Tying up Some Issues for Today

[Vincent Maycock]

Okay, in order to save bandwidth (which from my perspective is how
many times I have Send), here are some things from various posters
that I will address in bullet form:

a) no, Peter, S.O.P. is not an atheist -- I just saw him *back at it
again,* with the nonsense about "now knowing"; it is true that he
leans more towards atheism than you do, but that's already well-known

b) Ray, it is not true that the horse series is the only sequence of
fossil intermediates we have

c) jillery, I don't want to quibble about the definitions of the
words in Dawkins' books, but I will say that there are *four* of us
standing shoulder-to-shoulder, defending the idea that living things
look designed, more so than the Face on Mars, or whatever; the four
are:

1) Richard Dawkins
2) Ray Martinez
3) William Paley
4) Vincent Maycock

Regarding Paley, that guy was pretty confused, since humans *make
watches,* but he was on the right track otherwise.

d) Bob Casanova, in regard to your question of *how* can we know if
something looks designed, objectively, we just ask if it looks like
something a human (or something like a human) makes (or might make).

So living things look designed because all of their parts are arranged
specifically to make the systems in which they're found function
effectively and efficiently -- just like machines made by humans! So
we say they look designed.

d) John, here's your link:
https://books.google.com/books?id=cguNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=neanderthals+proportion+of+derived+alleles&source=bl&ots=hl8_EUfoWF&sig=W9wtVtxSRcSbOIPcBQ4Ikxi2dzU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D87hVMSqO4WMNv3lgoAM&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=neanderthals%20proportion%20of%20derived%20alleles&f=false

Hmmm ... I think you can still see my search terms in there in it,
from when Google found this for me. And then from then on out it was
in my Internet bookmarks.

And, no, it doesn't support passerby's 97%-claim, which is one that I
never supported.

Also, not only are there some things that passerby says that are
correct, amidst his ditziness, I actually *supported an entire
project* of his recently, relating to demonstrating the relationship
of entropy to information.

Regarding your problems with adaptive traits in phylogenies, I'm just
going to say, "Have fun with *that* problem!" until I'm sure your
serious about this stuff.

e) trolidius -- yep, all pretty much true about randomness and
entropy, and this is something I might post on more myself if I get
the chance

f) A Nony E Mouse, the absence of evidence *is sometimes* evidence of
absence, which is precisely why everyone *should be* an atheist, and
also this question doesn't apply to the evolution of the bacterial
flagellum, since we do have evidence demonstrating its evolution

[jillery]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 08:18:46 -0500, Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com>
wrote:

>Okay, in order to save bandwidth (which from my perspective is how
>many times I have Send), here are some things from various posters
>that I will address in bullet form:

I have no problem with your effort to increase your personal
efficiency. And in a similar spirit, I restrict my comments to only
those items you addressed to me.

>c) jillery, I don't want to quibble about the definitions of the
>words in Dawkins' books, but I will say that there are *four* of us
>standing shoulder-to-shoulder, defending the idea that living things
>look designed, more so than the Face on Mars, or whatever; the four
>are:
>
>1) Richard Dawkins
>2) Ray Martinez
>3) William Paley
>4) Vincent Maycock
>
>Regarding Paley, that guy was pretty confused, since humans *make
>watches,* but he was on the right track otherwise.

I accept that you don't want to quibble about definitions. Neither do
I. So it's a good thing neither of us did that.

But you're still asserting the same claim about what other people mean
by design. Unless you're saying that only you can make assertions, I
assume that's an invitation to respond to your assertion.

If your only metric for your list was to agree that life looks
designed, it would have many more names, including all IDists.

But your argument isn't just that life looks designed but also that it
*is* designed. Dawkins himself explicitly says he doesn't agree with
that. So your characterization of quibbling notwithstanding, to
include him in your list on that basis is factually incorrect.

And Ray and Paley go beyond your argument. They claim that the
existence of design necessarily implies a designer. IIUC you don't
agree with that. If so, to put yourself in the same list as them on
that basis is also factually incorrect.

So your list is misleading at least, and inaccurate enough to moot it
as a basis for your assertion.

--
Intelligence is never insulting.

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 09:17:04 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I gave my own views on this issue in the thread "Giving Design its
Due"
Message-ID: <1lfeea575plftjiu2...@4ax.com>

[jillery]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 10:16:22 -0500, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

Actually, these are separate issues. Broger's OP is about the
credibility of the Design Inference. Maycock compares different
people's conclusions from the Design inference:

<f6lbealrevqqfqni9...@4ax.com>

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 08:18:46 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com>:

>Okay, in order to save bandwidth (which from my perspective is how
>many times I have Send), here are some things from various posters
>that I will address in bullet form:
>
>a) no, Peter, S.O.P. is not an atheist -- I just saw him *back at it
>again,* with the nonsense about "now knowing"; it is true that he
>leans more towards atheism than you do, but that's already well-known
>
>b) Ray, it is not true that the horse series is the only sequence of
>fossil intermediates we have
>
>c) jillery, I don't want to quibble about the definitions of the
>words in Dawkins' books, but I will say that there are *four* of us
>standing shoulder-to-shoulder, defending the idea that living things
>look designed, more so than the Face on Mars, or whatever; the four
>are:
>
>1) Richard Dawkins
>2) Ray Martinez
>3) William Paley
>4) Vincent Maycock
>
>Regarding Paley, that guy was pretty confused, since humans *make
>watches,* but he was on the right track otherwise.
>
>d) Bob Casanova, in regard to your question of *how* can we know if
>something looks designed, objectively, we just ask if it looks like
>something a human (or something like a human) makes (or might make).

Thanks, but I never asked whether something can look
designed, since it's obvious it can, as I've noted
repeatedly. What I *have* asked, also repeatedly, is how we
can distinguish *objectively and unambiguously* whether
something is designed, or looks designed but isn't.
("designed" implying a conscious designer). So far, no
takers.

>So living things look designed because all of their parts are arranged
>specifically to make the systems in which they're found function
>effectively and efficiently -- just like machines made by humans! So
>we say they look designed.

Thanks again for explaining something I never contested. I
hope your other "tying ups" were more accurate.

>d) John, here's your link:
>https://books.google.com/books?id=cguNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=neanderthals+proportion+of+derived+alleles&source=bl&ots=hl8_EUfoWF&sig=W9wtVtxSRcSbOIPcBQ4Ikxi2dzU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D87hVMSqO4WMNv3lgoAM&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=neanderthals%20proportion%20of%20derived%20alleles&f=false
>
>Hmmm ... I think you can still see my search terms in there in it,
>from when Google found this for me. And then from then on out it was
>in my Internet bookmarks.
>
>And, no, it doesn't support passerby's 97%-claim, which is one that I
>never supported.
>
>Also, not only are there some things that passerby says that are
>correct, amidst his ditziness, I actually *supported an entire
>project* of his recently, relating to demonstrating the relationship
>of entropy to information.
>
>Regarding your problems with adaptive traits in phylogenies, I'm just
>going to say, "Have fun with *that* problem!" until I'm sure your
>serious about this stuff.
>
>e) trolidius -- yep, all pretty much true about randomness and
>entropy, and this is something I might post on more myself if I get
>the chance
>
>f) A Nony E Mouse, the absence of evidence *is sometimes* evidence of
>absence, which is precisely why everyone *should be* an atheist, and
>also this question doesn't apply to the evolution of the bacterial
>flagellum, since we do have evidence demonstrating its evolution
>
>
>

--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Vincent Maycock]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 10:54:48 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

True enough. You were asking some *other question* that you shouldn't
have been.

Well, to prevent any further such mishaps by you, I'll tell you the
answer to it:

a) if something was designed, we should see evidence for the designer,
independent of what the designer is said to have designed, because
that's how designers behave -- they leave footprints in the snow; it's
one of their general, abstract properties

So the absence of a designer's footprints can help you say, "Hey, this
isn't *real* design! It's just pseudo-design, because no designer
erases all of his tracks like an Indian warrior in the forest! They're
not that secretive!"

b) if something was designed, we should know *something about the
designer,* other than that he just ... designed things. You should be
able to sketch out his motivations, methods, and personality -- if you
can't, your designer hypothesis is probably just an ad hoc fantasy
world of speculation, and "looks designed but isn't" is the better
explanation

c) if something was designed, it shouldn't look as if it came about by
some other process (e.g., common descent with natural selection);

Assuming that hypothetical designers are "not deceptive" is just
another way of being a sane person who, for example, is willing to
conclude that he's not a brain in a vat or a butterfly dreaming he's a
man -- the first principle of getting along in a rational world is the
assumption that, all other things being equal, the world is what it
seems to be.

But all of these things should hang together as a group.

If they don't, you can't conclude anything other than that you've
encountered a logical inconsistency and don't know what the hell is
going on in the world around you.

But if it turns out that you find yourself to be *one confused
motherfucker* in that sense, you probably shouldn't be doing science
in the first place.

Try something a little less complex.

[Vincent Maycock]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 09:17:04 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

It is?

That's my argument?

******************************************************
For the Idiot Gallery: that means, no, it isn't; where the hell did
you get that idea?
***************************************************

> designed.

LOL.

Jillery, did two concepts, like, glob together in your brain yesterday
like pieces of molasses sticking together?

Why don't you untangle the two concepts before the molasses in your
brain entangles with your hair and then maybe I'll talk to you about
your concerns here.

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 09:36:24 -0500, Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com>

>>*is* designed.

>
>It is?
>
>That's my argument?
>
>******************************************************
>For the Idiot Gallery: that means, no, it isn't; where the hell did
>you get that idea?
>***************************************************
>

>LOL.
>
>Jillery, did two concepts, like, glob together in your brain yesterday
>like pieces of molasses sticking together?
>
>Why don't you untangle the two concepts before the molasses in your
>brain entangles with your hair and then maybe I'll talk to you about
>your concerns here.

You're correct. The distinction you made was between the appearance
and reality of design:

<f6lbealrevqqfqni9...@4ax.com>

**********************************************
It's not just "randomness filtered through the human tendency to see
designs" that makes us think living things look designed.

They definitely look designed on their own, i.e, objectively -- and
that means it's something that demands an explanation.
***********************************************

To express my actual argument, I should have written:

"But your argument isn't just that life looks like design but also
that it *is* design."

The difference is in using "design" as a noun instead of a verb, which
is an important distinction.

The remainder of my comments stand as is.

I apologize for my error. Thank you for taking the time to point it
out.

>> Dawkins himself explicitly says he doesn't agree with
>>that. So your characterization of quibbling notwithstanding, to
>>include him in your list on that basis is factually incorrect.
>>
>>And Ray and Paley go beyond your argument. They claim that the
>>existence of design necessarily implies a designer. IIUC you don't
>>agree with that. If so, to put yourself in the same list as them on
>>that basis is also factually incorrect.
>>
>>So your list is misleading at least, and inaccurate enough to moot it
>>as a basis for your assertion.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 09:01:42 -0500, the following appeared

Thanks for the advice, but you seem to have missed the
"unambiguous" part of my request. Yes, knowing something
about the purported designer would be a nice-to-have, but
it's not a requirement. The designer may be so competent as
to not leave any footprints; anthropomorphizing a purported
designer about whom we have *no* information is a mistake.
You also make it a requirement that the purported designer
not be deceptive; another nice-to-have but certainly not
something we can assume, especially as a test for design.
Yes, we should and do assume that *nature* is not deceptive,
but we're not talking about nature, we're talking about a
purported intelligent designer, and if you truly believe
that such a designer can be assumed to be open and honest I
have some beachfront property in Florida which might
interest you.

And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
definition of design which would satisfy my criteria. But
then, I don't have to, since I'm not claiming it exists in
nature.

And you might want to get off your high horse; you accused
me of something and I noted that accusation was incorrect;
deal with it.

[William Morse]

I agree with essentially all you have said. I am also an engineer, and
to me it doesn't appear that Vincent has ever "designed" anything, but
perhaps I am wrong. My only caveat is that I would accept "common
descent with natural selection" as a design process. The only thing
which intelligence (another thing which I can't provide a good
definition for) adds to the process is (hopefully) rejecting some
changes as obviously deleterious without having to give them further
consideration.

[Vincent Maycock]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 11:00:03 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>

No, you have to anthropomorphize the designer, because the only
designers we know about are humans.

