Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
That would be Dennett with two 't's, the Tufts philosopher? Or some guy called Dennet? And if you're familiar with his books, how come you can't spell his name?
If your "proof" were possible
It is possible, it just isn't ready for publication. Prof says, in red ink, that the abduction needs to address all the questions. That will require more work.
That is because they are separate topics. They are neither contradictory nor supplementary nor mutually exclusive.
Galileo was a crackpot with a couple of lucky formulations.
Science will end except for a few dilletantes and philosophers once we move off-planet and the State loses its stranglehold on individuals.
I will, after it has been published and milked for as much revenue as reasonably possible.
How many times a day do we hear this? Just wait, eventually, sooner or later, some day, all of biology will be explained by means of physical causes, and physical causes alone!
Fortunately, not all scientists are willing to hold their breath while they wait for this grand culmination to occur. Here's Dr. Grandpierre's view of the matter:
"When physics applies the maxim of ignorance, and ignores biological inputs to fit the closure thesis, it misses the main point of the problem. Moreover, the physicalist dogma that 'one day we will be able to determine the actual behavior of living organisms by exclusively physical methods when all the physical details of the most complex organisms of the universe will be clarified' merely postpones the aim to solve the scientific questions of biology by plausible and simple scientific methods to an indeterminately distant future. We find this attitude as decelerating the development of science. Referring to the 'impenetrable complexity' instead of real explanation does not seem to differ from the methods of the 'occult sciences' -- since it plays the role of a Jolly Joker at all places where we need scientific explanations instead."
He also writes this, so very germane to our present discussion:
"The tricky machinery of life is not contained in the laws of thermodynamics. And it is just this tricky machinery that contains the large amount of information necessary for life. Berkovich notes: 'The functioning of living systems has little to do with physics and chemistry. It is a problem of information control' (Berkovich, 2003, 2). This implies the ability of biological information to direct the behavior of cells utilizing the smallest amount of energy. All living systems manifest energy transformations from numerous microscopic motions converging into macroscopic behavior, e.g., as when we write with our hand (Elitzur, 2004). The control processes of living systems act at the molecular scale (Dolev, Elitzur, 1998). Moreover, thermodynamic state functions are macroscopic at the global level of the system; therefore they cannot determine the complex behavior of the cells and of individual molecules. But if there is a relation between energy and manifested biological information, then the astronomical amount of information present in living organisms still needs thermodynamically significant energies to become effective, and so thermodynamics can be really efficient in the study of the nature of life."
When you consider that the human organism is made up of roughly 6*1013 cells, and in each cell more than 105 chemical reactions occur per second, which generally involve localized, "neighbor relations"; and yet the living system is able to organize and integrate all of its astronomically large number of parts distributed throughout its physical extent into one single, dynamic, self-organizing, sensitively-responsive global whole -- well, you've got to figure an enormous amount of information is required. And "information" does not appear to be a physical quantity.
How many times a day do we hear this?
Haven't heard it much since the members of the Vienna School passed on. The style now is that we can't ever get to a final physical explanation. That's what I think, and that State-sponsored science will come to an end without arriving at a final physical explanation.
Radical. Science is the body of peer-reviewed published work. Perhaps science is a passing fad, but this would grease the skids.
How about Annals of Improbable Research which IIRC was formerly known as Journal of Irreproducible Results
/grin
Cheers!
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Why, the rooster came first, he always does...
Otherwise, the egg never gets fertilized ! /grin
Cheers!
Forteans are their own peer-group.
You'd rather discuss my typos than discuss what your darwin-crazed hero said he wanted to do to non-believers
How many times a day do we hear this? Just wait, eventually, sooner or later, some day, all of biology will be explained by means of physical causes, and physical causes alone!
Seems reasonable to me. 100 years ago, we didn't know the medium of genetic information. 50 years ago we had just learned the very basics of that information. Today we know the sequence of the entire human genome, and those of several hundred other organisms.
100 years ago we really didn't know what an enzyme was. 50 years ago we were learning the physical structures of the first enzymes. Today, we're getting close to determining the structure of the entire proteome (all of the proteins that are ever expressed in a living cell.)
100 years ago, we knew a very small part of the chemistry of the living cell. 50 years ago we had worked out the most basic pathways. Today they've coined the word 'metabolome' (the sum total of all the metabolic chemistry of the organism).
We're no more than 20 years away from a complete, mechanistic description of the entire life-cycle of a bacterial cell. That means you will be able to put an E. coli cell into a computer, set it going, and predict everything about it - structure, chemistry, constituents, reproduction, etc., using deterministic physical equations. I doubt any credible scientist doubts this will happen.
Fortunately, not all scientists are willing to hold their breath while they wait for this grand culmination to occur. Here's Dr. Grandpierre's view of the matter: "When physics applies the maxim of ignorance, and ignores biological inputs to fit the closure thesis, it misses the main point of the problem. Moreover, the physicalist dogma that 'one day we will be able to determine the actual behavior of living organisms by exclusively physical methods when all the physical details of the most complex organisms of the universe will be clarified' merely postpones the aim to solve the scientific questions of biology by plausible and simple scientific methods to an indeterminately distant future.
Dr. Grandpierre will likely be proven wrong in his own lifetime.
When you consider that the human organism is made up of roughly 6*1013 cells, and in each cell more than 105 chemical reactions occur per second, which generally involve localized, "neighbor relations"; and yet the living system is able to organize and integrate all of its astronomically large number of parts distributed throughout its physical extent into one single, dynamic, self-organizing, sensitively-responsive global whole -- well, you've got to figure an enormous amount of information is required
On the other hand, the amount of knowledge is increasing exponentially. Computer power is increasing exponentially. It took us less than 100 years from the time we figured out where the genome was, to a complete description of it. As I've said, I doubt it will take us even 20 more years to figure out a single cell.
Scarier still, though, the gaps left for guys like Grandpierre to bloviate about are getting smaller and smaller. We reductionists will inherit the earth, and the last will and testament has already been written.
(Insert obligatory evil laugh here)
You should first get your story straight about what he said. First you claimed he wanted concentration camps. Then zoos. Now it's 'cultural isolation'. For all I know, he thought they should have a good scolding.
Stop lying, and maybe somebody might take you seriously.
for all you know....
that answers a lot of questions
enough for now
A heretic taught by heretics, eh? Like the Nipponese potter's ethic -- they fire their pots with an imperfection, so as not to become too proud of their work. What do the overwhelmingly prideful create that does not fully shatter in the sun? Better a slightly cracked pot.
Where were you when I was five years old and werestling with that question? Well, finally, finally -- that's settled! Thanks.
Let's analyze these statements.
(1) "Life is a willful thing once it achieves a certain level of organization." Granted. But you gloss over the problem of how it gets organized. It seems the attributa potentia ["AP"] are not the cause of the organization. For the AP can be anything, anytime. They are more like the building blocks, or the material, out of which systems both living and non-living are constructed. And what these "AP guys" do basically, following their own instincts I imagine, is simply follow the physical laws. So the question then becomes: Are the physical laws information-rich enough to produce biological behavior? It would appear that the answer to this question is: NO.
Plus i suppose i could mention that to attribute will to what is here an abstraction or totally inexact generalization (or as Yockey might put it, to an algorithm) is to engage in anthropomorphism.
(2) The AP have "been there all along, and will be there long after our sun cools to a cold dark lump...." But there's nothing in this observation to show how they become other than a stochastic process.
(3) Jeepers! You predict the final outcome of our universe here! How am I to understand this as other than a religious statement?
So much to do, so little time.... Thanks for writing, RightWhale.
Which physical laws?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.