tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post4209910782514434201..comments2024-01-01T08:18:36.278-05:00Comments on Real Physics: Dawkins's DuneLawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-20193265320830413882013-10-21T03:11:37.641-04:002013-10-21T03:11:37.641-04:00RD is more rationalist than makes sense to me, but...RD is more rationalist than makes sense to me, but he has said publicly that he is an arch rationalist even amongst his colleagues. Someone's got to be it.<br /><br />I found the book to be beautifully written and the content consistently fascinating.<br /><br />Okay, he's a hard head (not as bad as Dennet, though!) but he's a brilliant and fascinating hard head. I don't find his writing egotistical at all - he is scrupulous about crediting others' ideas and respectful of colleagues with differing hypotheses. If you noticed a little preening, well, I never noticed it.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-18670342649672243902009-06-11T08:45:01.242-04:002009-06-11T08:45:01.242-04:00Joe, what's wrong with philosophizing about ma...Joe, what's wrong with philosophizing about matter? Gödel's proof is about mathematics, not philosophy; if anything it limits what a mathematical system can say.<br /><br />Words' imprecision is actually their strength, which is certainty. As Mike Augros <a rel="nofollow">points out</a>, take two statements:<br /><br />1. Some things move<br />2. Light moves at 3x10^8 m/s<br /><br />and ask yourself: which is more precise? which is more certain?<br /><br />Obviously the first is more certain because the certainty of the second depends on it. The second also requires all sorts of preliminaries about special apparatus, measurement, etc., whereas the first is simply evident to our senses.<br /><br />You wrote: "Any definition used in natural philosophy of life fails because it can be read to encompass other non living things." I don't follow.<br /><br />Please explain what you mean about philosophical vs. notation sense. Please keep in mind that implicit in anything you say is the claim that it is about <i>reality</i>.<br /><br />LGLawrence Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-3186372449072678292009-05-26T10:18:08.637-04:002009-05-26T10:18:08.637-04:00Lawrence:
By the way, thanks for the blog.
My po...Lawrence:<br /><br />By the way, thanks for the blog.<br /><br />My point is and has been that neither the discipline called science nor the discipline called philosophy can prove or explain life.<br /><br />Science fails as set forth above. Philosophy leads into science in the material area -- so much so that Gödel, perhaps the greatest logical philosopher ever, said that 1+1=2 has to be taken on intuition -- it can’t be proven through logic. <br /><br />You have said that natural philosophy -- the other end (from logical philosophy) of the discipline called philosophy --- can explain life. <br /><br />It can’t. Natural philosophy fails because it uses words. But words can’t explain what life is because words are too imprecise. Any definition used in natural philosophy of life fails because it can be read to encompass other non living things. <br /><br />Nor, with all due respect, am I using philosophy. I am simply pointing to an area -- a lacuna in the disciplines that doesn’t permit either of them to prove or explain life. That doesn’t use language in the philosophical since, but rather in the notational sense -- there is no there there.Joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-77725249373832610182009-05-20T10:18:37.401-04:002009-05-20T10:18:37.401-04:00Joe,
Thanks for your thoughts.
The problem is t...Joe, <br /><br />Thanks for your thoughts.<br /><br />The problem is that scientific "proof" as you call it relies on the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Certainly "if it rains, my sidewalk is wet" but just because the sidewalk is wet doesn't mean it rained. Any success science has in describing reality is not, strictly speaking, proof. I'm not here denying that it has truth value or that science has helped us establish real things about the world, but simply that the method of "proof" you cite is not as certain as you seem to believe.<br /><br />That said, you need to prove your assertion that "any proof attempts to recapture ground philosophy ceded to science." It has never been demonstrated that the old philosophy doesn't apply to nature or material reality. I'm not talking about erroneous Aristotelian cosmology, but rather the underlying principles--often called metaphysics, but more accurately called natural philosophy. Principles like causality, truth, evidence, and even proof have no "scientific" basis, but come from philosophy.<br /><br />In any event, the statement that "science doesn't need philosophy" is not open to scientific support (how could it be proven empirically?), but is a philosophical statement. So to deny science's need for philosophy you are already engaging in philosophy. The one who claims science can do without philosophy has refuted himself simply by speaking.<br /><br />LGLawrence Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-21873828444950595162009-05-14T11:58:00.000-04:002009-05-14T11:58:00.000-04:00I think proof is best explained by the language of...I think proof is best explained by the language of those disciplines, so proof is whatever is generally accepted there as proof.<br /><br />Can science prove or explain life? <br /><br />Scientific proofs involve:<br />1. Observations. <br />2. Hypothesis. <br />3. Deduction and predictions using the hypothesis. <br />4. Confirming (or not) the deductions and predictions<br /><br />Science can’t meet 2. or 3) at least:<br /> <br />It can’t meet 2. because it can’t formulate a hypothesis proving life exists. Viruses and crystals may “grow” and reproduce. Science can’t really define why a virus is living and a crystal not living. But they are!