Take out all of the human-like aspects from a designer and you have
*nothing at all* -- a non-concept.

Now, probably you *do* want to do battle against a "non-concept,"
because a lot of talk.origins regulars say it all the time -- "Design
too nebulous -- Design an undefined concept -- Design can't be
scientific because we can't test a non-concept against the data" is
their mantra.

But if you want to claim the ID proponents are wielding a non-concept
against you in what would presumably be a tactic of ninja-like
shrewdness associated with maintaining the validity of their religion
in the eyes of the public, that's *your choice* to live in a fantasy
world where the ID proponents have this property, rather than the real
world, where they're just a bunch of simpletons with a solidly defined
concept of "Design" that's grotesquely incompatible with the data,
meaning that they're sitting ducks for the evolutionists to shoot
down.

>about whom we have *no* information is a mistake.
>You also make it a requirement that the purported designer
>not be deceptive; another nice-to-have but certainly not
>something we can assume, especially as a test for design.
>Yes, we should and do assume that *nature* is not deceptive,

The *correct definition of nature* is "everything there is." Whether
there's a Designer (with magical powers of an omnipotent sort or not)
in nature or not doesn't affect this.

So assuming that there is no Evil Designer up there tricking our
brains into thinking this, that, or the other, is just a part of being
a sane human being.

>but we're not talking about nature, we're talking about a
>purported intelligent designer, and if you truly believe
>that such a designer can be assumed to be open and honest I
>have some beachfront property in Florida which might
>interest you.

The fact that there are some dishonest people doesn't imply that we
should assume without evidence that other people are dishonest.

Going around wondering if a Designer "might be dishonest and willing
to deceive us" is no different from wondering if your wife "might be
dishonest and secretly planning to conspire with the CIA to run a
prostitution ring against you."

If you want to accuse someone of being dishonest, you should have
evidence for it, and some motivation for them to do it.

Neither of these conditions is met in any sane idea about a Designer
(and part of being a responsible debater is giving your opponent
credit that he's sane, even if it does imply horrible *incompetence*
on his part, which is a different matter).

>And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
>dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
>definition of design which would satisfy my criteria.

I'm not going to comment on the "abstract thinking" capabilities of
engineers vs. scientists.

But you say you need help defining what you've done all your life.
Here you go:

Something is designed if all of its parts are arranged specifically so
that some function is achieved.

For example, if you're designing a car engine, the pistons have to be
connected to the crankshaft; you can't arrange them any old way you
like.

You have to put them specifically in the exact right place relative to
the crankshaft or the crankshaft won't turn --

not on the axis of the crankshaft; not lying next to it; not loosely
attached to it --

but firmly attached, perpendicular to the crankshaft when the gasoline
ignition force is greatest, so that when the pistons push down at that
time, they'll exert a good torque on the crankshaft so that it turns.

And not to the side of the crankshaft, either -- the pistons have to
come down vertically, so that they connect with it and don't pump
uselessly up-and-down on either side of it.

So that's a situation where you have to *specifically arrange things*
so that functionality will result.

So, in the case of a car engine, a designer sat down and said, "Well,
I want these pistons to turn this crankshaft."

Then, after he *thought these thoughts* (we have to make sure you
don't have problems with the "ambiguity associated with design"), or
"said these things to himself outloud," or "wrote them down on a piece
of paper," he moved his hands around and put the pistons into the
correct places (where "correct" means "the places that will make the
pistons turn the crankshaft" -- for example, *not* connected to the
radiator hose, because it can't go there if you want the car to
function).

At one point in the design process, the designer of the engine may
have noticed a piston was pointing at an oblique angle at the time of
maximum gasoline ignition force. Then he thought with his thoughts
and said with his mouth, "Hmmm...you know, if that piston hits the
crankshaft at that time at an angle other than 90 degrees at mid-turn
in this sense, it won't turn it correctly -- the torque won't be
right."

So then he *decides,* using the properties of the human mind (which
allows us to have this decision-making ability) to move his hand and
put the piston at a 90-degree-angle relative to the crankshaft at that
point in its ignition cycle.

Then the piston falls over.

That's something that could happen to a piston, if the car engine
designer wasn't there to put it back up.

So the engine designer says, "Well, it's fallen over. If I weren't
here, a piston in that position would never turn a crankshaft -- but
since I'm here, and I'm motivated to make that crankshaft turn so that
the axle will turn so that that the wheels will turn so that the car
will run because I want travel at high speeds because I'm a designer
and designers have motivations and those are my motivations -- I'll
put the piston back up again."

And so the engineer designer lifts the piston up in space and
*chooses,* using his ability to choose, as a conscious and intelligent
designer, to put the piston at a 90-degree angle relative to the
crankshaft.

That is, he thinks in his brain:

"I won't put the crankshaft at 33 degrees -- that won't work!

I won't put the piston at 42 degrees -- that wont work!"

I won't put the piston at 2 degrees -- that sure as hell won't work,
because I want that piston pushing *down* on the crankshaft when the
gas ignites, not to the side.

I won't put the piston at 27 degrees -- that won't work!

I won't put the piston at 75 degrees -- that won't work!"

(where "what works" is defined as "what maximizes the torque of the
piston on the crankshaft when the piston fires)

So out of *all the options* for the angle the piston could go at
relative to the crankshaft, the engine designer *selects* using his
intelligent power to choose (since "the capacity to choose" is a
property of designers), the angle 90 degrees, because, as I say, it
maximizes the amount of thrust and torque that piston is going to
deliver to the crankshaft.

So the design process involves *thinking about all the ways in which
something could happen* and selecting the *one way* (or narrow range
of ways) in which that something will cause what you *want to cause*
(notice that "wanting to cause something" is a property of designers,
so it's a part of the design process).

But I don't what your deal is with "ambiguous," so let's get extremely
explicit about the definition of design.

Unambiguously, something is designed if it results from a situation
where

a) someone wants something to happen -- where "want" is related to
some basic psychological drive (remember, we have to anthropomorphize,
since human designers are all we know of); some examples of "desires"
that lead to design are

1) someone likes orderliness, so he creates an orderly array of
objects (since "love of orderliness" is a known property of human
designers, and therefore of any designer worth conceiving)

2) someone wants to go fast (as we saw in the example of the car
engine designer)

3) someone wants to murder someone (since designers are known to have
aggressive urges) -- this might result in the a designer designing a
gun

4) someone wants to make a pretty sculpture or painting -- we've seen
humans doing this, so it seems logical that a non-human designer might
also have such motivations

5) someone wants something else to survive -- for example, a human
will create and care for a pet or a work animal for reasons of empathy
or because they want to use the work animal to assist them in some
*other* thing they want

-- those are all reasonable motivations for a designer

An *unreasonable* motivation for a designer is "they want to fool us
into thinking they didn't design what they designed"; that sort of
designer is simply a form of paranoia no different from postulating
that there might be a *non* designed "law of physics" that's hiding
the evidence that Elvis and Bigfoot live in your bedroom closest

and then given letter a), we also have the condition

b) someone selects from a range of choices (that could be otherwise
-- i.e., take on values other than the one selected specifically by
the designer) ) so that their desire, want, or goal, or however you
want to put it, will be satisfied or achieved, by the use of conscious
thought, foresight, and planning

So how does natural selection mimic the design process?

Well, it has the properties of one of the motivations that designers
are known to have, namely, "ensuring the survival of an organism."

And it also mimics part b) of the design process as well, by selecting
from a range of options that could easily be different (foiling the
goal in part a) -- except that instead of using foresight and planning

*******************************************************
William Morse alert -- which are aspects of "intelligence";

now, I had to explain what "design" was to Bob because he doesn't know
what the fuck he's been doing all of his life, but William, if I have
to explain to you what "intelligence" is, we're going to have a lot
more questions about what you've been doing all your life, than we
have about Bob, regarding how much time he spent surfing the Net and
watching TV while he was an engineer

********************************************************

to select from these options natural selection uses differential
reproductive success to make these selections.

For example, if natural selection were designing the car engine, it
wouldn't sit down and think with its brain (an aspect of intelligence,
again) or talk with its mouth and say,

"I think, using a property of intelligence, that the piston at this
point in the cycle should go at 90 degrees, and not 23, 43,22, 11, 54,
34, 77, 44, or 12 degrees,"

instead, there would be car engines "born" with their pistons at a
23-degree angle at the most important part of the gasoline ignition
cycle, that wouldn't survive as well as the ones with pistons at a 77
degree angle, so after awhile 77-degree angle pistons would dominate
in the population. And then one day a mutation would appear in the
car population that put the piston at 90-degree angle, and those cars
would outreproduce all the others, with their efficient downstroke
motions, if there were selection pressure for speed --

i.e., differential reproductive success.

So why do scientists prefer natural selection as an explanation for
the "appearance of design" over an actual real designer?

Well, they find it suspicious that, out of the many motivations that a
designer could have, we would have to theorize that he has *the exact
same one* that is natural selection metaphorically has.

That is, NS can *only* produce the "apparent motivation" of "will to
survive," so we think it's odd that a designer would have just
happened to stumble on the lone apparent motivation that NS is
associated with.

We also prefer natural selection because we have abundant evidence for
the process of natural selection in nature (independent of "the
appearance of design" -- this is an important part of solving
scientific puzzles: you can't invoke the thing you're trying to
explain as evidence for your explanation of the existence of the thing
you're trying to explain; that would be circular reasoning -- so you
want *independent evidence* for any idea that you think up as an
explanation).

Furthermore, we prefer natural selection because of its association
with common ancestry, which we have an enormous amount of evidence for
-- unlike designers, which are not associated with common ancestry.

And lastly, I'll add that "preferring" natural selection over a
designer is putting it mildly.

In reality, it's simply a scientific fact that living things"look
designed because they evolved from common ancestors through natural
selection and other evolutionary processes.

Since it's been documented paleontologically and with phylogenetic
analysis, it's as factual as the statement that the earth goes
around the sun, which has been documented by astronomical scientific
evidence.

So we don't have to bother with "design theory" any more than we have
to bother with "Angels pushing the planets Theory," because the
scientific facts are equally decisive in both cases:

There are no angels pushing the planets, and there was no Designer who
created life's diversity.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 22:12:52 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by William Morse
<wdNOSP...@verizon.net>:

As would I; a design process doesn't necessarily imply
intelligence, but I was only referring to the "design"
claimed by the ID crowd.

> The only thing
>which intelligence (another thing which I can't provide a good
>definition for) adds to the process is (hopefully) rejecting some
>changes as obviously deleterious without having to give them further
>consideration.

Agreed, although I've seen quite a few designs which failed
that test due to lack of early review and intervention.
Hell, I even produced a couple myself, especially early on
before I accumulated sufficient experience. ;-)

>> And you might want to get off your high horse; you accused
>> me of something and I noted that accusation was incorrect;
>> deal with it.
>>

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 08:17:14 -0500, the following appeared

So it's inconceivable to you that an intelligent designer
could be other than human; IOW that humans are *by
definition* the only possible designers?

OK, that means I'm through. HAND.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <rm2hea1kkq60gt71d...@4ax.com>,

Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com> wrote:

> Assuming that hypothetical designers are "not deceptive" is just
> another way of being a sane person who, for example, is willing to
> conclude that he's not a brain in a vat or a butterfly dreaming he's a
> man -- the first principle of getting along in a rational world is the
> assumption that, all other things being equal, the world is what it
> seems to be.

But that leads to the idea the world is very much unlike what it seems
to be. The Earth is not flat, the Sun does not move, the Earth goes
(roughly) around the Sun, what we risibly think of as normal matter is
mainly empty space and a minority of matter, time passes at different
rates in different locations etcetera. And that's just physics.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[John Harshman]

He said "all other things being equal". Other things aren't equal. Or,
to put it another way, the world doesn't seem flat if you notice things
like ships disappearing around its curve, or that it's a different time
than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore, or that the angle
of the sun at noon in Portland is different from the angle at the same
time in San Diego.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <msgheahf4lbiq8jjg...@4ax.com>,

Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:

> And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
> dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
> definition of design which would satisfy my criteria. But
> then, I don't have to, since I'm not claiming it exists in
> nature.

Bob are you familiar with the Engineers from _The Mote in God's Eye_?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye>

A different type of designer.

