Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[YoursTrue]

I consider that all a good and worthy reason myself. I started much the same way.

I'll leave out my personal conclusions, but mention that I see many of the same arguments and attempts at them used against the science over and over for 30 plus years. There is much confusion among the people that reject science and often it is based largely on ignorance (not lack of intelligence) of the subject matter.

I mean what do you mean by those who reject science? I don't reject that what Dr. Miller put together caused a burgeoning of whatever. I also take vaccines because I think they can help me cope with disease. So what's a science-denier?

 

[YoursTrue]

You are very welcome. As I appreciate yours too. Have a good day and pleasant evening.

ok, thanks, not to carry on...maybe later...

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I mean what do you mean by those who reject science?

Rejecting a scientific theory for reasons other than factual or scientific is the rejection of science. It is the same science that leads to the theory of evolution that leads to germ theory, cell theory, gravity, computers etc. You can't pick and choose and claim you accept science at the same time. It would be like having four children and only deciding to raise one and calling yourself a great parent in my mind. That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't reject that what Dr. Miller put together caused a burgeoning of whatever.

I'm not sure what that is.

I also take vaccines because I think they can help me cope with disease.

Vaccines are a technology arising from science. You don't even have to know that in order to take them. But I'm glad that you do.

So what's a science-denier?

Rejecting some science simply because the conclusions contradict a certain ideology of belief is a science denier as I understand it. It isn't pick and choose. You may challenge, disagree, or dislike the explanations, but you have to accept that they are explanations and arrived at by the same basic methodology as science that doesn't conflict with ideology.

It would be difficult for someone to claim to accept geology and physics and claim the Earth is flat. That would be denying science even if they use lightbulbs and drive cars.

Perhaps I'll look into limiting my definition in an effort to greater inclusion and consternation of others.

 

[Subduction Zone]

To recap, you said that scientists say that telomeres kind of popped up a long time after abiogenesis. So what's to stop them from descending into the earth and "popping up" again? Maybe yours...or maybe these telomeres just can belong to anybody and transfer from dirt to dirt. Take care...

No, I said no such thing. They evolved sometimes after abiogenesis. Over a billion years after abiogenesis. I am not an expert in the field at all, but there probably are ideas on how they evolved. You keep bringing up such pointless arguments against evolution. If I tried to "refute God" with your poor reasoning then you could have had a justifiable laugh at me. But I do not do that I do not attempt to "disprove God" There is no need for me to do that.

 

[YoursTrue]

No, I said no such thing. They evolved sometimes after abiogenesis. Over a billion years after abiogenesis. I am not an expert in the field at all, but there probably are ideas on how they evolved. You keep bringing up such pointless arguments against evolution. If I tried to "refute God" with your poor reasoning then you could have had a justifiable laugh at me. But I do not do that I do not attempt to "disprove God" There is no need for me to do that.

Naturally some scientists will attempt to draw suppositions ---

 

[YoursTrue]

I finally got that. It doesn't seem to be the case as much these days. Possibly due to reductions in populations from chemical and light pollution as well as climate change. There is nothing to indicate a change in species as you imply.

I will note that you don't seem to have a very well-founded species concept and clearly a very limited understanding of speciation. I see you trying to fill those gaps with feelings turned to facts, but those don't hold up.

There are and aerodynamics may indeed be a factor. Still not evidence of speciation or suddenness of change.

The ones that collided with the cars certainly did not.

Dragonfly vision is a fitness factor that has lead to their evolution as predators. Improved vision or any particular trait is not an indicator of speciation.

Again, your understanding of species and speciation is clearly incomplete to the point that it makes any discussion of the matter very one-sided, frustrating and more or less pointless. Really, it is the fact that you don't understand how incomplete your knowledge is that leads to the frustration. You seem to think it is full and complete and beyond what scientists studying these things understand all because as a boy your radiator got clogged.

What you refer to as an adaptation isn't likely to be the genetic adaptations that are described by the theory of evolution. It is more likely that you are confusing and not seeing the actual cause or causes and calling it adaptation. You may have an interest in insects, but your knowledge of them, I find very limited and your conclusion about them spurious, incomplete or entirely off point.