<br /><br />Science can’t meet 3. because it can’t make any predictions (and assuming arguendo the failure to form a hypothesis is ignored.) Can science predict how to make life? No - it can’t make it either. Can science explain life by predicting how it might develop? No - evolution is an explanation of the past but not predictive. <br /><br />-----<br /><br />Can philosophy prove or explain life? <br /><br />Philosophy can’t prove or explain life either. Its proof system -- logical philosophy -- is incapable of proving or explaining life, because any proof attempts to recapture ground philosophy ceded to science. Life is a material phenomenon and philosophy is kicked out of the way in explaining material things with the finality of Bishop Berkley’s foot.<br /><br />So neither science nor philosophy can “prove” or “explain” life.Joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-59745194868502036012009-05-05T22:12:00.000-04:002009-05-05T22:12:00.000-04:00Joe, what do you mean by "prove"? What do you mean...Joe, what do you mean by "prove"? What do you mean by "explain"?<br /><br />LGLawrence Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-83385073381287290632009-05-05T12:22:00.000-04:002009-05-05T12:22:00.000-04:00Your point here is that life is and has something ...Your point here is that life is and has something else beyond accidental patterns of matter, which may well be true, but can’t be proven using science or philosophy. <br /><br />Life is a whole system, from the day of its creation. That system (which may have only a few interdependent parts, a one-celled organism for example, or a virus) relies on itself to take external matter (that outside the interdependent system) and incorporate it within the interdependent system. And so perpetuate the whole system. Up to a point. And then the system dies and decays, becoming external matter, etc. because it has lost its organizing principal, its system. <br /><br />But all that is true of the barchan. It starts by being created and presumably grows as a result of positioning and external circumstances, but also on a subatomic level from the interactions that occur within its parts or grains of sand, perpetuates itself, decays and dies, etc.<br /><br />Now you say that: “The dynamics of the sand that makes up the dune is certainly part of the dynamics of the dune, but notice that for the most part…” <br /><br />But that makes the only difference between the barchan and plant one of degree not kind and so repeats Dawkins error. According to your analysis the sand grains themselves only make up “part” of the dynamics, and so aren’t sufficient to make up the “more” of the dynamics required for life. But with “more” sand grain dynamics the barchan would have the same organizing principle that life has: an “intimate connection between the dynamics of a plant and the dynamics of its parts.”<br /><br />“Intimate connection” defines life. But how? We can’t really use science because science can’t show how a baclan has life -- in the sense that we point to it and say that is life. Science can show quantity - x number of things and/or connections equals life. “Quality” of connection can’t be examined -- science can’t judge good or bad, and it is meaningless to talk of a “quality” connection (in this context) being the intimate connection of life. <br /><br />This topic does relate well to the name that creature post. Because there and here you are using philosophy where science fails to try and examine life.<br /><br />I don’t think, though, that your attempts fare any better than a scientific approach; the “accident” of the philosopher as observed in nature doesn’t exist any more. Science has intruded in that realm as it has with so many things once known as philosophy. Science has shown that everything affects every other thing. (The statistical averages that we observe and call “reality” are averages, so the effects may be small, but they exist.) There are no accidents. <br /><br />I don’t think, with all due respect, that with these examples philosophy can effectively respond to the what is life question anymore. Science has taken these philosophical constructs and shown those constructs rely on invalid perceptual suppositions. <br /><br />But we still know life “is” -- we know we are having a true perception of a true “thing” when we point to something and say that is life. And we know we are having a true perception of a true “thing” when we point to something and say that is not life. <br /><br />And so who cares if science and philosophy fail to explain that thing? <br /><br />What is more interesting is that we can’t point to something and say we can prove scientifically or philosophically you are life. But we can point to it and say you are life. We are perceiving some “thing” that we can’t prove and we know it is true.Joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-20434579503204122902009-04-30T15:29:00.000-04:002009-04-30T15:29:00.000-04:00Good to meet you, James.
LGGood to meet you, James.<br /><br />LGLawrence Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-1839914547362182912009-04-29T06:22:00.000-04:002009-04-29T06:22:00.000-04:00Steve Grand points out that you and I are more lik...<I>Steve Grand points out that you and I are more like waves than permanent 'things'. </I>I first came across this idea within the context of what it really means for us to be embodied. When considered a little abstractly, our bodies are instantaneous instances of coherence, sustained by material waves of food, water, and their digestive byproducts. I think I recall reading it in <I>The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology</I> by Hans Jonas, but that's from a single reading more than two decades ago.<br /><br />It was a Google-alert of mine for references on the Web to <I> The Last Superstition </I> that fortuitously brought me here for the first time this morning. I finished a careful first reading in December but need to follow with others to fulfill my objective of really understanding and remembering its arguments.<br /><br />To introduce myself, I completed a Ph.D. from UCLA in atmospheric sciences long after getting a BS in physics from Harvey Mudd College. My longtime avocation is political philosophy, since I had an intro course to it from one of Leo Strauss's students.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12837045975155986763noreply@blogger.com