[Burkhard]

Ahh, I see where the problem here is: shitty watch! Does this connect
to Paley somehow? (though his def. wasn't digital and auto-adjusting to
time zone)

[John Harshman]

If your watch self-adjusts, at the very least you can notice when it
changes time and time zone. That should be good enough.

[William Morse]

OK, problem #1 with your argument - evolution is a designer (read
Dennett). Now I don't want to put words in your mouth, but perhaps what
you meant to say is that the only "intelligent" designers we know about
are humans. That is also false - look at beavers.

> Take out all of the human-like aspects from a designer and you have
> *nothing at all* -- a non-concept.
>
> Now, probably you *do* want to do battle against a "non-concept,"
> because a lot of talk.origins regulars say it all the time -- "Design
> too nebulous -- Design an undefined concept -- Design can't be
> scientific because we can't test a non-concept against the data" is
> their mantra.
>
> But if you want to claim the ID proponents are wielding a non-concept
> against you in what would presumably be a tactic of ninja-like
> shrewdness associated with maintaining the validity of their religion
> in the eyes of the public, that's *your choice* to live in a fantasy
> world where the ID proponents have this property, rather than the real
> world, where they're just a bunch of simpletons with a solidly defined
> concept of "Design" that's grotesquely incompatible with the data,
> meaning that they're sitting ducks for the evolutionists to shoot
> down.

Bob and I both think "design" is a fuzzy concept, but I agree that it is
reasonable to talk about things as being designed.

>> about whom we have *no* information is a mistake.
>> You also make it a requirement that the purported designer
>> not be deceptive; another nice-to-have but certainly not
>> something we can assume, especially as a test for design.
>> Yes, we should and do assume that *nature* is not deceptive,
>
> The *correct definition of nature* is "everything there is." Whether
> there's a Designer (with magical powers of an omnipotent sort or not)
> in nature or not doesn't affect this.
>
> So assuming that there is no Evil Designer up there tricking our
> brains into thinking this, that, or the other, is just a part of being
> a sane human being.

I have to disagree. There are a lot of people who I think you and I
would classify as being sane who believe in Satan,

>> but we're not talking about nature, we're talking about a
>> purported intelligent designer, and if you truly believe
>> that such a designer can be assumed to be open and honest I
>> have some beachfront property in Florida which might
>> interest you.
>
> The fact that there are some dishonest people doesn't imply that we
> should assume without evidence that other people are dishonest.

We all know that lots of people are dishonest, especially if their
livelihood depends on it.

> Going around wondering if a Designer "might be dishonest and willing
> to deceive us" is no different from wondering if your wife "might be
> dishonest and secretly planning to conspire with the CIA to run a
> prostitution ring against you."
>
> If you want to accuse someone of being dishonest, you should have
> evidence for it, and some motivation for them to do it.

I think Bob's point was simply that your assumption of an honest
designer was just an assumption, and could well be wrong.

> Neither of these conditions is met in any sane idea about a Designer
> (and part of being a responsible debater is giving your opponent
> credit that he's sane, even if it does imply horrible *incompetence*
> on his part, which is a different matter).
>
>> And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
>> dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
>> definition of design which would satisfy my criteria.
>
> I'm not going to comment on the "abstract thinking" capabilities of
> engineers vs. scientists.

> But you say you need help defining what you've done all your life.
> Here you go:

I am going to comment about your belief that you can teach your
grandmother to suck eggs. Wrong!

No Freaking Clue. When you get one, please post again. Until you get
one, please don't insult my "intelligence" by thinking you actually know
what the design process entails.
Now having said that, I do have to say I appreciate the detail you
provide in your posts. I am generally unwilling to explain my arguments
in that detail, which often results in followers misunderstanding my
arguments.

> But I don't what your deal is with "ambiguous," so let's get extremely
> explicit about the definition of design.
>
> Unambiguously, something is designed if it results from a situation
> where
>
> a) someone wants something to happen -- where "want" is related to
> some basic psychological drive (remember, we have to anthropomorphize,
> since human designers are all we know of); some examples of "desires"
> that lead to design are
>
> 1) someone likes orderliness, so he creates an orderly array of
> objects (since "love of orderliness" is a known property of human
> designers, and therefore of any designer worth conceiving)
>
> 2) someone wants to go fast (as we saw in the example of the car
> engine designer)
>
> 3) someone wants to murder someone (since designers are known to have
> aggressive urges) -- this might result in the a designer designing a
> gun
>
> 4) someone wants to make a pretty sculpture or painting -- we've seen
> humans doing this, so it seems logical that a non-human designer might
> also have such motivations
>
> 5) someone wants something else to survive -- for example, a human
> will create and care for a pet or a work animal for reasons of empathy
> or because they want to use the work animal to assist them in some
> *other* thing they want
>
> -- those are all reasonable motivations for a designer

You seem to be overthinking this. A designer wants to solve a problem.

> An *unreasonable* motivation for a designer is "they want to fool us
> into thinking they didn't design what they designed"; that sort of
> designer is simply a form of paranoia no different from postulating
> that there might be a *non* designed "law of physics" that's hiding
> the evidence that Elvis and Bigfoot live in your bedroom closest
>
> and then given letter a), we also have the condition
>
> b) someone selects from a range of choices (that could be otherwise
> -- i.e., take on values other than the one selected specifically by
> the designer) ) so that their desire, want, or goal, or however you
> want to put it, will be satisfied or achieved, by the use of conscious
> thought, foresight, and planning
>
> So how does natural selection mimic the design process?

Natural selection doesn't "mimic" the design process. Natural selection
is a design process.

Yes.

> Since it's been documented paleontologically and with phylogenetic
> analysis, it's as factual as the statement that the earth goes
> around the sun, which has been documented by astronomical scientific
> evidence.
>
> So we don't have to bother with "design theory" any more than we have
> to bother with "Angels pushing the planets Theory," because the
> scientific facts are equally decisive in both cases:
>
> There are no angels pushing the planets, and there was no Designer who
> created life's diversity.

As an agnostic, I don't think you can conclude that. I think you can
conclude that a Designer is not required to explain the observed
diversity of life on earth.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
news:nImdnYJAyJvR6nfJ...@giganews.com:

> On 2/22/15, 4:31 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
>> In article <rm2hea1kkq60gt71d...@4ax.com>,
>> Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Assuming that hypothetical designers are "not deceptive" is just
>>> another way of being a sane person who, for example, is willing to
>>> conclude that he's not a brain in a vat or a butterfly dreaming he's
>>> a man -- the first principle of getting along in a rational world is
>>> the assumption that, all other things being equal, the world is what
>>> it seems to be.
>>
>> But that leads to the idea the world is very much unlike what it
>> seems to be. The Earth is not flat, the Sun does not move, the Earth
>> goes (roughly) around the Sun, what we risibly think of as normal
>> matter is mainly empty space and a minority of matter, time passes at
>> different rates in different locations etcetera. And that's just
>> physics.
>>
> He said "all other things being equal". Other things aren't equal.

That makes a hash of his assertion that it would be sane to assume that
hypothetical designers are 'not deceptive', doesn't it?

> Or, to put it another way, the world doesn't seem flat if you notice
> things like ships disappearing around its curve, or that it's a
> different time than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore,
> or that the angle of the sun at noon in Portland is different from the
> angle at the same time in San Diego.

If 'all other being equal, the world is what it seems to be' is the
first principle of getting along, then 'all other things are rarely, if
ever, equal' must be the second. I don't think it would have taken our
rational ancestors very long to notice that there seems to be no water
in the sky, but sometimes water falls out of the sky anyway.

The reasonable assumption that the world you perceive exists
independently of your perception of it doesn't entail the assumption
that your perception of it is generally accurate. Whether we call them
physical principles or gods, our world and our lives are controlled by
invisible, intangible forces that behave quite unreasonably from a human
perspective.

One need not suppose that a hypothetical designer was deliberately
deceptive, but it would be irrational to imagine that he went out of his
way to be honest.
--
S.O.P.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 19:41:37 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>:

>In article <msgheahf4lbiq8jjg...@4ax.com>,
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:

>> And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
>> dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
>> definition of design which would satisfy my criteria. But
>> then, I don't have to, since I'm not claiming it exists in
>> nature.

>Bob are you familiar with the Engineers from _The Mote in God's Eye_?

Of course.

><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye>
>
>A different type of designer.

Yeah. And nearly non-sapient in any meaningful way, although
in a certain sense clever.

IMHO the only varieties of Motie having true sapience were
the Whites and the Mediators; it's a certainty that the
Watchmakers and Warriors weren't sapient as we understand
the term.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 22 Feb 2015 17:22:54 -0800, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net>:

Even if you sleep through the trip?

[Nick Roberts]

In message <proto-CC83B0....@news.panix.com>

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:

> In article <msgheahf4lbiq8jjg...@4ax.com>,
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>
> > And FWIW, I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired engineer. I
> > dealt with design all my career, and *I* can't provide a
> > definition of design which would satisfy my criteria. But
> > then, I don't have to, since I'm not claiming it exists in
> > nature.
>
> Bob are you familiar with the Engineers from _The Mote in God's Eye_?
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye>
>
> A different type of designer.

That quite excellent book also raises a quite interesting point about
"design".

Another Motie species, Watchmakers, are absolutely excellent
at making stuff work really, really well. Coffee makers, after
attention from Watchmakers, start making perfect coffee; despite the
fact that Watchmakers have never tasted coffee, and have no idea what
perfect coffee should be like. Similarly, they can mend stuff that has
broken, without ever having seen what the non-broken things should look
like, or what it should do. They just have an instinctive understanding
of how stuff works.

So where would Watchmakers, if such a species were ever found to exist,
leave Intelligent Design theory (and I use the term quite
inappropriately)? Are the changes that Watchmakers make to a coffee
maker intelligently designed? Everyone can agree that the changes did
not evolve - but there was no intelligence involved, and arguably no
design either.

--
Nick Roberts tigger @ orpheusinternet.co.uk

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[John Harshman]

On 2/23/15, 9:13 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
> news:nImdnYJAyJvR6nfJ...@giganews.com:
>
>> On 2/22/15, 4:31 PM, Walter Bushell wrote:
>>> In article <rm2hea1kkq60gt71d...@4ax.com>,
>>> Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Assuming that hypothetical designers are "not deceptive" is just
>>>> another way of being a sane person who, for example, is willing to
>>>> conclude that he's not a brain in a vat or a butterfly dreaming he's
>>>> a man -- the first principle of getting along in a rational world is
>>>> the assumption that, all other things being equal, the world is what
>>>> it seems to be.
>>>
>>> But that leads to the idea the world is very much unlike what it
>>> seems to be. The Earth is not flat, the Sun does not move, the Earth
>>> goes (roughly) around the Sun, what we risibly think of as normal
>>> matter is mainly empty space and a minority of matter, time passes at
>>> different rates in different locations etcetera. And that's just
>>> physics.
>>>
>> He said "all other things being equal". Other things aren't equal.
>
> That makes a hash of his assertion that it would be sane to assume that
> hypothetical designers are 'not deceptive', doesn't it?

No. The equality of things varies with circumstance, most particularly
with the consistency of appearance. It's perfection of the designer's
deception that requires us to ignore that hypothesis, while the flatness
of the earth is refuted by close examination of the appearances.

>> Or, to put it another way, the world doesn't seem flat if you notice
>> things like ships disappearing around its curve, or that it's a
>> different time than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore,
>> or that the angle of the sun at noon in Portland is different from the
>> angle at the same time in San Diego.
>
> If 'all other being equal, the world is what it seems to be' is the
> first principle of getting along, then 'all other things are rarely, if
> ever, equal' must be the second. I don't think it would have taken our
> rational ancestors very long to notice that there seems to be no water
> in the sky, but sometimes water falls out of the sky anyway.
>
> The reasonable assumption that the world you perceive exists
> independently of your perception of it doesn't entail the assumption
> that your perception of it is generally accurate. Whether we call them
> physical principles or gods, our world and our lives are controlled by
> invisible, intangible forces that behave quite unreasonably from a human
> perspective.
>
> One need not suppose that a hypothetical designer was deliberately
> deceptive, but it would be irrational to imagine that he went out of his
> way to be honest.

I can't tell whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, or Walter,
or Vince, or in general what your point is. Many phrases here are opaque
to me, but I will pick "went out of his way to be honest" as the most
confusing.