There is no indication that is going on. You haven't demonstrated your belief to be fact. Nothing for me to conclude this rather unusual hypothesis should be accepted.

They are insects, not school children. There is no evidence for what you claim. There is no experiment that supports your claim that insects learn about cars as juveniles and then avoid them as adults. Juveniles don't fly for one thing, so how would they learn about cars? How do May beetle larvae that spend their lives in soil eating roots learn about cars or develop the sensory mechanisms to detect them as juveniles? You don't see many things that you don't even know you don't even know you need to consider in coming to your conclusions.

I suspect that even now, this is water on ducks back.

If consciousness provides a selective advantage, those with it will be the fit that survive the most.

Ok. All I know right now is that I have sticky traps for roaches and when they get stuck they wiggle but when I crush them their antennae keep wiggling. Yukky.

 

[YoursTrue]

No, I said no such thing. They evolved sometimes after abiogenesis. Over a billion years after abiogenesis. I am not an expert in the field at all, but there probably are ideas on how they evolved. You keep bringing up such pointless arguments against evolution. If I tried to "refute God" with your poor reasoning then you could have had a justifiable laugh at me. But I do not do that I do not attempt to "disprove God" There is no need for me to do that.

Sorry. I paraphrased. Like you know it was a billion years, right? Nothing against evolution I just don't see enough evidence to ascertain that's how it all happened. If you do, so be it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Ok. All I know right now is that I have sticky traps for roaches and when they get stuck they wiggle but when I crush them their antennae keep wiggling. Yukky.

They are pretty resilient animals. I have found them in places that I wouldn't have thought it possible for a macro-organism to gain access.

The bodies can survive without the head for extensive periods of time.

 

[YoursTrue]

They are pretty resilient animals. I have found them in places that I wouldn't have thought it possible for a macro-organism to gain access.

The bodies can survive without the head for extensive periods of time.

Wowee is all I can say while I'm chuckling . Not laughing out loud.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'll see if I understand this.

In terms of entomology for instance, the detection of one adult corn rootworm per corn plant in a field is evidence that determines the actions of the farmer. But it is limited to that context and not evidence for anything else?

Are you saying that you consider evidence contextual and that the definition of it must include the context. That no one definition applies?

Or is it about the varying quality of evidence and how the collector, review, analyzer of that evidence can impart a bias?

Well, if I understand you correct then your example rests on what assumptions and other forms of reasoning and auxilary evidence are accepted for beyound that corn field.

Now I learned this from the soft end of social science as for what in the Nordic countries is termed social pedagogy.
It relates to how to understand what is in effect real and I will start with an example from philosophy of science.
Are electrons real? There are 3 schools on that. They are real as the instruments show the effect of something real. It is not real, as we can't see them. Just do the experiments and don't worry about real.

That relates to what is real about being a human, because what you assume a human is and what evidence you accept will color your view.
E.g. there at least 5 different schools of thought on how to help a human with a psychiatric diagnosis.
- Psychodynamik
- Cognitive
- Exsistential
- Systemic narrative
- Anti psychiatry

Now the point is that in a sense none of them are really true or with evidence in the strong sense. Rather they represent different views on the situation of a human and have different relevance depending on the actual life situation of the human.
And here is the joke as back to real and in effect what is evidence? It depends on what you think it is.
Now there is still an objective reality, but you can't remove the human cogntive element.

So here is a philosophical text on Cognitive Relativism:

Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

iep.utm.edu

"

• “Reason is whatever the norms of the local culture believe it to be”. (Hilary Putnam, Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 235.)
• “The choice between competing theories is arbitrary, since there is no such thing as objective truth.” (Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol. II (London, 1963), p. 369f.)
• “There is no unique truth, no unique objective reality” (Ernest Gellner, Relativism and the Social Sciences (Cambridge, 1985), p. 84.)
• “There is no substantive overarching framework in which radically different and alternative schemes are commensurable” (Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 11-12.)
• “There is nothing to be said about either truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society—ours—uses in one area of enquiry” (Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 1991), p. 23.)

