Darwin's Illusion

[Dan From Smithville]

Yeah, I know. But that is still only a variant for science you have here in these threads. The general one is to confuse what is subjective and claim it is objective.
But that is everyday in general culture for some people.
I will give you an example for another thread - "... fat, useless people ...". If you really question some people it ends in that other people are a negative as a fact and not that I transfer my feelings and project them into other people. It is the same:
I think/feel something as me about another part of the world and thus it is so for the other part of the world.

If you start noticing that one, then you realize it is not special for claims in regards to science.
It comes in 3 variants:
You are useless.
What you do, is useless.
I decide for all humans what is useless.

So yes as a scientist speak up against that as it is relevant to science. But if you look in general, that is not unique to science.

Regards

I'm trying to understand this. Is it fair to say you are saying within the scope of science, making wild subjective claims is a fail, but that they are widely provided in everyday life and we adjust and react to them subjectively as well?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

So no answer to my post.

I'm probably more agnostic. I don't believe any version of God I've investigated because of lack of evidence but I remain open to offers.

I thought you were Australian.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

If someone presents- as all reatii ists do-
that they know ToE is false then they are in fact
claiming to know more than any researcher.

I looks like arrogance to me even if they
don't comprehend just how arrogant that is.

I agree. It looks like arrogance. I'm not opposed to arrogance entirely if the person that expresses it actually provides the reasons and evidence to seem so superior. And sometimes being resolute and direct can seem like arrogance, but I can't think of any examples that come to mind from some of what I have seen on this thread. I've seen resolute and direct levied at creationists, but not necessarily in a way that mimics the arrogance I've observed in return.

 

[Audie]

I thought you were Australian.

You never know about people.
I've long been Hong Kongite but now
(**cough**) transitioning to S'poranian.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I don't know what that means. Is AL ancient language? Is it meant to mean a literal language with grammar and vocabulary, or is the word being used to include non-linguistic signals, like neurons communicating with one another across synapses using neurotransmitters?

Also, here we have the problem not only of ambiguity, but of another unsupported claim following a few dozen calls for evidenced argument. You've got the thread speculating about your motive. Why would you keep doing that after learning how it is received? People aren't paying attention to your message (logos) any more, just your meta-message (ethos). They no longer wonder what you have to say, but why you want to continue saying it in a setting you experience as hostile and disrespectful.

I just referred to a term from the philosophy of argumentation called ethos. It refers to the meta-messages a speaker or writer sends his audience in addition to the explicit meaning of his argument, such as does he seem knowledgeable, does he seem sincere, does he seem credible, does he seem trustworthy, does he seem competent, does he show good judgment, does he seem to have a hidden agenda, is he more interested in convincing with impartial argument or persuading with emotive language or specious argumentation, and the like.

Shouldn't you be noticing the effect your approach has on critical thinkers and modifying it to achieve your desired result if this is not it? You already know that they don't agree with you about providing evidentiary support for your bold claims. You think otherwise, but it's hurting you to keep insisting that you have met their requirements when you know they disagree. So modify your posting behavior accordingly, unless this is the outcome you were hoping for.

I would tell you the same thing I tell the theists who claim that their beliefs are justified by sufficient evidence, and who are also routinely rejected, which they understand as "just your opinion" and an arrogant one at that. If this is the result you're looking for - rejection of your beliefs and the kind of thinking that leads to them - then soldier on. If not, adapt. I don't know any critical thinker who would have a problem with somebody saying that they believe something as a gut feeling even if they reject that kind of thinking for themselves.

Do you mean using symbolic language? My dogs think, just not in words. Certainly, if we wind back far enough, we come to prelinguistic primate ancestors (are they all "ancient man," or just ancient H.sapiens?), so if you mean thinking in words, I agree, some ancestors were the first to think in words, before which, none did.

Digression: I think we can also suss out the origin of the concepts of intelligence and creativity. It appears to me that there was a time when man had no concept of intelligence, and so considered the beasts his superiors and even made sacrifices to them. With time, man eventually understood that he was their superior in battle despite not having the strength or speed of the beasts, and that this advantage was related to his tools (weapons) and organization.

Also, we see when man had no concept of his brain being creative, and that all creative inspiration was received, as from muses.

