Darwin's Illusion

[The Hammer]

Inventing light bulbs is trial and error. Cosmology and optics about experiment.

Same same all the way down it's turtles.

 

[Little Dragon]

This isn't probably the thread for it but your friend might not be wholly wrong so much as mostly wrong.

What a pity.

 

[Little Dragon]

Same same all the way down it's turtles.

+10 pts for Terry Pratchett reference

 

[The Hammer]

I don't know. This isn't probably the thread for it but your friend might not be wholly wrong so much as mostly wrong. The reality is we don't really know anything about history from before ~ 2000 BC.

We know plenty from well before then. It's what I studied for 4 years. Pre-history as we call it. The times before writing became popular.

 

[Little Dragon]

Pre-history as we call it.

The really interesting stuff.
Noice.

 

[cladking]

Who says?

Egyptology is archaeology, and Cultural Anthropology, as well as Linguistics....

Where do you think it has gone wrong?

The exact same place as Darwin!!!! Not only did they go wrong at the same place but for the exact same reasons and because Darwin existed! They went wrong by accepting all of Darwin's erroneous assumptions plus the Darwinian idea that evolution is a march toward perfection that goes in a single direction.

The very fact that Egyptology has never made a single prediction or come up with a single explanation for anything is proof that they are wrong. Of course even if they were right about everything (or anything) it would prove neither their methodology nor their understanding. No worries though they can't make prediction or even explain what exists. They brag they study the pyramids with their backs to them.

 

[The Hammer]

The exact same place as Darwin!!!! Not only did they go wrong at the same place but for the exact same reasons and because Darwin existed! They went wrong by accepting all of Darwin's erroneous assumptions plus the Darwinian idea that evolution is a march toward perfection that goes in a single direction.

The very fact that Egyptology has never made a single prediction or come up with a single explanation for anything is proof that they are wrong. Of course even if they were right about everything (or anything) it would prove neither their methodology nor their understanding. No worries though they can't make prediction or even explain what exists. They brag they study the pyramids with their backs to them.

I'm not even going to bother to respond to this drivel.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Little Dragon]

So long and thanks for all the fish.

+10 pts for Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy reference.

 

[cladking]

We know plenty from well before then. It's what I studied for 4 years. Pre-history as we call it. The times before writing became popular.

I'd love to comment on several of these latest posts but we are drifting off topic so will not. Suffice to say they weren't funny and I don't rate any posts at all any longer.

I don't want to trash your field and I understand you have lots of knowledge about it but the problem is there is no intelligible writing to support any understanding of homo sapiens. Obviously there is some that is interpreted to be intelligible but it's mostly just believed to be incantation or fantastic tales translated in terms of later writing. Certainly one can gather a lot of knowledge about "pre-history" but the fact is there is no repeatable way that leads to an understanding of the people. I believe this is caused by a total communication failure and speciation event we call "the tower of babel". The very nature of language changed so it was no longer even translatable.

Remember writing was invented in 3200 BC and proto0-writing goes back at least to 5000 BC but history didn't start until 2000 BC. This should give everyone pause. What happened between 3200 and 2000 BC that we know virtually nothing?

 

[The Hammer]

What happened between 3200 and 2000 BC that we know virtually nothing?

Apparently whatever you feel like.

 

[cladking]

+10 pts for Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy reference.

Darwin should forget the fall.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

As I have repeatedly said: Reality is logic incarnate. ANY logical system applied to the study of reality will have concordances to reality. It is simply natural but this doesn't mean that Evolution is accurate or that landing a man on the moon proves we know all about gravity.

I simply don't know how to say this any more simply. Humans know almost nothing but millions of times what we knew even a century ago. And still science changes one funeral at a time.

The problem with Evolution is that nothing about living things, living systems, or life itself can be reduced to experiment (at this time) so our knowledge is an illusion.

You don't need to repeat any of that. I saw it all the first time and several more times since. It simply isn't meaningful to me. These are claims sans supporting evidenced arguments, and they contradict my own beliefs, which are evidence based. We don't need to know ALL about gravity to know much about it and put that knowledge to practical use.

One doesn't need to know why something works in order to repeat it.

Agreed. You seem to be contradicting yourself now.

I'm a pragmatist myself but things that work don't imply or confer knowledge.

I disagree. That's the sine qua non of a correct idea - that it reliably predicts outcomes not as well predicted without it. The other is that it cannot be successfully refuted. If you want to collect good and useful ideas and only those, try empiricism.

If this is directed at me all I can say is our beliefs on these subjects are essentially identical.

