Posted on 02/15/2003 4:18:25 PM PST by PatrickHenry
I plead "guilty".
betty boop: Well, I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't already know, js1138 -- but some people just prefer to "kill the messenger." It spares one the trouble of actually having to rationally entertain "the message" one is determined not to like. We have posters on both sides of this "great ideological divide" who do that routinely. Personally, I wish it would just stop.
I am feeling the need for definitional clarity here; i.e. the "brand" of materialism expressed by js1138 is broader than that I have in mind.
Quite innocently and due to its successes, our 19th Century scientific progress led us to believe that all of the universe could be understood in terms of physical (matter and energy) phenomena. Scientific rules "evolved" (that word again) cordoning off anything not tangible or replicable and the whole structure rigidified. Political theories such a Dialectical Materialism took root and great evil followed.
Materialism in its popularly understood sense, and the sense in which it is used by the Evolutionists, is Atheistic. Ask Dawkins.
In the 1920's, QM was discovered. Its efficacy was confirmed by its fruits and, within recent decades, by experiment. At the very heart of QM is intangibility. Great efforts have been expended by the physicists to understand this intangibility by physical analogy and in some way in physical terms. That is impossible and there has been great denial. Walker IMHO has had the foresight, the insight, the vision and the courage to address this, to attempt to deal with it in a rigorous way.
To the extent that Materialism denies intangibility and/or insists that the realm of the physical is sole receptical of reality and/or existence, I am its implacable enemy. Why? Because false ideas, ignorant ideas, can permit great evil. When people are no more than things, they are easily disposed of. We saw a lot of that in the 20th Century.
So, without any intent whatever to take a shot at js1138, my use of the term, Materialism, is pejorative.
Now if the concept of Materialism can "evolve" in expansive fashion to embrace the intangible, my enmity to it will vanish.
Oh please. I already answered that for you, but to repeat what was obvious in the earlier post to you on the subject, cities appear to evolve, however, in reality they are micro-designed via human intelligent intervention.
Now, do I need to draw out a little picture of how one set of evidence appearing to support evolution, but in reality actually supporting intelligent design, is germane to a debate on evolution versus intelligent design?
Still?!
I still haven't shown such an experiment?!
That's pretty tacky, considering that I don't remember you asking for such an experiment. Are you really left with so little intellectual ammunition that you feel compelled to make up little jabs like that one above?
Come on, I expect more from someone with "Doctor" in their name.
Did you actually ask me for that falsification test earlier and I just missed it (please point out the Post # if so and I'll apologize), or are my remarks above deserved?
This insight makes me weep, it strikes an evocative chord....
What you describe is the felt sense of human alienation -- an alienation that I strongly doubt you yourself feel in any complete way, cornelis. Oddly enough, I strongly doubt you could have mustered the detachment, the "objectivity," it must have taken to compose these lines, had you given yourself up to a pure abstraction like "alienation."
Governments, social systems, international bodies, etc., all lately have signalled that "the little guy" and his concerns are of little moment to the Great Things now going forward in the world, in the name of the supposed "welfare" of some kind of "abstract humanity."
Well, I don't know about you, but I've never personally met "abstract humanity." The people I meet are persons, not abstractions.
I'm pretty sure that's the way God sees it: He knows each and every unique soul individually, by name. And loves each soul, each as His own son. If I thought otherwise, I'd change my own thinking about the futility of trying to engage "abstract humanity" as/with a motivational principle.
Keep the faith, baby! At the end of the day, Truth will out.
Hmmm. I must have missed the post that advocated a role for philosophical naturalism in the scientific process.
we as a culture should in our public schools, inform students of the most significant belief systems of our culture.
Sure, just not in science class. Let's stick to science there.
We should also teach students about how knowledge is reputed to be gained ...
Reputed? Surely you agree that knowledge has been gained using the methods of science.
the Peter Principle at work in the overextension of the scientific process into realms outside of their domain
Just MO, but I think some of the methods of science can be usefully employed in other domains.
That, and that scientific truth is necessarily an approximation of Truth, even material Truth. Perhaps we forget that sometimes...
You see that as a requirement for science then?
And some of the methods of religion ... can be usefully employed when considering ... the natural sciences.
What specific religious methods did you have in mind? The ones I can think would be hindrances.