[John Harshman]

If you can sleep on an airplane, I congratulate you.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:8ZWdneqYzLpq_HbJ...@giganews.com:

Arguing that a designer's deception is perfect is a bit different from
arguing that it would be insane to imagine a deceptive designer.

>>> Or, to put it another way, the world doesn't seem flat if you notice
>>> things like ships disappearing around its curve, or that it's a
>>> different time than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore,
>>> or that the angle of the sun at noon in Portland is different from
>>> the angle at the same time in San Diego.
>>
>> If 'all other being equal, the world is what it seems to be' is the
>> first principle of getting along, then 'all other things are rarely,
>> if ever, equal' must be the second. I don't think it would have taken
>> our rational ancestors very long to notice that there seems to be no
>> water in the sky, but sometimes water falls out of the sky anyway.
>>
>> The reasonable assumption that the world you perceive exists
>> independently of your perception of it doesn't entail the assumption
>> that your perception of it is generally accurate. Whether we call
>> them physical principles or gods, our world and our lives are
>> controlled by invisible, intangible forces that behave quite
>> unreasonably from a human perspective.
>>
>> One need not suppose that a hypothetical designer was deliberately
>> deceptive, but it would be irrational to imagine that he went out of
>> his way to be honest.
>
> I can't tell whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, or
> Walter, or Vince, or in general what your point is.

And I can't tell whether you're complaining, expecting me to make some
attempt at clarification, making observations, or commenting for some
other reason. Please clarify.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

"Imagine" isn't quite the word, is it? Is it sane to believe you're a
brain in a vat?

>>>> Or, to put it another way, the world doesn't seem flat if you notice
>>>> things like ships disappearing around its curve, or that it's a
>>>> different time than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore,
>>>> or that the angle of the sun at noon in Portland is different from
>>>> the angle at the same time in San Diego.
>>>
>>> If 'all other being equal, the world is what it seems to be' is the
>>> first principle of getting along, then 'all other things are rarely,
>>> if ever, equal' must be the second. I don't think it would have taken
>>> our rational ancestors very long to notice that there seems to be no
>>> water in the sky, but sometimes water falls out of the sky anyway.
>>>
>>> The reasonable assumption that the world you perceive exists
>>> independently of your perception of it doesn't entail the assumption
>>> that your perception of it is generally accurate. Whether we call
>>> them physical principles or gods, our world and our lives are
>>> controlled by invisible, intangible forces that behave quite
>>> unreasonably from a human perspective.
>>>
>>> One need not suppose that a hypothetical designer was deliberately
>>> deceptive, but it would be irrational to imagine that he went out of
>>> his way to be honest.
>>
>> I can't tell whether you're agreeing or disagreeing with me, or
>> Walter, or Vince, or in general what your point is.
>
> And I can't tell whether you're complaining, expecting me to make some
> attempt at clarification, making observations, or commenting for some
> other reason. Please clarify.

The first two, mostly.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Vincent Maycock <vam...@aol.com> wrote in
news:d2djea5hhnra18akk...@4ax.com:

> On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 11:00:03 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
> wrote:

[snip]

>>Thanks for the advice, but you seem to have missed the
>>"unambiguous" part of my request. Yes, knowing something
>>about the purported designer would be a nice-to-have, but
>>it's not a requirement. The designer may be so competent as
>>to not leave any footprints; anthropomorphizing a purported
>>designer
>
> No, you have to anthropomorphize the designer, because the only
> designers we know about are humans.

And you have to reject the hypothesis that meteorites are stones that
fall out of the sky, because the only sky we know about has no stones in
it.

> Take out all of the human-like aspects from a designer and you have
> *nothing at all* -- a non-concept.

Birds don't design nests? They randomly assemble sticks, twigs, etc.
into specific patterns with no idea why they're doing it?

> Now, probably you *do* want to do battle against a "non-concept,"
> because a lot of talk.origins regulars say it all the time -- "Design
> too nebulous -- Design an undefined concept -- Design can't be
> scientific because we can't test a non-concept against the data" is
> their mantra.

'Mantra'? Be careful, Vince. You're starting to sound a bit like Ol'
Fruity. Next you'll be accusing us of getting all our ideas from the
blogosphere because we aren't familiar with 'Cambrian Water World'.

> But if you want to claim the ID proponents are wielding a non-concept
> against you in what would presumably be a tactic of ninja-like
> shrewdness associated with maintaining the validity of their religion
> in the eyes of the public, that's *your choice* to live in a fantasy
> world where the ID proponents have this property, rather than the real
> world, where they're just a bunch of simpletons with a solidly defined
> concept of "Design" that's grotesquely incompatible with the data,
> meaning that they're sitting ducks for the evolutionists to shoot
> down.

IDeologues anthropomorphize their 'Intelligent Designer' because
they're creationists talking about God while pretending to not be
creationists talking about God. Are you seriously arguing that anyone
who wants to discuss a hypothetical designer must limit himself to the
sort of designer that cdesign proponentsists would be comfortable
discussing?

>>about whom we have *no* information is a mistake.
>>You also make it a requirement that the purported designer
>>not be deceptive; another nice-to-have but certainly not
>>something we can assume, especially as a test for design.
>>Yes, we should and do assume that *nature* is not deceptive,
>
> The *correct definition of nature* is "everything there is." Whether
> there's a Designer (with magical powers of an omnipotent sort or not)
> in nature or not doesn't affect this.

Oh great, now you're sounding like Hairball. 'Everything there is' is
only one possible definition of nature. But sure, let's roll with it; it
only strengthens the case for deception.

> So assuming that there is no Evil Designer up there tricking our
> brains into thinking this, that, or the other, is just a part of being
> a sane human being.

If it's sane to imagine that 'everything there is' was designed, then
it's sane to imagine that mirages and other atmospheric phenomena that
produce optical illusions were designed. Go ahead, explain what
straightforward purpose an anthropomorphic designer could have had for
designing such phenomena.

>>but we're not talking about nature, we're talking about a
>>purported intelligent designer, and if you truly believe
>>that such a designer can be assumed to be open and honest I
>>have some beachfront property in Florida which might
>>interest you.
>
> The fact that there are some dishonest people doesn't imply that we
> should assume without evidence that other people are dishonest.

Bob isn't assuming anything without evidence. There's abundant evidence
that your hypothetically anthropomorphic designer of everything there is
would have to have been dishonest. You may not want to accept that
evidence, but that's hardly relevant.

> Going around wondering if a Designer "might be dishonest and willing
> to deceive us" is no different from wondering if your wife "might be
> dishonest and secretly planning to conspire with the CIA to run a
> prostitution ring against you."

Or wondering if your wife is planning a surprise party for you. Or
wondering if she meant it when you told her you were going to spend the
weekend on Lake Fuckoff dangling your fish-enticing gear into the water
and she said 'If that's what you want to do, honey, then it's okay.'

People lie to each other in many different ways for many different
reasons. Indeed, it's arguably dishonest to claim that imputing
dishonesty or deceptiveness to a hypothetical designer is the same as
'wondering if your wife "might be dishonest and secretly planning to
conspire with the CIA to run a prostitution ring against you."' Could
anyone be stupid enough to sincerely believe that was a valid
comparison?

> If you want to accuse someone of being dishonest, you should have
> evidence for it, and some motivation for them to do it.

So long as there's evidence, you don't need to speculate about
motivation. And there is indeed evidence. The 'designs' of nature look
exactly like the nondesigns produced by the interaction of nonconscious
forces. A human designer couldn't produce that appearance by accident:
he'd have to do it deliberately, which is *prima facie* evidence of
deception.

According to you, a hypothetical designer of life would have to be like
a human designer; how, then, can you avoid the conclusion that only a
deceptive designer of life could have created the appearance of
evolution by natural selection?

> Neither of these conditions is met in any sane idea about a Designer
> (and part of being a responsible debater is giving your opponent
> credit that he's sane, even if it does imply horrible *incompetence*
> on his part, which is a different matter).

It isn't. If 'any sane idea about a Designer' must forgo the conclusion
that said Designer is or was deceptive, then there can be no sane idea
about a Designer.

[snip]

> Unambiguously, something is designed if it results from a situation
> where
>
> a) someone wants something to happen -- where "want" is related to
> some basic psychological drive (remember, we have to anthropomorphize,
> since human designers are all we know of); some examples of "desires"
> that lead to design are

... irrelevant, since none of them applies to all* designers. The fact
that they apply to *some* designers doesn't imply that we should assume
without evidence that they apply to any other designers. Right?

> -- those are all reasonable motivations for a designer
>
> An *unreasonable* motivation for a designer is "they want to fool us
> into thinking they didn't design what they designed";

You've never seen a trompe l'oeil painting? Or a magic trick?

> that sort of designer is simply a form of paranoia no different from
> postulating that there might be a *non* designed "law of physics"
> that's hiding the evidence that Elvis and Bigfoot live in your bedroom
> closest

My God, you mean magicians REALLY ARE SAWING PEOPLE IN HALF?

> and then given letter a), we also have the condition
>
> b) someone selects from a range of choices (that could be otherwise
> -- i.e., take on values other than the one selected specifically by
> the designer) ) so that their desire, want, or goal, or however you
> want to put it, will be satisfied or achieved, by the use of conscious
> thought, foresight, and planning

Random genetic mutation doesn't provide a range of choices.

> So how does natural selection mimic the design process?

Hmm ... let's see ... It doesn't! Glad we got that cleared up.

> Well, it has the properties of one of the motivations that designers
> are known to have, namely, "ensuring the survival of an organism."

Don't know if you've noticed this, Vince, but most of the organisms that
have ever existed are now dead, and it seems quite likely that all of
the ones that aren't dead now are eventually going to be.

Natural selection doesn't ensure the survival of an organism. Natural
selection determines whether a random mutation will enable one organism
to reproduce more successfully than an organism of the same type that
doesn't have that mutation. That's it. And no, it's not mimicking a
design process when it does so. No design process depends on purely
random and uncontrollable events such as the mutation of a gene. There
is no 'range of choices', either literally or metaphorically. Natural
selection is simply the gradual accumulation of those hiccups in the
genome that enable organisms to produce more offspring than nearly
identical organisms under environmental conditions that tend to change
unpredictably.

Those hiccups in the genome that *don't* enable organisms to produce
more offspring aren't subject to natural selection - the organisms were
going to die eventually anyway. Producing more offspring often shortens
the lifespan of an organism: it doesn't matter. As long as the poor
fuckers crank out enough offspring to offset the decline in their own
numbers, the process will continue.

[snip]

> So why do scientists prefer natural selection as an explanation for
> the "appearance of design" over an actual real designer?

What scientist besides Richard Dawkins thinks natural selection produces
an appearance of design?

> Well, they find it suspicious that, out of the many motivations that a
> designer could have, we would have to theorize that he has *the exact
> same one* that is natural selection metaphorically has.

Actually, no. Most scientists embrace natural selection as an
explanation because (a) it actually explains something, (b) it's
experimentally verifiable, and (c) it has been experimentally verified.

The hypothesis that 'an actual real designer' (i.e., God) was
responsible for the complexity of life explains nothing and can't be
experimentally verified. This was as true before Darwin as it is now.
*Pace* Dawkins, nobody went around before 'The Origin of Species' was
published thinking that their belief in God was justified because living
organisms look so darned complicated. Quite the contrary: they used
their belief in God to explain the complexity they perceived in nature.

Most scientists won't even bother to consider a useless hypothesis like
'God designed nature.' I hypothesize that Dawkins goes out of his way to
consider it and reject it because he's an atheist: the fact that he's
also a scientist is incidental.
--
S.O.P.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:NMqdnT_M5q8RG3bJ...@giganews.com:

Fine, I'll change it.

Arguing that a designer's deception is perfect is a bit different from

arguing that it would be insane to assume a deceptive designer.

> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?

That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.

Thank you.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

We can certainly agree that saying one thing is a bit different from
saying another thing, even if the two things are somewhat similar. But I
don't see why that point has to be made.

>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>
> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.

OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to have
agreed that it would be insane to think you were.