"

So to end it, there are parts of the world which are objective, but when we look closer, even in science there are cognitive assumptions for what evidence and all the related terms are.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Bharat Jhunjhunwala]

So to end it, there are parts of the world which are objective, but when we look closer, even in science there are cognitive assumptions for what evidence and all the related terms are.

The question of what is objective and what is subjective should be resolved on the basis of our objective function. If we want to study the growth of plants then the objective evidence is water, seed, etc. and we need not worry about what is the ultimate truth about a seed. So let us first decide what is our objective of this inquiry and then alone we can proceed.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The question of what is objective and what is subjective should be resolved on the basis of our objective function. If we want to study the growth of plants then the objective evidence is water, seed, etc. and we need not worry about what is the ultimate truth about a seed. So let us first decide what is our objective of this inquiry and then alone we can proceed.

Yeah, that is your understanding.
I don't believe in an "us" for the objective of this inquiry or that "we".

 

[cladking]

If I reject your evidenced argument, it's because it wasn't convincing.

One post you say you don't understand it and the next that you reject it.

I like, 'a wakeful state that confers awareness of one's surroundings and possibly of oneself.'

Intelligence requires consciousness, and consciousness requires brains.

So you define "consciousness" as an intelligent brain that is not asleep and might be aware of itself!!!

Sounds like a synonym for "awake human".

Where does intelligence go when we sleep?

That's an example of survival of the fittest. The dogs that can do that survive better than those that can't

With your definition so long as some individuals die but not all individuals die those which do not are the most fit. You don't see a problem with this definition!

And it's all described as sudden by you. Is there anything that happens that is gradual in your opinion?

No, not really. Many processes like plate tectonics seem gradual to us and in most ways really are since they occur over a large percentage of the life of the earth but on closer inspection they occur in fits and starts. Darwin observed fossils within this context and simply assumed that the process he was studying was equally or nearly as gradual. That assumption and all his assumptions were wrong. There is no such thing as "intelligence" driving science and no linear progress. Consciousness is required for change in species and populations are not stable. In point of fact populations swing wildly and "species" change suddenly at bottlenecks. Everything Darwin took for granted was false and nothing more ludicrous than the assumption that survival of the fittest drove change in species. The primary thing accomplished by survival of the fittest is to keep "species" healthy. But the term is so meaningless and so devoid of a referent it should be dropped altogether as a means to assume the conclusion that was generated by faulty assumptions.

If you can't step into the same river twice then it follows that by the time you step out and try to step back in it has changed to a different river. All change is ongoing and continuous. But the Nile will still be essentially the same river at 2 PM as it was at 1 PM no matter the time zone. The earthquake that suddenly moves two plates a few feet apart required decades of accumulating stresses and forces to drive the movement. As seen from the perspective of all time the entire life of the earth is very brief and the time required to form and ultimately to cease to exist are both even more sudden than its existence.

People and Darwin are merely playing word games. It is words we use to reason in circles and words we use to construct models and belief systems. We are homo circularis rationatio. It's what we do. Only some individuals survive > species change > fitness causes change. You can reorganize almost any thinking and then elaborate to make a very convincing argument. I'm sure I could make a convincing argument that Darwin was right but then that's not going to happen because I believe he was wrong about every single thing.

No matter how much evidence I cite or how many times I cite it people can't see any of it. They already have beliefs in trial and error, instinct, and intelligence to support their thinking. They've already analyzed most of the evidence to suit what they believe. Evidence that doesn't support their beliefs is invisible. homo circularis rationatio. We come to think Peers define reality and reality is represented by "consensus". If every Egyptologist believes in ramps and every biologist believes in survival of the fittest as the mechanism of change in species then that IS the reality by definition. And then reality changes one funeral at a time.

We are remarkable people that can be convinced of anything at all.

Science as a religion will destroy the human species for once and for all.

 

[cladking]

Man has.

I suppose you can prove there was no Tower of Babel and that the builders were anatomically identical in their brain construction and operation. I suppose you can also prove that there was no profound change in brain anatomy that coincided with the sudden onset of human behavior that occurred 40,000 years ago. I suppose you can show that humans invented agriculture over a few centuries suddenly about 10,000 years ago through trial and error. I suppose you can show slime molds aren't conscious but waking humans are. I suppose you can show there is linear progress in all things and no golden age existed.