I've elaborated further on both of these here if you are interested. Notice the use of evidence supporting each of these ideas. My thinking here is speculative, like yours, and the ideas are likely new to many, but presenting them unambiguously and with supporting evidence is why I don't get the kind of responses you do. That's not to say that other critical thinkers find these arguments compelling, but unlike with you, they have something they can try to rebut if they care to. They likely know exactly what I mean and why I say it. I think you could help yourself and improve your RF experience if tried to do something similar. Strive for clarity, and give your argument and evidence if any. You still might be rejected, but it will be your ideas (logos) and not your methods (ethos) that are rejected. Nor will your character or motives become an issue to speculate about.

OK. How about improving this? Why are you using non-standard abbreviations instead of writing words out? Go ahead and use standard abbreviations without explication like USSR and CIA. Then flesh it in with the reason you say so, which hopefully, contains your evidence if you used any. Why do you think you know this? How could it be possible that one learns something and can no longer understand something else?

For a minute, I couldn't figure out who the Al being referred to was. Another piece of evidence against using personal shorthand and non-standard abbreviations.

In some ways, I am a little surprised at how the use of fictional nomenclature agitates me. But thinking on it, it isn't just the hubris, but the idea that it belittles a basal science to the level of being arbitrary to the point that anyone can make up nomenclature for whatever reason fancies them. It overlooks the intense scrutiny and difficult work that taxonomist carry out in order to come to the hypotheses that they do and determine the evidence that they use to test them.

I suppose I have a warm spot for taxonomists and the bandying about of fictional taxa as if anyone can do it gets my hair up.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You never know about people.
I've long been Hong Kongite but now
(**cough**) transitioning to S'poranian.

I imagine that wherever you are, you will be interesting and unique.

S'poranian. That looks and sounds even more exotic rendered that way.

 

[Audie]

I imagine that wherever you are, you will be interesting and unique.

S'poranian. That looks and sounds even more exotic rendered that way.

Singapore must have seemed almost
unimaginably distant and strange to
Euros in the days of sail.

Since then the S'poranians devised a new
language. Which sounds strange to anyone else
from anywhere!

 

[cladking]

I don't know what that means. Is AL ancient language? Is it meant to mean a literal language with grammar and vocabulary, or is the word being used to include non-linguistic signals, like neurons communicating with one another across synapses using neurotransmitters?

What do you think bees call the "waggle dance"? Ancient Language was how people thought, performed science, communicated, and remembered their past. Everybody on the planet spoke this same language but 'language" is an abstraction in our language therefore just like bees they lacked a word for language. They had words like "said" or "listened" but they referred to who was doing what not how they were doing it.

Metaphysical language is not that hard to understand. A computer program has eight words that break Zipf''s Law just like AL and it can drive the net so a 4000 word language can drive stinky footed bumpkins. Just like computer language every word bears a logical and mathematical relationship to every other word. Words were representative and no word was defined. just like computer language each word had a fixed immutable meaning that was representative instead of symbolic.

the words existed in three categories and the choice of category defined whether the word was the subject, object, or meaning of the sentence. Every sentence had words from each category and the grammar was the "laws" of nature.

Computer language drives a program but AL drove the understanding of the listener.

Remember the brain resonated with logic and language. The language was built naturally around the brain so the listener would have the same thought as the speaker. We tell people what we're thinking but ancient people invited them over for coffee and cookies. They were not only on the same page when they conversed but they tended to always default to about the same page. Each of them could apply all of his knowledge to something and it was almost additive when there were groups. When we get in a group we get stupid and crazier. They were a force of nature and we are a force of science. They had no beliefs we have only beliefs.

All language includes things beyond mere vocalization but AL relied on such things much less than we do.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Singapore must have seemed almost
unimaginably distant and strange to
Euros in the days of sail.

Considering the voyage of the Beagle kept Darwin at sea for five years, I imagine so.

Since then the S'poranians devised a new
language. Which sounds strange to anyone else
from anywhere!

It would likely sound strange to me in any event. But I think I would enjoy the experience just the same. I need to get out more.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Like the others below (and like me), you were speculating on a motive, suggesting attention-seeking behavior. I agree, but I don't have a negative reaction to it. He has a lot of imagination but not a lot of rigor to guide it, and has come up with speculations that titillate him and that he wants to share and which he hopes will be taken seriously, but that's just not possible without the rigor.