Here I was peacefully catching up in this thread and I come across this.... Like the fish who finds a favorite food skwirming on a one stranded metal swingset, I have to check this out please.
Why... two?
I don't think Mr. Asimov will mind the diversion.
Perhaps no one posted to you personally, but this has been the primary running criticism of ID throughout these threads. Falsifiability is what ID needs in order to be considered as science.
Friend, if you review this thread you'll see it wasn't I who brought this up. I've simply been trying to correct your errors. As for my list being odd, perhaps it's your errors that are odd since there is a direct correspondence.
Now come on, you at least must admit that a state machine that can't read what it's written can't be universal.
The Turing Test is a single way to conclusively prove that a machine is processing information/commands rather than merely expressing or copying them.
Wrong again. It is proposed as a sufficient test of whether a machine is intelligent, the gist being would a person "conversing" with the machine be fooled into believing it was actually another person. Mash here
The only practical method I can think of for knowing if a machine is "processing information" is to model it mathematically (e.g. demonstrate the program it executes) and show that the output depends on the input.
the Turing Test doesn't have to be the only way to tell if something is processing rather than merely copying.
I can think of a very simple one. Compare the input to the output. If they are always the same then the machine is copying. (To really know of course you'd have to model it mathematically and prove that the output will always duplicate the input.)
This particular genetic command will be the computer equivilent of the programming command EXIT SUB.
There is no such thing as the genetic equivalent of a "EXIT SUB." For there to be there must also be isomorphs for "flow of control" and "call stack." I'm sure you mean instead that you modify the DNA to prevent that gene from being expressed.
will the organism in our experiment behave differently ... or change in any way due to our new command?
Certainly it will be different. It probably will behave differently. But it also may not if, for example, that gene you disabled was functionally duplicated elsewhere.
Now, so what? Cells respond to and modify their chemical environment. The behavior can be very complex. DNA plays a very important role in that behavior.
Materialism has to incorporate (so to speak) any phenomena that can be studied. To be the subject of study, a phenomenon must include statements that can be falsified by some sort of experiment. The phenomena must either be reproducible or must recur or must leave some trace that can be observed independently of those making the initial claims about it.
Thoughts (including spritual experiences) present special difficulties because they are private. I don't deny their existence, but I do have two points on which I might disagree with you. First, I would say that these private experiences are coming under study as technology advances. This point is undeniable. The second point is my personal opinion, and is that these private phenomena are material and entirely material in origin. The old term for this is monism, the assumption that existence is seamless, with no gap or differentiation between material and spiritual. There is no brick wall preventing scientific study of anything that exists.
I personally differ with those who believe it is possible to have a theory of everything. If we get something that looks like one, it will have exceptions. I think it's turtles all the way down.
Taking a breath (it's getting late).... I see that as a beginning of the requirement for life, but that's not what you asked. No, not for at least the bulk of the natural sciences, although I'd say it helps in determining what the sciences are good for. But I do see a requirement to avoid indoctrinating kids-through-adults in 'naturalism' Darwin-style and Sagan-style, by means of teaching the theories of evolution. One of the important ways to avoid that, is to present those culturally sustained "backdrops," I've mentioned, including major schools of thought about how a Creator may or may not be involved.
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'And some of the methods of religion ... can be usefully employed when considering ... the natural sciences.'
What specific religious methods did you have in mind? The ones I can think would be hindrances.
Sketchy first-draft stream of semi-conscious:
1. applied humility, especially being at the foot of God,
2. applied respect, especially for life, very especially for human life --call that one reverence (as "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" and we are created "in His image")
3. applied morality/ethics - we sure need 'em, more and more, in our sciences
4. stewardship of this world
5. appreciation for and use of revelation, intuition, reflection, synthesis (Einstein said something like, "Imagination is much more important than knowledge.")
Those are some, I'd say. And here:
6. shucks... love
Attitudinal, ain't it? But much more than we commonly think of by that word. In the fullest sense, attitude is how our spirits are aimed, how we are at the core.
Read that on the wall of... well, on a bulletin board outside of a public restroom, this evening.
With the exception of #4 (I completely disagree with it), I see how these attitudes are useful but they're not particularly religious ones unless you think one has to be religious to be humble, intuitive, ethical, etc.
Thank you for that excellent creationist contribution.
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