You're welcome? I assume that attempt at clarification will not ensue.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 8:20:36 AM UTC-5, Vincent Maycock wrote:
> Okay, in order to save bandwidth (which from my perspective is how
> many times I have Send), here are some things from various posters
> that I will address in bullet form:
>
> a) no, Peter, S.O.P. is not an atheist -- I just saw him *back at it
> again,* with the nonsense about "now knowing"; it is true that he
> leans more towards atheism than you do, but that's already well-known

He leans FAR more towards atheism than I do, and (alas!) I rationally
have to lean far more myself towards atheism than towards theism.
Have you ever seen him say anything against atheism? [I can't recall
any instances.] Is that "now knowing" [sorry, I have NO idea what that
refers to] an example of him arguing against atheism?

> b) Ray, it is not true that the horse series is the only sequence of
> fossil intermediates we have

It's still the longest and best, AFAIK. But Ray has stubbornly
taken refuge in utterly perverse illogic in order to avoid even
admitting that it is at least *reasonable* to believe that the
horse sequence, with a million or more years between speciations,
is due to purely natural causes.

From Hyracotherium to Equus, it actually is over a greater
span of time than the fossil record shows for the Cambrian explosion,
an incomparably more impressive example of evolution. And the numerous
side branches were MORE conservative than the winding stream leading
up to Equus, which makes the contrast between the Equine radiation
and the Cambrian radiation even stronger.

> c) jillery, I don't want to quibble about the definitions of the
> words in Dawkins' books, but I will say that there are *four* of us
> standing shoulder-to-shoulder, defending the idea that living things
> look designed, more so than the Face on Mars, or whatever; the four
> are:
>
> 1) Richard Dawkins
> 2) Ray Martinez
> 3) William Paley
> 4) Vincent Maycock
>
> Regarding Paley, that guy was pretty confused, since humans *make
> watches,* but he was on the right track otherwise.

So he thought God made living things. What's confused about that?
Highly unlikely, in hindsight--but the hindsight is over things that
came after Paley, not before.

> d) Bob Casanova, in regard to your question of *how* can we know if
> something looks designed, objectively, we just ask if it looks like
> something a human (or something like a human) makes (or might make).
>

> So living things look designed because all of their parts are arranged
> specifically to make the systems in which they're found function
> effectively and efficiently -- just like machines made by humans! So
> we say they look designed.

Not only that, but many biologists have been struck by the way the
protein translation mechanism is so much like a factory assembly line.

> d) John, here's your link:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=cguNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=neanderthals+proportion+of+derived+alleles&source=bl&ots=hl8_EUfoWF&sig=W9wtVtxSRcSbOIPcBQ4Ikxi2dzU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D87hVMSqO4WMNv3lgoAM&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=neanderthals%20proportion%20of%20derived%20alleles&f=false
>
> Hmmm ... I think you can still see my search terms in there in it,
> from when Google found this for me. And then from then on out it was
> in my Internet bookmarks.
>
> And, no, it doesn't support passerby's 97%-claim, which is one that I
> never supported.
>
> Also, not only are there some things that passerby says that are
> correct, amidst his ditziness, I actually *supported an entire
> project* of his recently, relating to demonstrating the relationship
> of entropy to information.
>
> Regarding your problems with adaptive traits in phylogenies, I'm just
> going to say, "Have fun with *that* problem!" until I'm sure your
> serious about this stuff.
>
> e) trolidius -- yep, all pretty much true about randomness and
> entropy, and this is something I might post on more myself if I get
> the chance
>
> f) A Nony E Mouse, the absence of evidence *is sometimes* evidence of
> absence, which is precisely why everyone *should be* an atheist, and
> also this question doesn't apply to the evolution of the bacterial
> flagellum, since we do have evidence demonstrating its evolution

You have yet to show your face on the thread where you foolishly
claimed that the flagellum has been shown not to be IC. And Shrubber
is yet to acknowledge the huge difference between the scenario we
have for the evolution of long cascades like in clotting, and the
non-scenario we have for the evolution of the flagellum.

You thought that peanut gallery member Casanova had rescued you on
that thread you started, but he and his fellow peanut gallery member
jillery devolved that thread into the kind of crap so typical of jillery.

Have you seen that thread where a number of people, including deadrat
and myself, have witnessed the meltdown of "jillery" into a troll
of the most obvious sort? She no longer makes any pretense at being a
rational or sincere human being on that thread; instead "jillery" is a perfect
illustration there of what I mean by a dummy-analogue, i.e. a formulaic posting
persona for someone who keeps her true personality almost completely hidden.

She is showing a mild version of that meltdown on this thread,
as you yourself have noted. Unlike on that thread, we do occasionally
catch minute glimpses of the ventriloquist-analogue who invented "jillery."

Peter Nyikos

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:n4adnZlmRbINM3bJ...@giganews.com:

All right, I'll use small words. (Can't help the big words in the quotes
from Vince and you, though.)

Vince said: 'Assuming that hypothetical designers are "not deceptive" is
just another way of being a sane person.'

You said: 'It's perfection of the designer's deception that requires us
to ignore that hypothesis'

It looks to me like Vince thinks it's nuts to think God lies, but you
think it's sane to think God lies. Is that not what you think?

>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>
>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>
> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to have
> agreed that it would be insane to think you were.

'Think' is not quite the word, is it?

I thought you said no part of it was clear? If so, then I don't know
where to start.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

OK, I see now. No, I agree with Vince.

>>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>>
>>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>>
>> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to have
>> agreed that it would be insane to think you were.
>
> 'Think' is not quite the word, is it?

Not that I can tell. Why?

Start at the beginning and proceed to the end. Then stop. Try restating
the central point, if nothing else.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:j_idnby1qcW_UHbJ...@giganews.com:

Oh. That's dumb. Vince is wrong.

>>>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>>>
>>>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>>>
>>> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to
>>> have agreed that it would be insane to think you were.
>>
>> 'Think' is not quite the word, is it?
>
> Not that I can tell. Why?

You said: 'Is it sane to *believe* you're a brain in a vat?'

Then you said: '...it would be insane to *think* you were'

I think the two words don't mean the same thing.

All clear?

The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time: thus, if
God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes sense to say
that God tells lies.'

Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are both
wrong.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

Then so am I. In what way? What's your argument?

>>>>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>>>>
>>>>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>>>>
>>>> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to
>>>> have agreed that it would be insane to think you were.
>>>
>>> 'Think' is not quite the word, is it?
>>
>> Not that I can tell. Why?
>
> You said: 'Is it sane to *believe* you're a brain in a vat?'
>
> Then you said: '...it would be insane to *think* you were'
>
> I think the two words don't mean the same thing.
>
> All clear?

They may not mean quite the same thing in all circumstances, but the
approximation in this case seems close enough for all practical
purposes. What's the important difference?

I don't understand that point at all, largely because the syllogism
seems faulty. A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see;
god is like us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell
lies; god is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is making
any claim about that. Now if there's a real argument buried in what you
just said, you will have to add a few steps.

[William Morse]

It has been a long time since I read the book, and I no longer remember
the details of the Watchmakers. While the concept was apparently
plausible enough that I suspended my disbelief while reading the book, I
rather doubt that such a species (or such a robot as an alternative) is
practical. The problem is that there are always tradeoffs in design. Yes
there are often changes that can make poorly designed things "better in
every way". This is why the concept of the Watchmakers is attractive.
But in most cases an improvement in one aspect of a design can only come
at the cost of another aspect of design - so how would a Watchmaker be
able to choose the "correct" improvement. Efficiency is often a useful
goal, but it comes at the cost of lower maximum throughput - so I am not
going to have a high mpg drag racer. Simplicity is often useful, but it
comes at the cost of robustness. If I want to make something relatively
failsafe, I need to add redundancy. For a material that is exposed to
different environments, there is often a tradeoff between stiffness and
flexibility.

[William Morse]

I second that emotion.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:GdKdnXMaLqCKf3bJ...@giganews.com:

This: I think it's sane to think that if there is a God, then that God
tells lies.

What's yours?

>>>>>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>>>>>
>>>>> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to
>>>>> have agreed that it would be insane to think you were.
>>>>
>>>> 'Think' is not quite the word, is it?
>>>
>>> Not that I can tell. Why?
>>
>> You said: 'Is it sane to *believe* you're a brain in a vat?'
>>
>> Then you said: '...it would be insane to *think* you were'
>>
>> I think the two words don't mean the same thing.
>>
>> All clear?
>
> They may not mean quite the same thing in all circumstances, but the
> approximation in this case seems close enough for all practical
> purposes. What's the important difference?

The same as the one for 'imagine' and 'assume', of course.

[snip]

>>>>>>>> And I can't tell whether you're complaining, expecting me to
>>>>>>>> make some attempt at clarification, making observations, or
>>>>>>>> commenting for some other reason. Please clarify.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The first two, mostly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you.
>>>>>
>>>>> You're welcome? I assume that attempt at clarification will not
>>>>> ensue.
>>>>
>>>> I thought you said no part of it was clear? If so, then I don't
>>>> know where to start.
>>>
>>> Start at the beginning and proceed to the end. Then stop. Try
>>> restating the central point, if nothing else.
>>
>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time: thus,
>> if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes sense to
>> say that God tells lies.'
>>
>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are both
>> wrong.
>
> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the syllogism
> seems faulty.

When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that way,
you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's what you
mean, but I can't be sure.

> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is like
> us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell lies; god
> is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is making any claim
> about that. Now if there's a real argument buried in what you just
> said, you will have to add a few steps.

I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults with
it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a waste of my
time and yours.
--
S.O.P.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

An Inexplicably Sapient Fruit Bat <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in
news:4592c93d-498a-4672...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 8:20:36 AM UTC-5, Vincent Maycock
> wrote:
>> Okay, in order to save bandwidth (which from my perspective is how
>> many times I have Send), here are some things from various posters
>> that I will address in bullet form:
>>
>> a) no, Peter, S.O.P. is not an atheist -- I just saw him *back at it
>> again,* with the nonsense about "now knowing"; it is true that he
>> leans more towards atheism than you do, but that's already well-known
>
> He leans FAR more towards atheism than I do, and (alas!) I rationally
> have to lean far more myself towards atheism than towards theism.

You're not fooling anyone, Fruity. You can pretend that your fantasies
about sperm-flinging aliens are sound science instead of theology, but
the rest of us aren't falling for it. You lean about as far towards
atheism as the Pope does.

And you can pretend that you don't see atheists under your bed, but in
the very first line of your first post to the infamous Amazon comments
thread you alluded to 'innumerable militant atheists riding piggyback on
scientists'. I'm sure I do look like an atheist to you, as I would to
anyone else deluded enough to imagine that there are 'innumerable
militant atheists' out there. Thing is, I don't worry about how I'm
perceived by fruit bats.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

That wasn't an argument. It was just contradiction.

My argument is that a god who lies (and not just lies, but lies in
exactly the way that perfectly simulates his nonexistence) is just like
the Matrix, or Last Thursdayism, solipsism, or even Maya. If any of
these is true, there's no way to find out by examining the world,
because the world isn't real. And that's just crazy.

>>>>>>>> Is it sane to believe you're a brain in a vat?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That depends on whether or not you actually are a brain in a vat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> OK, we can work with that. Are you? If you aren't, you appear to
>>>>>> have agreed that it would be insane to think you were.
>>>>>
>>>>> 'Think' is not quite the word, is it?
>>>>
>>>> Not that I can tell. Why?
>>>
>>> You said: 'Is it sane to *believe* you're a brain in a vat?'
>>>
>>> Then you said: '...it would be insane to *think* you were'
>>>
>>> I think the two words don't mean the same thing.
>>>
>>> All clear?
>>
>> They may not mean quite the same thing in all circumstances, but the
>> approximation in this case seems close enough for all practical
>> purposes. What's the important difference?
>
> The same as the one for 'imagine' and 'assume', of course.

Not true. "believe" and "think" both imply a claim of truth. So, in
common speech, does "assume", but "imagine" implies not just a lack of
such claim but a mild claim of untruth.

> [snip]
>>>>>>>>> And I can't tell whether you're complaining, expecting me to
>>>>>>>>> make some attempt at clarification, making observations, or
>>>>>>>>> commenting for some other reason. Please clarify.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The first two, mostly.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You're welcome? I assume that attempt at clarification will not
>>>>>> ensue.
>>>>>
>>>>> I thought you said no part of it was clear? If so, then I don't
>>>>> know where to start.
>>>>
>>>> Start at the beginning and proceed to the end. Then stop. Try
>>>> restating the central point, if nothing else.
>>>
>>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time: thus,
>>> if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes sense to
>>> say that God tells lies.'
>>>
>>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are both
>>> wrong.
>>
>> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the syllogism
>> seems faulty.
>
> When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that way,
> you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's what you
> mean, but I can't be sure.