You have a belief system and no science, no science at all, is based on beliefs. The only sciences with which I am familiar are based on experiment, experience, or natural logic, none of which many people care about.

You wrote, "Scientism is a curse and a religion that usually rejects even the concept of morality." You also said that that term applied to me, which is why I asked you if you considered me immoral or amoral.

Either I misspoke or (more likely) you misunderstood. The reason I talk to you is that you have less "scientism" than most educated individuals rather than more. Our species almost invariably has some scientism in each of us. I try to eradicate my own but I'm quite sure there's still ample amounts surviving. Education, language, and widespread beliefs all contribute to promoting scientism in each of us. Even metaphysicians are hardly immune, merely more resistant. Consciousness is pattern recognition and science discloses patterns in reality so it's natural to accept science and its conclusions as reality itself. It's easier to avoid this if we seek anomalies and try to apply all experiment to all of our thinking.

Again, no matter how invested in scientism one is this doesn't mean one is immoral. There is simply some correlation between belief in science and belief that morals do not to apply to yourself. This correlation is causing society to disintegrate as "science" becomes a commodity available to the highest bidder where it tends to be used for the benefit of a few (usually) amoral individuals. Because scientism runs rampant in the population nobody seems to see a problem. People think that so long as "consensus" exists then anything at all done in its name is a net positive. So we continue to destroy products, companies, nations, and the entire planet to enrich the few. All roads lead to war, waste, and inefficiency.

Science is not and is never reality. It is a method to study reality. As a method it works despite the fact that there is no such thing as intelligence.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

One post you say you don't understand it and the next that you reject it.

Where I agree with you, I did so before you expressed your opinion. You've not convinced me of anything. This is due to a combination of you making claims unsupported by evidenced argument often using vague language.

Speaking of clarity in writing, were you aware that vague and ambiguous aren't synonyms (or didn't used to be; if people use a word a given way enough, it becomes a dictionary entry) even though many use them interchangeably.

The ambi- in ambiguous represents two or both. The following can be understood two ways: "If found guilty, the lawsuit could cost billions." One might think that it is the lawsuit that was found guilty. When we call something vague, it's like looking through fog. We don't have two possible meanings. We have several or none. That's where I am with your use of the word sudden. I can't paraphrase a definition that represents what you've said about the concept. If everything is sudden, then, as @Dan From Smithville indicated, the word loses meaning.

You've also done that in your reply when you referred to "science as a religion." When we increase the extension of a word, that is, the number of things to which it can refer, we lower its specificity, the limit being when there is no belief system that you wouldn't call a religion.

No matter how much evidence I cite or how many times I cite it people can't see any of it. They already have beliefs in trial and error, instinct, and intelligence to support their thinking. They've already analyzed most of the evidence to suit what they believe. Evidence that doesn't support their beliefs is invisible.

I think you need to consider that you have something to do with you not being understood. That comment sounds like the words of somebody who is never understood when he writes about certain topics (I imagine waiters understand you, for example, unless you begin talking to them about Dawin, ramps, homo circularis rationatio, etc.).

You understand that in terms of others having cognitive biases.

Either I misspoke or (more likely) you misunderstood.

Here would be a good place to start. Do you really think miscommunication between us is due to my lack of understanding? You see how I write and think. It's organized and uses plain language. I'm pretty sure that it is comprehensible. Other people that I can understand seem to have no difficulty understanding me. You, on the other hand, have a different experience according to your words above.

So you define "consciousness" as an intelligent brain that is not asleep and might be aware of itself!!! Sounds like a synonym for "awake human".

You've paraphrased me inaccurately. Consciousness is not a brain. It is the result of brain activity. It the aware, wakeful state of some animals. My words were, 'a wakeful state that confers awareness of one's surroundings and possibly of oneself."

You added intelligence to my definition of consciousness based on my words, "Intelligence requires consciousness, and consciousness requires brains." I won't quibble with that. One could argue that the barest conscious state is intelligence of a sort, in which the definition of consciousness could include some reference to data gathering and problem solving - my working definition of intelligence.