I think you're right in some cases, although I don't get that sense in this case. I think he wants acceptance, not rejection. If you'll indulge me, I'd like to repost a few paragraphs on just that from a few months ago:

​

An interesting phenomenon of creationist apologetics is the failure of the apologist to recognize that his arguments only work on other faith-based thinkers, such as those reading creationist websites. He never seems to notice that when he brings these same arguments to those well trained in the sciences and in critical thinking, that they in every case tell him that his argument is incomplete and/or fallacious, or if he does, attributes it to intellectual dishonesty on the part of his critics rather than that his arguments just don't cut it with the knowledgeable.​

​

Here, those arguments are counterproductive to the apologist. Here, his errors are cited. It seems to me that there is zero hope of advancing the creationist agenda in a mixed venue like this one. The creationists routinely are shown their errors and dismissed as unqualified to discuss the science.​

​

Or maybe the creationist knows this and doesn't care. Perhaps he sees himself as a martyr in the lions' den doing what he thinks he is commanded to do by his God even in the face of adversity and rejection, which are described as a virtue. It's a common theme in evangelism.​

I get that as well, but I have a different read on what's going on in such heads:

In my opinion, it's often Dunning-Kruger, which I've decided is the result of not knowing what critical thinking is or does, which is a little different from thinking that there exists a better way to think and the D-K victim falsely believes he can do it. That was my early understanding of that situation - somebody falsely believing he was flying with the eagles, but now I see at not being aware of the possibility of flight. The evidence for that is how often we read, "That's just your opinion" in response to a sound conclusion.

The bulb lit up for me when discussing Covid morbidity and mortality data, which showed the efficacy of the vaccine to prevent sever illness and death in immunocompetent people, and I got that answer. It suddenly occurred to me that if one is unaware of this way of knowing, all of his or her opinions not arrived at empirically (like favorite restaurant) are faith-based guesses, and such a person assumes that all of everybody's opinions are just gut feeling, hence, "That's just your opinion." This is the kind of person who might say that to his math teacher when corrected on a math problem if he didn't expect saying that to work out badly.

When I had this discussion with another RF poster regarding vaccine efficacy and got the "your opinion" response, I explained that it was more than a mere opinion, that it is possible to have opinions that are demonstrably correct, and it is possible to know that about such ideas, THAT was called arrogant. I was considered arrogant for being willing to say that one can be correct, know it, and know that contradictory opinions are incorrect.

I find it very difficult to read posts that amount to what seems like to me to be fan fiction being passed off as science. By this I mean where key pieces of a story are used as a core to develop a personal imaginary story. It's not a depiction of a reality that anyone has evidence for, but it is delivered as if the person delivering it has volumes of evidence they refuse to reveal.

 

[cladking]

You've got the thread speculating about your motive. Why would you keep doing that after learning how it is received? People aren't paying attention to your message (logos) any more, just your meta-message (ethos). They no longer wonder what you have to say, but why you want to continue saying it in a setting you experience as hostile and disrespectful.

My experience is there are far more readers than posters. I always write to the readers rather than the posters. Posters are merely the guardrails on the road. This is why my responses often don't quite match the question or objection. I am continually posting evidence and logic. Just because "skeptics" don't see me citing Peers or identifying the giants upon whose shoulders I work hardly means that it isn't evidence or isn't logical. I don't agree with the assumptions that are part and parcel of modern language. These assumptions underlie every single paradigm with some (paradigms) resting entirely upon nothing but words that look real but have no foundation.

I've stated my motive numerous times; the human race is committing suicide through belief in survival of the fittest and not understanding our own science, the past, and consciousness itself. I would like it to stop. I know young people I would like to see live long productive and happy lives and at this point it seems very problematical.

Neither science nor religion is capable of stopping it and conditions continue to deteriorate. Science has reduced large swathes of reality to bits and pieces of disjointed data and religion is ancient disjointed data. It all needs to be recombined. And it must happen before machine intelligence arises. I want to live to see linear funiculars proven as the means to construct "all the works of wonder in the (ancient) world".