I was just being polite, but I will allow for the possibility that
there's something I just don't get.

>> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is like
>> us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell lies; god
>> is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is making any claim
>> about that. Now if there's a real argument buried in what you just
>> said, you will have to add a few steps.
>
> I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults with
> it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a waste of my
> time and yours.

So you don't like arguing? Everyone should just read what you say, nod
their heads and murmur "so true, so true"? The reason I have found fault
with your argument so far is that it doesn't appear to make any sense.
I've offered you a chance to provide some sense, but you aren't interested.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:tJidneI_krsbE3HJ...@giganews.com:

It was exactly as much of an argument as anything you've said so far.

> My argument is that a god who lies (and not just lies, but lies in
> exactly the way that perfectly simulates his nonexistence) is just
> like the Matrix, or Last Thursdayism, solipsism, or even Maya. If any
> of these is true, there's no way to find out by examining the world,
> because the world isn't real. And that's just crazy.

Okay, that actually is an argument. Now I can see where the wires got
crossed.

My argument is that *if* the anthropomorphic 'Designer' that Vince has
been talking about had designed the natural world that we perceive, then
that Designer designed it in exactly the way that perfectly simulated
his nonexistence.

You seem to think I was arguing that that it would make sense to believe
that a 'real' Designer actually did that. I wasn't.

If I understood him correctly, Vince was arguing that his hypothetical
anthropomorphic 'Designer' (i.e., God) could have designed the natural
world that we perceive, but could not have intended to deceive us.

[snip]

>>>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
>>>> thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
>>>> sense to say that God tells lies.'
>>>>
>>>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are
>>>> both wrong.
>>>
>>> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the syllogism
>>> seems faulty.
>>
>> When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that way,
>> you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's what you
>> mean, but I can't be sure.
>
> I was just being polite, but I will allow for the possibility that
> there's something I just don't get.

Well, I'm sure you thought you were being polite.

>>> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is
>>> like us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell
>>> lies; god is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is
>>> making any claim about that. Now if there's a real argument buried
>>> in what you just said, you will have to add a few steps.
>>
>> I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults
>> with it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a
>> waste of my time and yours.
>
> So you don't like arguing?

I love arguing. What I don't love is people who say 'I don't understand
a thing you've said, so you have to say it all differently', and when I
oblige, say 'I understand now. You're wrong' without bothering to
elucidate their own position.

> Everyone should just read what you say, nod their heads and murmur "so
> true, so true"?

Putting words in my mouth isn't arguing.

> The reason I have found fault with your argument so far is that it
> doesn't appear to make any sense. I've offered you a chance to provide
> some sense, but you aren't interested.

Do you have any idea how pompous and hateful you sound when you write
things like that? (Not an argument, just an observation).
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

I sense hostility.

>> My argument is that a god who lies (and not just lies, but lies in
>> exactly the way that perfectly simulates his nonexistence) is just
>> like the Matrix, or Last Thursdayism, solipsism, or even Maya. If any
>> of these is true, there's no way to find out by examining the world,
>> because the world isn't real. And that's just crazy.
>
> Okay, that actually is an argument. Now I can see where the wires got
> crossed.
>
> My argument is that *if* the anthropomorphic 'Designer' that Vince has
> been talking about had designed the natural world that we perceive, then
> that Designer designed it in exactly the way that perfectly simulated
> his nonexistence.
>
> You seem to think I was arguing that that it would make sense to believe
> that a 'real' Designer actually did that. I wasn't.
>
> If I understood him correctly, Vince was arguing that his hypothetical
> anthropomorphic 'Designer' (i.e., God) could have designed the natural
> world that we perceive, but could not have intended to deceive us.

I don't think you understand him correctly. I think he's saying that
it's crazy to believe in a designer of the world in the face of the
evidence the world provides, given that the only way to save the
designer hypothesis would be to postulate a deceptive designer, i.e.
omphalism, Last Thursdayism, etc.

>>>>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
>>>>> thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
>>>>> sense to say that God tells lies.'
>>>>>
>>>>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are
>>>>> both wrong.
>>>>
>>>> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the syllogism
>>>> seems faulty.
>>>
>>> When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that way,
>>> you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's what you
>>> mean, but I can't be sure.
>>
>> I was just being polite, but I will allow for the possibility that
>> there's something I just don't get.
>
> Well, I'm sure you thought you were being polite.

Why will you do anything to avoid explaining your point?

>>>> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is
>>>> like us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell
>>>> lies; god is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is
>>>> making any claim about that. Now if there's a real argument buried
>>>> in what you just said, you will have to add a few steps.
>>>
>>> I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults
>>> with it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a
>>> waste of my time and yours.
>>
>> So you don't like arguing?
>
> I love arguing. What I don't love is people who say 'I don't understand
> a thing you've said, so you have to say it all differently', and when I
> oblige, say 'I understand now. You're wrong' without bothering to
> elucidate their own position.

Pretty sure I have elucidated my own position.

>> Everyone should just read what you say, nod their heads and murmur "so
>> true, so true"?
>
> Putting words in my mouth isn't arguing.
>
>> The reason I have found fault with your argument so far is that it
>> doesn't appear to make any sense. I've offered you a chance to provide
>> some sense, but you aren't interested.
>
> Do you have any idea how pompous and hateful you sound when you write
> things like that? (Not an argument, just an observation).

I do have an idea, but I think it differs from yours. Then again how I
sound to you is your personal experience, and I have no access to that.

Why not just try to make the connections I didn't see, specifically in this:

'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
sense to say that God tells lies.'

Let me turn that into a syllogism:

If we get fooled by what we see all the time and
If God made what we see and
If God is like us,
Then it makes sense to say that God tells lies.

Are you merely trying to say that if God made stuff he knew we would
misinterpret, that would be lying? If so, I suppose that's true. But I
don't think it's relevant to what Vince meant.

Once more, let me try to encapsulate the message. If the only way you
can reconcile belief in god with the world we see is by supposing a
lying god, that's insane theology, equivalent to Last Thursdayism.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2015 09:26:10 -0800, the following appeared

Thanks. Back when I still flew I never had any problem doing
so; how better to spend several boring hours?

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:PZSdneXNEKofPXHJ...@giganews.com:

> On 2/24/15, 7:38 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>> news:tJidneI_krsbE3HJ...@giganews.com:

[snip]

>>> That wasn't an argument. It was just contradiction.
>>
>> It was exactly as much of an argument as anything you've said so far.
>
> I sense hostility.

You know what they say: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.

>>> My argument is that a god who lies (and not just lies, but lies in
>>> exactly the way that perfectly simulates his nonexistence) is just
>>> like the Matrix, or Last Thursdayism, solipsism, or even Maya. If
>>> any of these is true, there's no way to find out by examining the
>>> world, because the world isn't real. And that's just crazy.
>>
>> Okay, that actually is an argument. Now I can see where the wires got
>> crossed.
>>
>> My argument is that *if* the anthropomorphic 'Designer' that Vince
>> has been talking about had designed the natural world that we
>> perceive, then that Designer designed it in exactly the way that
>> perfectly simulated his nonexistence.
>>
>> You seem to think I was arguing that that it would make sense to
>> believe that a 'real' Designer actually did that. I wasn't.
>>
>> If I understood him correctly, Vince was arguing that his
>> hypothetical anthropomorphic 'Designer' (i.e., God) could have
>> designed the natural world that we perceive, but could not have
>> intended to deceive us.
>
> I don't think you understand him correctly.

That's possible.

> I think he's saying that it's crazy to believe in a designer of the
> world in the face of the evidence the world provides, given that the
> only way to save the designer hypothesis would be to postulate a
> deceptive designer, i.e. omphalism, Last Thursdayism, etc.

I think that's your hobbyhorse, not Vince's. He was arguing that there
are three 'objective and unambiguous' criteria for distinguishing things
that are designed from things that only look like they are.

1) We should be able to show evidence of the designer's existence
independent of the putatively designed objects.

2) 'we should know *something about the designer,* other than that he

just ... designed things. You should be able to sketch out his

motivations, methods, and personality'.

3) A designed object 'shouldn't look as if it came about by some other
process'.

The first criterion is reasonably close to being objective and
unambiguous, and provides a sufficient basis for rejecting the Design
hypothesis. That's a good thing, because the second and third criteria
are problematic at best.

>>>>>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
>>>>>> thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
>>>>>> sense to say that God tells lies.'
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are
>>>>>> both wrong.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the
>>>>> syllogism seems faulty.
>>>>
>>>> When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that
>>>> way, you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's
>>>> what you mean, but I can't be sure.
>>>
>>> I was just being polite, but I will allow for the possibility that
>>> there's something I just don't get.
>>
>> Well, I'm sure you thought you were being polite.
>
> Why will you do anything to avoid explaining your point?

I have explained it. Is there anything you still don't understand?

>>>>> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is
>>>>> like us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell
>>>>> lies; god is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is
>>>>> making any claim about that. Now if there's a real argument buried
>>>>> in what you just said, you will have to add a few steps.
>>>>
>>>> I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults
>>>> with it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a
>>>> waste of my time and yours.
>>>
>>> So you don't like arguing?
>>
>> I love arguing. What I don't love is people who say 'I don't
>> understand a thing you've said, so you have to say it all
>> differently', and when I oblige, say 'I understand now. You're wrong'
>> without bothering to elucidate their own position.
>
> Pretty sure I have elucidated my own position.

I was pretty sure I'd elucidated mine, too. Funny how that works.

I thought I understood what you meant when you wrote 'It's perfection of
the designer's deception that requires us to ignore that hypothesis': it
seemed to me that you were implicitly conceding the point that a
hypothetical designer would have had to have been deceptive. Come to
think of it, it still seems like you were doing that. Were you not?

>>> Everyone should just read what you say, nod their heads and murmur
>>> "so true, so true"?
>>
>> Putting words in my mouth isn't arguing.
>>
>>> The reason I have found fault with your argument so far is that it
>>> doesn't appear to make any sense. I've offered you a chance to
>>> provide some sense, but you aren't interested.
>>
>> Do you have any idea how pompous and hateful you sound when you write
>> things like that? (Not an argument, just an observation).
>
> I do have an idea, but I think it differs from yours. Then again how I
> sound to you is your personal experience, and I have no access to
> that.

Just as I have no access to your personal experience of reading my
posts, yes.

> Why not just try to make the connections I didn't see, specifically in
> this:

How could I have known which connections you didn't see? I have no access
to your personal experience.

> 'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
> thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
> sense to say that God tells lies.'
>
> Let me turn that into a syllogism:
>
> If we get fooled by what we see all the time and
> If God made what we see and
> If God is like us,
> Then it makes sense to say that God tells lies.
>
> Are you merely trying to say that if God made stuff he knew we would
> misinterpret, that would be lying?

No.

Vince asserted that 'if something was designed, we should know

*something about the designer,* other than that he just ... designed
things. You should be able to sketch out his motivations, methods, and

personality'.

He also said 'if something was designed, it shouldn't look as if it came
about by some other process'.

His justification for claiming that 'we should be able to sketch out his
motivations, methods, and personality' is the claim that 'you have to

anthropomorphize the designer, because the only designers we know about

are humans.'

Now, I happen to know that human designers sometimes design things that
look as if they came about by some other process. Why couldn't a
hypothetical anthropomorphic designer do that?

It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that a
designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
scientifically worthless.

That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could not have
existed.

> If so, I suppose that's true. But I don't think it's relevant to what
> Vince meant.
>
> Once more, let me try to encapsulate the message. If the only way you
> can reconcile belief in god with the world we see is by supposing a
> lying god, that's insane theology, equivalent to Last Thursdayism.

Most people who believe in God also believe in the Devil, in one form or
another. Do you contend that all such people are insane?
--
S.O.P.

[Nick Roberts]

In message <mcgo0...@news7.newsguy.com>

I would tend to agree. It didn't stop the book and its sequel being
excellent entertainment though, as well as throwing out a few ideas
about alienness. Moties are far more like humans physically than an
awful lot of fictional aliens; but the way they think is far wierder
than most Hollywood scriptwriters can get anywhere near.