Where does intelligence go when we sleep?

Except when dreaming, it goes where the light goes when we switch it off.

With your definition so long as some individuals die but not all individuals die those which do not are the most fit. You don't see a problem with this definition!

I won't quibble with that, either. Fitness in evolutionary science refers to differential reproductive rates. Some live and produce more offspring, and some die and therefore generate fewer or no descendants. The dogs that learned to cross the street more safely would be expected to generate more puppies than dogs killed prematurely crossing streets.

Many processes like plate tectonics seem gradual to us and in most ways really are since they occur over a large percentage of the life of the earth but on closer inspection they occur in fits and starts.

The changes in plate tectonics are continuous because the flow of the mantle is continuous, and the plates ride on them. Earthquakes are obvious, sudden events, but between them, Seafloor spreading and subduction are gradual and continuous processes.

How about a little more on disambiguating words? Are you aware of a difference between continual and continuous? Continuous means never stopping, whereas continual means occurring intermittently and repeatedly. If it rains every evening for a month, that was a continual rain. If during that month, it rains nonstop for several of those day, that's continuous rain.

The mantle's magma flow continuously, but the movement of the plates as I understand it is continual - a series of small movements punctuated by period with no motion when pressure is building. Ot maybe subduction, for example, is a continuous process, movement never stopping. I don't know the science there, just how to use those words.

Darwin observed fossils within this context and simply assumed that the process he was studying was equally or nearly as gradual.

That's the conclusion that the evidence robustly supports.

We are remarkable people that can be convinced of anything at all.

Not all of us. I think you overgeneralize too much. I'm wary of your sentences that contain the word we.

There's an interesting cognitive bias called false consensus, which causes one to project his own mental states onto the majority. It comes from the idea that despite superficial differences like our favorite foods or people, we all are the same beneath the surface. The last few years have been an eyeopener for me as I learned just how different about half of Americans are from the other half. I've become more familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, which emphasizes just how different the mental states of those afflicted with this condition are from other kinds of people. The vaccine and mask tantrumming came as a surprise. Who knew that there were so many selfish people and so many willing to take advice from the uninformed? Or the MAGA phenomenon. I could never have predicted that so many people were so different from me.

I suppose you can prove there was no Tower of Babel and that the builders were anatomically identical in their brain construction and operation.

This was the first sentence in your response to my words, "Man has" when you wrote, "No "species" evolve over millions of years." You're off on the wrong track. If you disagree with my reply and want to change my mind, you'll need at some point to focus on what you seem to be rejecting and explain why it is incorrect in your estimation.

That is dialectic, where two or more thinkers attempt to falsify one another's positions in order to reconcile their contradictory opinions. I say that man - species Homo sapiens - has evolved from prehuman apes over millions of years, and from the original population of cells (LUCA from which all life descended) over billions of years.

Your comment above is unrelated to my answer to your earlier comment. But to address it, no, I can't prove that there was Tower of Babel. You seem to imply that I need to in order to reject the claim that it did.

Regarding brain anatomy, it has evolved over those millions and billions of years as well. Human brain anatomy when the myth of the tower was created is likely very similar to modern human brain anatomy. These changes are gradual, although I imagine you would call them sudden despite these long periods of time involved.

I suppose you can also prove that there was no profound change in brain anatomy that coincided with the sudden onset of human behavior that occurred 40,000 years ago. I suppose you can show that humans invented agriculture over a few centuries suddenly about 10,000 years ago through trial and error. I suppose you can show slime molds aren't conscious but waking humans are. I suppose you can show there is linear progress in all things and no golden age existed.

This also doesn't address the issue of whether man evolved over millions of years. Here's a timeline of human evolution that spans billions of years if we go back to LUCA, or about 8-10 million years ago if we start with the last common chimp-man ancestor:

Timeline of human evolution - Wikipedia

 

[cladking]

Consciousness is pattern recognition and science discloses patterns in reality so it's natural to accept science and its conclusions as reality itself.