I believe the duty of every individual is to have fun and leave the world a better place.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Okay, you two.
This is irrelevant, because you can as individuals do it differently. But if you want to get on a wild ride of what evidence is, then I can do that.

1st level. Is evidence cognitive in brains or independent of brains? Well, simple test. Point to evidence and explain how it is according to external sensory experience? You can't. You will always answer with what you think evidence is. That makes it a norm/standard/procedure to follow for what evidence is.

2nd level. Can the given person do meta-cognition or do the person take his/her/their thinking for granted?
Example:
Someone: I know the universe is physical and not from God.
Someone else: I know the universe is from God and not physical.
Me: I don't have to do either, because one of you are doing something false according to logic, yet we are all 3 in the universe.
The trick I use, is that I notice we are all 3 thinking, notice that we are 3 thinking differently and thus I test if I can think differently and get away with it.

3rd level. "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." - Protagoras.
The first part is in other words, the different ways we evaluate what works.
Overall there are 5 different measures and then combinations for most contexts.
-Objective evidence as per observation/instruments and models made based on that.
-Objective logic as formal cognition in brains and how to do that.
-Inter-subjective norms for how we ought to interact, i.e. the social.
-Individually for how a given human cope; i.e. psychology.
-What happens when someone tries to make sense for all that and makes a model of that; i.e. a worldview.

4th level. For somebody like me, who have done this for close to 30 years including reading a lot of books about how worldviews work according to different models for different standards of evidence, I simply observe what is going on and answer with one of the 5 or a combination for a given context.

So for the dogmatic fundamentalistic theists it works for them subjectively, but it doesn't work for the standard of objective, but as long what they do, is subjective, they can do it subjectively.
And here is the joke for methodological naturalism and biology. They, you and I are variations down to the replication of the fittest genes, but since we are social animals, fittest is also local social environments and how to survive in them.
In other words, we are playing different limited cognitive, moral and cultural relativism for different strategies of in effect the replication of the fittest genes.

Now if you want to do morality in effect as objective as possible and yet still accept it is subjective, I have learned that. But there is no <beep> objective evidence for that in the strongest sense. There are just some norms, that are more universal for the variation of humans and not:
I am right and you are wrong and I have evidence for that.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.

Social behavior with a genetic basis has a range of fitness relevant to the social situation much as would any trait in the environment.

 

[Audie]

Considering the voyage of the Beagle kept Darwin at sea for five years, I imagine so.

It would likely sound strange to me in any event. But I think I would enjoy the experience just the same. I need to get out more.

I've a mezzo soprano voice. Maybe I can do it.

 

[cladking]

How could it be possible that one learns something and can no longer understand something else?

You're thinking of thinking because it's the only way you can think.

The tower of babel wasn't so much about the downfall of Ancient Language as it was the end of science, history, new technology, human progress, comfort, and economies. It wasn't about the end of AL it was the end of a way to think that generated progress and science. Modern languages today are much better for communication than the pidgin languages that survived babel but we STILL CAN"T USE LOGIC AND OBSERVATION AS SCIENCE. People have the screwy idea that if you have enough prestigious degrees you can just Look and See what's real but we must use EXPERIMENT because we are not logical. It is impossible for us to be fully logical and it is impossible to derive theory from what we believe is evidence. People have lost touch with how and why science works at all.

Without logical language not only did all science die but all scientific knowledge died with it because language WAS its metaphysics. Everything known was imbedded in the vocabulary and grammar of AL. Nobody for 4000 years had any chance to understand AL because it was far too complex. Sir Isaac Newton addressed the very question and failed because he'd have needed virtually everything known by man at that time and probably still would have failed. He needed it at his fingertips like I had it using earlier incarnations of google back when it actually worked! I made hundreds of thousands of google searches and logic charts to solve Ancient Language. It wasn't difficult or complicated, just tedious.

In order to understand AL you must think like ancient people (animals) did. I understand it because I did the work and I built models of the meaning. But modern people simply can't think like they did. The brain and people are highly plastic so it's quite likely someone could be trained but it would run afoul of child abuse laws. The individual must learn from birth and must never acquire modern language. The transition from AL to modern language would be (emotionally) painful for an AL speaker but it is probably impossible for a modern language speaker to learn AL. Of course anyone can learn to model it with minimal effort. So an AL speaker could probably communicate with a modern language speaker if he were adept but such communication would be almost only one way. I would imagine it would give him a headache.