> The problem is that there are
> always tradeoffs in design. Yes there are often changes that can
> make poorly designed things "better in every way". This is why the
> concept of the Watchmakers is attractive. But in most cases an
> improvement in one aspect of a design can only come at the cost of
> another aspect of design - so how would a Watchmaker be able to
> choose the "correct" improvement.

Presumably the Watchmaker would make whatever it was toying with at the
time better in the environment in which it existed.

Among one of the more subtle ways that Moties as a group differed from
humans is that pretty much everything they built was a one-off. They
didn't come up with (say) a general purpose space shuttle and use it
for all sorts of different missions: if they needed a space shuttle to
service a space telescope, then they built a space shuttle to service
the space telescope. After that mission was over, they'd either throw
the space shuttle away, or rebuild it in such a way that it could be
used for, say, delivering food & water to a manned satellite.

So Watchmakers wouldn't ever be faced with the problem you pose, or at
least, wouldn't see it as a problem. If the coffee machine happened to
be sitting on a table in the lounge, they would turn it into the best
possible coffee machine sitting on a table in the lounge; but it was in
a kitchen, they'd make it better in a different way.

> Efficiency is often a useful goal, but it comes at the cost of lower
> maximum throughput - so I am not going to have a high mpg drag
> racer. Simplicity is often useful, but it comes at the cost of
> robustness. If I want to make something relatively failsafe, I need
> to add redundancy. For a material that is exposed to different
> environments, there is often a tradeoff between stiffness and
> flexibility.

[John Harshman]

On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
> news:PZSdneXNEKofPXHJ...@giganews.com:
>
>> On 2/24/15, 7:38 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>>> news:tJidneI_krsbE3HJ...@giganews.com:
> [snip]
>>>> That wasn't an argument. It was just contradiction.
>>>
>>> It was exactly as much of an argument as anything you've said so far.
>>
>> I sense hostility.
>
> You know what they say: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Do you by any chance know Jillery?

Those are interesting points, but I don't see how they impact the little
bit we're talking about here. Vince is arguing all sorts of things. Is
it perhaps the third point that's relevant?

>>>>>>> The main point was 'We get fooled by what we see all the time:
>>>>>>> thus, if God made what we see, and God is like us, then it makes
>>>>>>> sense to say that God tells lies.'
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bob thinks so too. I think he's right. I think you and Vince are
>>>>>>> both wrong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't understand that point at all, largely because the
>>>>>> syllogism seems faulty.
>>>>>
>>>>> When you say it 'seems', do you mean that though you see it that
>>>>> way, you may be wrong, and it may be sound? I don't think that's
>>>>> what you mean, but I can't be sure.
>>>>
>>>> I was just being polite, but I will allow for the possibility that
>>>> there's something I just don't get.
>>>
>>> Well, I'm sure you thought you were being polite.
>>
>> Why will you do anything to avoid explaining your point?
>
> I have explained it. Is there anything you still don't understand?

In all the obfuscation, I'm not sure.

>>>>>> A valid syllogism would be "We get fooled by what we see; god is
>>>>>> like us; therefore god gets fooled by what he sees". Or "we tell
>>>>>> lies; god is like us; therefore god tells lies". But nobody is
>>>>>> making any claim about that. Now if there's a real argument buried
>>>>>> in what you just said, you will have to add a few steps.
>>>>>
>>>>> I could, but what's the use? You'd just whine and find more faults
>>>>> with it. It's clear that you think I'm wrong. To go on would be a
>>>>> waste of my time and yours.
>>>>
>>>> So you don't like arguing?
>>>
>>> I love arguing. What I don't love is people who say 'I don't
>>> understand a thing you've said, so you have to say it all
>>> differently', and when I oblige, say 'I understand now. You're wrong'
>>> without bothering to elucidate their own position.
>>
>> Pretty sure I have elucidated my own position.
>
> I was pretty sure I'd elucidated mine, too. Funny how that works.
>
> I thought I understood what you meant when you wrote 'It's perfection of
> the designer's deception that requires us to ignore that hypothesis': it
> seemed to me that you were implicitly conceding the point that a
> hypothetical designer would have had to have been deceptive. Come to
> think of it, it still seems like you were doing that. Were you not?

I would agree that if we suppose a designer of the world we see, the
only way to fit that designer to the world is to suppose he's deceptive.
Vince seemed to be saying the same thing.

>>>> Everyone should just read what you say, nod their heads and murmur
>>>> "so true, so true"?
>>>
>>> Putting words in my mouth isn't arguing.
>>>
>>>> The reason I have found fault with your argument so far is that it
>>>> doesn't appear to make any sense. I've offered you a chance to
>>>> provide some sense, but you aren't interested.
>>>
>>> Do you have any idea how pompous and hateful you sound when you write
>>> things like that? (Not an argument, just an observation).
>>
>> I do have an idea, but I think it differs from yours. Then again how I
>> sound to you is your personal experience, and I have no access to
>> that.
>
> Just as I have no access to your personal experience of reading my
> posts, yes.
>
>> Why not just try to make the connections I didn't see, specifically in
>> this:
>
> How could I have known which connections you didn't see? I have no access
> to your personal experience.

If you could just explain the connection between your premises and your
conclusion, below, that would help.

Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have existed;
it's in thinking such a thing does exist. Same with anything that tells
us all the world is an illusion and that we can know nothing empirically.

>> If so, I suppose that's true. But I don't think it's relevant to what
>> Vince meant.
>>
>> Once more, let me try to encapsulate the message. If the only way you
>> can reconcile belief in god with the world we see is by supposing a
>> lying god, that's insane theology, equivalent to Last Thursdayism.
>
> Most people who believe in God also believe in the Devil, in one form or
> another. Do you contend that all such people are insane?

No. Why would you ask that? First, most people don't really think about
this sort of thing. Second, the Devil is not considered to have created
the world, so the belief that he lies doesn't lead to Last Thursdayism.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:Zpudne2uWboSXHHJ...@giganews.com:

> On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:

[snip]

>> It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that a
>> designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
>> scientifically worthless.
>>
>> That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could not
>> have existed.
>
> Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have
> existed; it's in thinking such a thing does exist.

Okay, so long as you're willing to concede that it's equally insane to
think such a thing *doesn't* exist.

> Same with anything that tells us all the world is an illusion and that
> we can know nothing empirically.

If it's a completely convincing illusion, what difference does it make? All
knowledge is provisional anyway.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

On 2/24/15, 10:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
> news:Zpudne2uWboSXHHJ...@giganews.com:
>
>> On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> [snip]
>>> It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that a
>>> designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
>>> scientifically worthless.
>>>
>>> That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could not
>>> have existed.
>>
>> Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have
>> existed; it's in thinking such a thing does exist.
>
> Okay, so long as you're willing to concede that it's equally insane to
> think such a thing *doesn't* exist.

I don't concede that. Disbelieving in Last Thursdayism or its equivalent
helps you deal with reality as reality, and what could be saner than that?

>> Same with anything that tells us all the world is an illusion and that
>> we can know nothing empirically.
>
> If it's a completely convincing illusion, what difference does it make? All
> knowledge is provisional anyway.

The difference lies in your response. If you think the world is an
illusion, you will probably be willing to take the blue pill.
Provisional isn't the same as pointless, and what's the point in knowing
more about unreality? Now, it's perfectly acceptable just to ignore the
possibility that the world is unreal rather than definitely assert that
it's real; I'll go that far.

[jillery]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 10:23:10 -0800, John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

>On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>> news:PZSdneXNEKofPXHJ...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> On 2/24/15, 7:38 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>>>> news:tJidneI_krsbE3HJ...@giganews.com:
>> [snip]
>>>>> That wasn't an argument. It was just contradiction.
>>>>
>>>> It was exactly as much of an argument as anything you've said so far.
>>>
>>> I sense hostility.
>>
>> You know what they say: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
>
>Do you by any chance know Jillery?

That's an ironic comment coming from you. You're the one who infers
insult in others, and from others, just so you can blame them as you
run away from the topic.

--
Intelligence is never insulting.

[John Harshman]

Speak of the devil.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:IvSdnaxWxblyUHHJ...@giganews.com:

> On 2/24/15, 10:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>> news:Zpudne2uWboSXHHJ...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> [snip]
>>>> It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that a
>>>> designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
>>>> scientifically worthless.
>>>>
>>>> That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could not
>>>> have existed.
>>>
>>> Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have
>>> existed; it's in thinking such a thing does exist.
>>
>> Okay, so long as you're willing to concede that it's equally insane
>> to think such a thing *doesn't* exist.
>
> I don't concede that.

Then I don't concede that thinking such a thing exists is insane.

> Disbelieving in Last Thursdayism or its equivalent helps you deal with
> reality as reality, and what could be saner than that?

What's your basis for comparison here? Unless you yourself have believed
in 'Last Thursdayism or its equivalent', or you've compiled data on
others who have, how do you conclude that not believing in it 'helps you
deal with reality as reality'?

And how are you defining sanity?

>>> Same with anything that tells us all the world is an illusion and
>>> that we can know nothing empirically.
>>
>> If it's a completely convincing illusion, what difference does it
>> make? All knowledge is provisional anyway.
>
> The difference lies in your response. If you think the world is an
> illusion, you will probably be willing to take the blue pill.

Not the most felicitous metaphor. Neo didn't think the world was an
illusion until after he took it, and in his case the world actually
*was* an illusion, and an imperfect one at that.

> Provisional isn't the same as pointless, and what's the point in
> knowing more about unreality?

The same as the point to knowing more about reality: whatever point you
happen to give it. If you're looking for an actual point to anything,
you're not dealing with reality as reality.

> Now, it's perfectly acceptable just to ignore the possibility that the
> world is unreal rather than definitely assert that it's real; I'll go
> that far.

It's not like people have a choice, though, is it? Nobody wakes up one day
and says 'I'm going to start believing that the world is real!'
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

On 2/24/15, 12:59 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
> news:IvSdnaxWxblyUHHJ...@giganews.com:
>
>> On 2/24/15, 10:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>>> news:Zpudne2uWboSXHHJ...@giganews.com:
>>>
>>>> On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>>> It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that a
>>>>> designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
>>>>> scientifically worthless.
>>>>>
>>>>> That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could not
>>>>> have existed.
>>>>
>>>> Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have
>>>> existed; it's in thinking such a thing does exist.
>>>
>>> Okay, so long as you're willing to concede that it's equally insane
>>> to think such a thing *doesn't* exist.
>>
>> I don't concede that.
>
> Then I don't concede that thinking such a thing exists is insane.

I don't actually understand why my opinion on one thing should determine
your opinion on another.

>> Disbelieving in Last Thursdayism or its equivalent helps you deal with
>> reality as reality, and what could be saner than that?
>
> What's your basis for comparison here? Unless you yourself have believed
> in 'Last Thursdayism or its equivalent', or you've compiled data on
> others who have, how do you conclude that not believing in it 'helps you
> deal with reality as reality'?
>
> And how are you defining sanity?

There's no really good definition. I will just make the unsupported
claim that believing that reality isn't real leads you in unfortunate
directions.

>>>> Same with anything that tells us all the world is an illusion and
>>>> that we can know nothing empirically.
>>>
>>> If it's a completely convincing illusion, what difference does it
>>> make? All knowledge is provisional anyway.
>>
>> The difference lies in your response. If you think the world is an
>> illusion, you will probably be willing to take the blue pill.
>
> Not the most felicitous metaphor. Neo didn't think the world was an
> illusion until after he took it, and in his case the world actually
> *was* an illusion, and an imperfect one at that.

But if the world had been real, taking the blue pill would have led him
into a delusional world. OK, a bit forced. I just liked mentioning the
blue pill.

>> Provisional isn't the same as pointless, and what's the point in
>> knowing more about unreality?
>
> The same as the point to knowing more about reality: whatever point you
> happen to give it. If you're looking for an actual point to anything,
> you're not dealing with reality as reality.

Of course all points are points we make for ourselves. But would be be
as likely to make those points if we thought what we were interacting
with didn't really exist?

>> Now, it's perfectly acceptable just to ignore the possibility that the
>> world is unreal rather than definitely assert that it's real; I'll go
>> that far.
>
> It's not like people have a choice, though, is it? Nobody wakes up one day
> and says 'I'm going to start believing that the world is real!'
>

Argument can, however, act to force a change in beliefs. Rarely. What
are we arguing about again?