We also accept mathematics as reality itself even though it can't even really reflect reality. It merely seems to reflect reality because it is logic quantified and these quantifications can be applied to reality because reality is logic manifest. Anything based in logic has a correlation to reality which is how and why termites invented cities and agriculture. They used natural logic that exists within the wiring of their brains to deduce the nature of life and growth and to use it for their own purposes. Their brains are part of the same natural logic that is reality itself so they themselves are individually logic incarnate. There is no such thing as "termites" there are only individuals who are conscious and share many traits that we call "termiteness'. We create an abstraction called "termites" but there is no referent in the real world.

We then mistake 'termiteness" with reality just as we mistake "theory" for reality and those who believe in science mistake consensus for reality.

In our mode of thinking all things are one and we must define words to think at all. We then mistake this oneness and our thought as reality and consciousness. What we do isn't consciousness because we can not directly experience it like a termite. We must experience it indirectly through our thinking. "I think therefore I am". Termites and homo sapiens didn't experience thought at all. This is why there are no words in Ancient Language that mean "thought" or imply anyone thought.

I understand all these concepts are alien to the things we had to believe or were taught to us during language acquisition. They are so alien because humans are so alien to other life on the planet. Our bodies and anatomy are just like other animals and other species but our mode of thought is alien because it is based on beliefs (like that we can distinguish to, too, two, tu tu, and Timbuktu) where all other consciousness is based on knowledge and logic. Animals survive through consciousness and not through being fitter than all others. Homo sapiens knew this as ancient theory and used this theory to invent agriculture. Just as the human brain is more complex than termites and more knowledge can be passed from generation to generation due to the far greater complexity of human language (Ancient Language) our agriculture is orders of magnitude more complex than that of ants.

 

[leroy]

Excuse me, but how do you determine what is reliable and what isn’t reliable?

I just told you………..if the testimony comes from someone well informed and has no reason to lie……then the testimony is reliable (unless and until the opposite is proven).................

I gave you a specific example according to own @It Aint Necessarily So testimony he lives in Mexico (or atelast lived in Mexico a few months ago)…………..do you accept his testimony as “good evidence” for the claim that he lives in Mexico? Yes or no?

I say yes because using my criteria

1 he is well informed (he probably knows where he lives)

2 he has no reason to lie


This is one of many criteria used to determine if a testimony is reliable and therefore “good evidence”

The fact that you didn’t address my argument, but decided to make a personal attack on me and un Kent Hovid is very telling and very embarassing

Say, Kent Hovind for an example.

Hovind have for years been trying to rid of the theory of Evolution and evolutionary biology. On what basis does that make him well informed, and therefore authoritative on the subject?

If you looked at his education background, none of them involved science, let alone biology. All his qualifications were about religion, including music, eg master in sacred music. None of them in biology or any biology-related field, like applied science in medicine.

And if you look at his work history, he has never worked at any capacity as a biologist of any type. All he has done was worked as teacher, teaching religious education, or being a preacher.

So nothing in qualifications or experiences make he qualified to speak about Evolution, so hence, none of these would make him well informed on the subject of biology. That would make him unreliable.

Even Answers in Genesis, even rejected him for continuing to used arguments that have already been debunked and discredited…and AiG is creationism organisation.

If Hovind just stick with subject of theology, then sure he might be well informed, but he is out of his depth, when he started to dealt into areas of biology or cosmology. Or that of any other sciences.

I don’t know Kent hovid well enough……….. but sure if what you are saying is true, then his testimony is not reliable

Actually, you are more like Hovind, talking about things that you don’t understand.

You are not well informed, nor reliable, as you believe yourself to be. You are like a reflection of Hovind.

You don’t need to comment with that aggressive tone………….of course my testimony is not reliable (neither is yours) on scientific and God stuff. This is why we are all expected to support our testimony with other lines of evidence (like a source) …………….this is why “you are wrong because I say so” is not supposed to be a good argument

 

[cladking]

I can't paraphrase a definition that represents what you've said about the concept. If everything is sudden, then, as @Dan From Smithville indicated, the word loses meaning.

No words have any meaning at all in modern language. There is a pervasive oneness to them.

