceptical about
>writers with a penchant for neologisms - they can often be a way of
>creating the illusion that something new and exciting is being proposed,
>when it isn't.
here is his own stt...
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
>>>I understand Dawkins claims a literal correspondence between the
>>>behaviour of genes
>>
>>
>> perhaps you can manage a cite for that claim....
>>
>
>No, sorry. It may be a misinterpretation in which case I apologise both
>to Mr. Dawkins and to yourself.
not a problem to me...
>I have read and watched interviews with Dawkins and been unimpressed
>with his arguments (e.g. that I mentioned from his conversation with Sue
>Lawley - or perhaps it was Anthony Clare now I think about it). I have
>assumed that these are summaries of the ideas he expresses in his books,
>and therefore have not bothered reading his books.
get him out of his depth on 'philosophy' and he makes a right wanker
of himself...
he's a useful populariser esp the two books i have already cited...
>Some might disagree but I think it is often possible to tell how a
>writer's mind works, and therefore whether they are worth reading, from
>the way they express themselves in interviews.
like many who step outside their fields he doesn't know what he is
on about...
>>>and that of memes (a buzzword for 'paradigms' from
>>>what I can gather).
>>
>>
>> not a reasonable analogy....
>> 'paradigm' would be expected to be a superset of 'meme'....
>> and meme maybe a superset of 'bit'...
>
>Please yourself, though I've no idea what you're on about...
read the item above and then return to the fray...i'll see if i can help
you...
abelard
typed:
>On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 02:15:45 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>wrote:
>
>>we move through space....i will presume we don't do that by
>> (discrete) digital jumps.....
>
>What scientific evidence do you have to support that claim?
it is a matter of having no useful evidence that we do move by digital
jumps...occam, nothing more...
regards..
abelard
<francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
typed:
>abelard wrote:
>> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:58:55 +0000, Francis Turton
>> <francis...@spamsomeoneelse.dogsticks.org>
>>
>> typed:
>>>abelard wrote:
>>>>just because we are/maybe digital does not stop us picking up
>>>> our food by iteration and approximation....
>>>What do you mean by 'are/maybe (sic) digital'?
>> there is no strong reason (yet) of which i am aware to regard the
>> brain other than digitally....
>That doesn't answer my question. I know of no strong reason to regard
>the brain *as* digital (I'm making a leap of faith by assuming you mean
>the brain processes 'on' and 'off' signals like a computer - assuming,
>liberally, that you mean anything at all).
neurons appear to fire/not fire...
chemistry acts molecule to molecule so they tell me....either 'change'/
reaction occurs or it does not...
the (poor) logic that has got us this far is digital in nature...so it is
imv probable the organism is more ('intellectually') content with
that and more able to process that way....
there is just about no real understanding of the continuous in 'science'
...'space' is therefore effectively avoided when it comes down to 'it'
words 'are' digital means of communication....
you appear to be a digital machine that can move through space...
so is a computer driven robot....
space is one of the major issues not yet grasped much by humans....
they can act within 'it' but can't talk coherently about it.....
now to move up a gear....
the idea of 'separation' is in some senses an illusion founded (at least
somewhat) on that digitisation....
separations are only (first?) in the mind....they serves to make handling
and communicating about the world possible for us small digital
creatures...
axiom:- the separations do not exist in reality
argue that if you wish....
>> we move through space....i will presume we don't do that by
>> (discrete) digital jumps.....
>>
>> until i have a better notion of your internal semantics it is difficult
>> to discern where your difficulties lie....
>>
>> are is part of the verb 'to be'....the verb 'to be' is fraught in common
>> usage....
>> 'maybe' gives you room to probe.....it is less inclined to be read
>> (clumsily) as an 'authoritarian' claim, than are sentences including
>> the verb 'to be'....
>>>Actually, what do you mean by that whole sentence? Or is it pointless
>>>asking?
>> i have no idea...depends on how much you can learn or follow....
>Oh, never mind.
worry not...i don't mind...