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:au2dnYFU8JtGhXDJ...@giganews.com:

> On 2/24/15, 12:59 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>> news:IvSdnaxWxblyUHHJ...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> On 2/24/15, 10:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>>>> news:Zpudne2uWboSXHHJ...@giganews.com:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2/24/15, 9:54 AM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>>> [snip]
>>>>>> It's quite true that we're entitled to ignore the hypothesis that
>>>>>> a designer designed the natural world that we perceive: it's
>>>>>> scientifically worthless.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That doesn't require the assumption that such a designer could
>>>>>> not have existed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Agreed. The insanity isn't in thinking such a thing could have
>>>>> existed; it's in thinking such a thing does exist.
>>>>
>>>> Okay, so long as you're willing to concede that it's equally insane
>>>> to think such a thing *doesn't* exist.
>>>
>>> I don't concede that.
>>
>> Then I don't concede that thinking such a thing exists is insane.
>
> I don't actually understand why my opinion on one thing should
> determine your opinion on another.

Have you considered forming a hypothesis and testing it? I was under the
impression scientists were into that kind of thing.

>>> Disbelieving in Last Thursdayism or its equivalent helps you deal
>>> with reality as reality, and what could be saner than that?
>>
>> What's your basis for comparison here? Unless you yourself have
>> believed in 'Last Thursdayism or its equivalent', or you've compiled
>> data on others who have, how do you conclude that not believing in it
>> 'helps you deal with reality as reality'?
>>
>> And how are you defining sanity?
>
> There's no really good definition.

If you don't know what it means, I suggest not using it.

> I will just make the unsupported claim that believing that reality
> isn't real leads you in unfortunate directions.

Doesn't matter what direction you go: you'll end up in the same place as
everyone else eventually.

>>>>> Same with anything that tells us all the world is an illusion and
>>>>> that we can know nothing empirically.
>>>>
>>>> If it's a completely convincing illusion, what difference does it
>>>> make? All knowledge is provisional anyway.
>>>
>>> The difference lies in your response. If you think the world is an
>>> illusion, you will probably be willing to take the blue pill.
>>
>> Not the most felicitous metaphor. Neo didn't think the world was an
>> illusion until after he took it, and in his case the world actually
>> *was* an illusion, and an imperfect one at that.
>
> But if the world had been real, taking the blue pill would have led
> him into a delusional world. OK, a bit forced. I just liked mentioning
> the blue pill.
>
>>> Provisional isn't the same as pointless, and what's the point in
>>> knowing more about unreality?
>>
>> The same as the point to knowing more about reality: whatever point
>> you happen to give it. If you're looking for an actual point to
>> anything, you're not dealing with reality as reality.
>
> Of course all points are points we make for ourselves. But would be be
> as likely to make those points if we thought what we were interacting
> with didn't really exist?

As it happens, that question can be answered empirically. You included
believing in *maya* in your list of things that are 'just crazy'
(whatever you think that means). Belief in *maya* is a central feature
of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. All you need to do is
determine whether Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs are as likely to
make those points as people who don't believe in *maya*.

>>> Now, it's perfectly acceptable just to ignore the possibility that
>>> the world is unreal rather than definitely assert that it's real;
>>> I'll go that far.
>>
>> It's not like people have a choice, though, is it? Nobody wakes up
>> one day and says 'I'm going to start believing that the world is
>> real!'
>>
> Argument can, however, act to force a change in beliefs. Rarely. What
> are we arguing about again?

Whether Kevin Costner should have been cast as *Opabinia regalis* in
'Cambrian Water World', of course.
--
S.O.P.

[John Harshman]

My hypothesis is that some time has passed since you were last
interested in discussing any subject and are now just trying to make
vaguely hostile, cryptic statements.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in

news:GrSdndvwdsIhoXDJ...@giganews.com:

That makes two of us, doesn't it?
--
S.O.P.

[William Morse]

Which raises an interesting question for engineers now that we have 3D
printers. It used to be that we all tried to use standard products to
avoid the costs of one-off designs. Now maybe we can try to be
Watchmakers, at least in those areas where 3D printers are practical.

[Greg Guarino]

On 2/22/2015 8:11 PM, Burkhard wrote:
>> or that it's a different time
>> than you see on your watch when you fly to Singapore,
>
>
> Ahh, I see where the problem here is: shitty watch!

Mark Twain, in "The Innocents Abroad" describes a fellow on board their
transatlantic steamer who would crank the regulator tighter and tighter
on his pocketwatch each day, but - much to his consternation - could
never get it to catch up with the ship's noon whistle.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:35:39 -0800, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net>:

The OED defines it...

"1The ability to think and behave in a normal and rational
manner; sound mental health: 'I began to doubt my own
sanity'

1.1Reasonable and rational behaviour: 'the next few years
saw several appeals for sanity from top scientists' "

....and the OED thesaurus lists several synonyms (one of
which is "rationality", something I've seen rejected here as
a synonym). I'd say it has something to do with accepting
reality.

> I will just make the unsupported
>claim that believing that reality isn't real leads you in unfortunate
>directions.

Agreed. And I think support would be fairly easy to find,
assuming "unfortunate" includes injury or serious death. The
"Hey, watch this!" phenomenon...

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in
news:jb0seahrm936cv604...@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 16:35:39 -0800, the following appeared
> in talk.origins, posted by John Harshman
> <jhar...@pacbell.net>:
>>On 2/24/15, 12:59 PM, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>>> John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote in
>>> news:IvSdnaxWxblyUHHJ...@giganews.com:

[snip]

>>>> Disbelieving in Last Thursdayism or its equivalent helps you deal
>>>> with reality as reality, and what could be saner than that?
>>>
>>> What's your basis for comparison here? Unless you yourself have
>>> believed in 'Last Thursdayism or its equivalent', or you've compiled
>>> data on others who have, how do you conclude that not believing in
>>> it 'helps you deal with reality as reality'?
>>>
>>> And how are you defining sanity?
>>
>>There's no really good definition.
>
> The OED defines it...
>
> "1The ability to think and behave in a normal and rational
> manner; sound mental health: 'I began to doubt my own
> sanity'
>
> 1.1Reasonable and rational behaviour: 'the next few years
> saw several appeals for sanity from top scientists' "
>
> ....and the OED thesaurus lists several synonyms (one of
> which is "rationality", something I've seen rejected here as
> a synonym). I'd say it has something to do with accepting
> reality.

But that depends on how you define reality, doesn't it? There's abundant
evidence that we all live in the same physical world: by one measure,
that's reality. In my experience, though, when someone tells you to face
up to reality, they're not criticizing your refusal to accept the fact
that the Earth orbits the Sun. In fact, they're usually not referring to
anything that an independent observer could confirm or reject.

Whether your thoughts and acts are considered reasonable and rational
depends as much on the arbitrary sociocultural standards of your peer
group as anything else. If a calendar-printing company has a 'Bring Your
Daughter to Work' day, nobody will think anything of it: if a platoon
has one during its tour of duty in Iraq, it'll raise a few eyebrows.
I think it's clear that the printers and the platoon share the same
physical world: whether they share the same reality is less clear.

>> I will just make the unsupported claim that believing that reality
>> isn't real leads you in unfortunate directions.
>
> Agreed. And I think support would be fairly easy to find,
> assuming "unfortunate" includes injury or serious death. The
> "Hey, watch this!" phenomenon...

Are you talking about people who do absurdly risky things, like BASE
jumping? I think those people are fully committed to their belief in
reality: the thrill they get from the experience depends on the
assumption that the danger is 100% real.

(If you weren't talking about that sort of people, would you mind
explaining what sort of people you were talking about?)

As I already noted, Harshman includes belief in *maya*, the illusory
nature of the physical world, among his examples of the ostensibly
insane belief that reality isn't real. As I also noted, belief in *maya*
is a feature common to Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism.

AFAIK, adherents of those belief systems are no more prone to taking
unnecessary risks in their daily lives than anyone else is. Nor do I
think it reasonable to characterize them all as insane.

(If anything I wrote above is unclear, please accept my apologies in
advance. I've read it over, and it seems clear to me, but it would,
wouldn't it?)
--
S.O.P.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:10:16 +0000 (UTC), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com>:

I suggest you take your concerns to the compilers of the
OED, since I based my conclusion on their definition and
list of synonyms. I suppose we could carefully construct a
definition chain (complete with multiple caveats at each
level), but I'll pass, since I suspect most readers already
know what I mean.

[Leopoldo Perdomo]

Sanity could be defined as to follow the average behavior of
your peers, either in education or social class.
For not all social ranks had the same patterns of behavior.
When someone goes off the proper pattern of behavior of his
class it can be said, he has lost his marbles, or his sanity.

Eri

[Leopoldo Perdomo]

Yeah. Reality does not speak for itself. It is people that make some
speech about it; I mean each one interprets the meaning of reality,
according to some canonical speech, or a kosher set of arguments.

Thus, there must exists as many realities as groups of people that
would share some some common speech about, about the reality whatever
it is.

I remember I was taught in a religious school that "we were put in this
world to sing the praises of god". The boys were very disappointed
with this argument for they thought differently. We were put here to
eat the best we could if we can, and to enjoy life while it last.
Many of they were also thinking about sexual pleasures when they would
have when they would grow up; they had heard something about the pleasures
of sex. That must be the reason for the present overpopulation, good
food and sexual pleasures. If we would had been singing the praises of
god, there would not exist such a big population in this planet.

Eri



Eri

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in

news:ollueahsqtj4cf292...@4ax.com:

My apologies. I mistakenly thought you had some interest in the subject.
--
S.O.P.

[Öö Tiib]

I don't think people have to speak (or to type) to interpret reality (or
anything). Interpretation is personal. It has to be kosher only for
those who believe that some dangerous god is reading their thoughts
and so it is safer and pious to think in the "correct" way.

> Thus, there must exists as many realities as groups of people that
> would share some some common speech about, about the reality whatever
> it is.

Likely there are as lot of (at least slightly) different interpretations of
reality as there are thinking brains.

> I remember I was taught in a religious school that "we were put in this
> world to sing the praises of god". The boys were very disappointed
> with this argument for they thought differently. We were put here to
> eat the best we could if we can, and to enjoy life while it last.
> Many of they were also thinking about sexual pleasures when they would
> have when they would grow up; they had heard something about the pleasures
> of sex. That must be the reason for the present overpopulation, good
> food and sexual pleasures. If we would had been singing the praises of
> god, there would not exist such a big population in this planet.

By that logic Europe has most crappy food, lousy sex and the people are rather
dedicated to praising the god. As result we are slowly dying off:
http://adapt2dc.nth.gov.hu/html/trends.html

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2015 21:33:43 +0000 (UTC), the following

I do. What I have no real interest in is addressing a series
of hairsplitting complaints.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in

news:84d1fal3l1qa2h8t2...@4ax.com:

Splitting hairs? You have no real interest in splitting *posts*. Walter
Bushell, Sneaky O. Possum, what's the diff?
--
S.O.P.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 21:54:24 +0000 (UTC), the following

I have no idea what you intended to impart by that comment.
Mine was directed at the question about the meaning of
"reality", which is at heart a philosophical question; most
people would understand what it means in casual
conversation, especially as related to the question of the
meaning of "sane" and/or "rational".

[Walter Bushell]

In article <XnsA44E8C95B9718sn...@213.239.209.88>,

"Sneaky O. Possum" <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Splitting hairs? You have no real interest in splitting *posts*. Walter
> Bushell, Sneaky O. Possum, what's the diff?

It may not matter to you or to most people on the planet, but it
matters to me.

--
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed. Me.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote in news:proto-3DD4A8.21392428022015
@news.panix.com:

> In article <XnsA44E8C95B9718sn...@213.239.209.88>,
> "Sneaky O. Possum" <sneaky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Splitting hairs? You have no real interest in splitting *posts*. Walter
>> Bushell, Sneaky O. Possum, what's the diff?
>
> It may not matter to you or to most people on the planet, but it
> matters to me.

I am he as you are he as you are me as we are all together.
--
S.O.P.

[Earle Jones27]

*
I thought I gave you what I thought you said you thought you wanted.

earle
*

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 2 Mar 2015 19:20:10 +0000 (UTC), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by "Sneaky O. Possum"
<sneaky...@gmail.com>:

....and we're all Howard Hershey.