AL simply can never be translated. AL speakers thought in four dimensions and we think in one. All those brain cells we grew at two years of age are gone now. We can't learn to think in four dimensions. This is even proving difficult to model. Some individuals might be able to model it reasonably well. Computers might be able to after we know more about consciousness. In some senses computers already do.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I've a mezzo soprano voice. Maybe I can do it.

He took that route a hundred times and there wasn't a chasm there before.

I understood most all of that. Well, 80-85%.

 

[cladking]

Why do you think you know this?

I could provide all sorts of stuff but most will have no meaning to most people and nobody will read it. Understanding ancient thought is going to remain largely guesswork and broad-brush strokes. But the simple answer is they told us many times exactly what they were thinking and we merely need to deduce why they didn't know they were thinking.

"He acted the second moment after the stimulus."

This says a great deal about the difference in consciousness.

"The idea arose like a lotus from the Nile."

Just read what they said and don't parse it because AL can not be parsed.

The following is from Butler's Semiotic Metaphysics in the Book of Thoth;

There are some interesting thoughts reported by Butler;

Quote

The-one-who-loves-knowledge, he says: “I have rowed in the circuits (?) of the sea (among?) the apprentices who are in the sacred bark … Fill my fingers (with) the rudder of the field-dwellers! I spent a thousand years while I rowed therein.”13

Quote

The-one-who-loves-knowledge, he says: “I have fished (with) the net of Shentait, Shai … the net of …” The Opener upon his Standard,26 he says: “What is the taste of the prescription27 of writing? What is this net?”28

Quote

: “The-one-who-loves-knowledge, he says:
‘Let one command for me the word which gives birth to the prophets that I may cause that they become pregnant in my flesh’,

Quote

… hieroglyphic sign, craftsman. Let him who is strong of arm be at rest (?)! The … breath (?) … Does … the servants of Horus, they raising a troop more numerous than the enchantments of the heart?

Quote

Is a learned one he who instructs? The sacred beasts and the birds, teaching comes about for them, (but) what is the book chapter which they have read? The fourfooted beasts which are upon the mountains, do they not have guidance?89

Quote

These dogs, these jackals, these baboons, these snakes which prophesize according to their utterances … […].90 I have seen (?) the dogs which are as scribes (?) […].91 […] writing of the dog […].92 […] these sacred animals which open up the storeroom

Quote

He knew the form of speech of the baboons and the ibises. He went about truly (?) in the hall of the dog. He did not restrain their barking. He understood the barkings of these and these cries of the land of the fathers … He made the four pleas (?) of the wild beasts, one by one … He understood them.

Quote

May I enter therein, namely, the character (?) of all the ibises, that I betake myself to the place of the servants of Thoth.97 May I wake up in the Chamber of Darkness, the wonder (?) of the Ibis under his guidance (?).98

I believe the chamber of darkness is just beyond the thermal anomaly where seshat wrote the Book of Thot from the ropes.

Quote

She (probably seshat) works some forty (with) gold and turquoise, another two (with) real lapis [lazuli ?] (in) the hall. The vulture discovered its young between [the] pillars (?) [belonging to] an entrance-way (of) the House of Life.

Quote

The foremost also of them, he being as a lamp which is lit, while he interprets their language.

https://henadology.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/book-of-thoth-butler-new1.pdf

I believe most of this is from modern language so is likely an interpretation of older writing. One thing is clear and that is they didn't experience writing or reading like we do. Naturally.

There are some clues in the PT as well because the words blur the line between speaking and writing as well as between reading and listening. To a primitive mind using reality as its touchstone this seems quite natural as well.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I've a mezzo soprano voice. Maybe I can do it.

I'm trying to imagine what you would sound like playing that part.

 

[Audie]

I have a stronge accent. So I am told.

 

[Audie]

He took that route a hundred times and there wasn't a chasm there before.

I understood most all of that. Well, 80-85%.

That was easy. On the street people talk 100 kph
and I've no idea what's being said.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I have a stronge accent. So I am told.

I would imagine I do too. Relevant to where I might be. The Ozark accent has some southern US influence, but it has its own unique flavors as well.