Use a dictionary, preferably a real one like an unabridged 1952 Funk and Wagnalls. The crap that has been printed since or the nonsense found by Siri is worthless trip. Every word has thousands literally countless billions of meanings because not only are there many many definitions for every word but every single one f these words has many definitions composed of more words with many definitions. Think of the definitions as links to other sites and you'll see the complexity of language ands why it means nothing at all beyond the point or intent of the speaker.

This intent must be parsed by each listener. EVERY single word affects the meaning of a sentence. YOUR job is to seek a meaning that allows the sentence to make sense. If I say galactic collisions are sudden relative the age of the universe than this is what I mean. If you believe Evolution requires millions of years then my belief that they actually occur as quickly as a single generation is "sudden" in comparison.

If you don't like like the way you parse my sentence then parse it differently. If it doesn't make sense than parse it differently. All meaning can only exist in context so read the context.

This is how Egyptologists completely overlooked the literal meaning of Ancient Language. they totally and wholly ignored the context. Rather than trying to understand words in the context of a sentence they tried to understand them in the context of beliefs from thousands of years later. Because of this we got Darwin who is understood to say murder the poor and Freud is understood to say rape, pillage, plunder are OK because it's just our ids run wild. Instead of solving word meanings individually they solved them in bunches based on anachronisms and illogic.

We are not who we think we are. We are not even homo sapiens and are most assuredly in no way "wise". Every single one of our species since the "tower of babel" has known everything or have followed someone (et al) who did. Even before science made us omniscient we were omniscient. We are homo omnisciencis; hear us boast.

I put a few people on my ignore list for refusing to accept my definition of "metaphysics despite defining it as "basis of science" dozens of times for them and despite the fact that this is the first definition in the unabridged dictionary. All words mean what the speaker says and those who refuse to parse them as such are playing for games. I don't play semantics. As a child I did it for sport and was very good at it. I could trip up a lawyer in word games. I no longer play because communication is hard enough.

There is no gradual change in species. Anything I say is parsed by believers in Darwin to reflect their own beliefs. I try to highlight the differences between my beliefs and Darwin's beliefs by using words like "sudden" to refer to a few years instead of millions of years.

What word would you prefer?

 

[leroy]

Oh boy. Not in the way that you mean. Yes, the entropy of the universe is continually increasing, but that does not mean that the entropy of the Earth has to increase. The universe is an isolated system, but the Earth is (not) for all practical purposes a closed system. That means that energy continually enters and leaves it meaning that your oversimplified approach to entropy is wrong.

(red letters added by me to correct a typo mistake)

"but that does not mean that the entropy of the Earth has to increase. "

Good to know………………luckily nobody is claiming such thing...............

it meaning that your oversimplified approach to entropy is wrong.

correction... , your straw man version of my approach to entropy is wrong.



I am just curious……………..why are you implying that I am cliaming that the earth is not an open system?............did I ever made a claim that could remotely be interpreted as if I had made such a statement?

 

[cladking]

I think you need to consider that you have something to do with you not being understood. That comment sounds like the words of somebody who is never understood when he writes about certain topics (I imagine waiters understand you, for example, unless you begin talking to them about Dawin, ramps, homo circularis rationatio, etc.).

More and more I speak in a conflation of modern and Ancient Language. It is difficult sometimes to communicate even with waiters. I have a tendency to use terms like "if and only if" or "only if". I try to get too much in a brief sentence and it is very difficult for some people (especially young people indoctrinated by microsoft) to parse them correctly. Among peers and children there is a great deal of communication. I have almost no problem communicating with most educated people in person. I suppose it's perfectly normal to have communication problems but I do notice failures much more than most. I try to be patient because all communication failures are both party's fault but this is one area I lack patience person to person.

I am a generalist and as such I don't think like most people even before I discovered Ancient Language. Indeed my thought processes had many similarities to the thinking of cavemen because my manipulation of models was similar to the way knowledge affected the brains of people who thought in Ancient Language.

You might be amazed at how many levels I can sometimes communicate with other individuals. You might be equally amazed at the massive communication failures that occur in everyone's lives. Several times I have overheard two individuals discussing two separate topics simultaneously!!! I understand plenty goodly enough though I am much less well understood.