Disagree again. Our thinking is very different.

The main difference is that I know I am very ignorant and everyone seems to think they already have every answer.

Then you're also ignorant of the opinions of people like me, which is not the one you represented.

To me real "truth" can not be stated in our language because every utterance can be parsed in an infinite number of ways.

Perhaps you've drunk from the post-modernist cup too deeply. A little bit of epistemic nihilism is helpful. Too much is disabling.

Postmodernism is the idea that early Enlightenment scientist and philosophers were deceived by their ideas about objective reality and truth. Reality, according to postmodernists, is a conceptual construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language. This point also applies to the investigation of past events by historians and to the description of social institutions, structures, or practices by social scientists. All knowledge is fuzzy, and some say that there is no such thing as Truth. They tend to be anti-science. Also, for postmodernists, reason and logic too are merely conceptual constructs and are therefore valid only within the established intellectual traditions in which they are used.

In summary, language creates illusion, truth doesn't exist, and the program of science including historical and social science is doomed to failure. I don't deny that there is some merit there, but one can see how this leads to an endorsement of fanciful and fuzzy thinking and what I called epistemic nihilism, which is so extreme in many that they entirely distrust whatever their lying eyes show them.

Doesn't that describe you?

Reductionists want to factor out reality itself

I think that describes the epistemic nihilist. Reductionism is examination of reality at its smallest scales, and is only part of a full understanding. I'm a retired physician. We understand people in terms of their parts (anatomy dissolves into histology, then cytology, then biochemistry) but also as an entity that is part of a family and culture which is part of the tree of life.

 

[cladking]

That's the sine qua non of a correct idea - that it reliably predicts outcomes not as well predicted without it.

No. Prediction suggests understanding and proper theory. That something works the same way each time is just experience.

Disagree again. Our thinking is very different.

Our thinking is very different. Our conclusions on this specific subject are very similar.

All knowledge is fuzzy, and some say that there is no such thing as Truth

Truth exists. It merely can't be stated in our language.

the program of science including historical and social science is doomed to failure.

No. Science might be abler to overcome virtually any obstacle at all. I'm suggesting a means here to get past the Unified Field Theory. This problem is apparently intractable to reductionistic science. But that hardly means it can't be overcome.

language creates illusion,

It creates an illusion of omniscience. I'm sure I've mentioned this before.

Doesn't that describe you?

Not in the very least.

Reductionism is examination of reality at its smallest scale

None of the important things in life can be reduced AT THIS TIME. For instance the cause of change in species can not be reduced at this time. Yet Darwin nearly two centuries ago believed he could reduce it!!! And didn't need no stinkin' experiment to do it.

 

[cladking]

And didn't need no stinkin' experiment to do it.

Did I ever mention that outside of metaphysics science does not even exist and that there is no metaphysics outside experiment. I shouldda pointed this out.

 

[gnostic]

The exact same place as Darwin!!!! Not only did they go wrong at the same place but for the exact same reasons and because Darwin existed! They went wrong by accepting all of Darwin's erroneous assumptions plus the Darwinian idea that evolution is a march toward perfection that goes in a single direction.

The very fact that Egyptology has never made a single prediction or come up with a single explanation for anything is proof that they are wrong. Of course even if they were right about everything (or anything) it would prove neither their methodology nor their understanding. No worries though they can't make prediction or even explain what exists. They brag they study the pyramids with their backs to them.

The utter absurdity in your post.

You are doing this again, using conspiracy theory and misinformation. You really have no integrity, do you?

For one.

Conspiracy theory: you are blaming Darwin for Egyptology, something he has never done. Charles Darwin was never an Egyptologist.

Darwin has never been to Egypt, never talked or wrote about the pyramids or how they were built, as he has no qualifications and experiences in engineering or architecture. Nor has he ever translated ancient Egyptian texts.

Natural Selection is a biological mechanism of changes in the changed environment. To simply put it, Evolution is biology. Evolution isn’t engineering, isn’t archaeology, isn’t studying ancient Egyptian politics, culture or art, isn’t translating Egyptian hieroglyphs or hieratic.

The level of deliberate distortions of reality you would go, demonstrates just how unreliable and uneducated on the subject matters that you have just brought up.

You have done this time, and time again, you keep linking Darwin & Evolution together with Egyptology and your absurd theory about pyramid-building. You seem to be obsessed about about pyramid building even when the subject have nothing remotely to with pyramids or with Egyptology. You would just bring up irrelevant topics.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

the Darwinian idea that evolution is a march toward perfection that goes in a single direction.

That's not a part of the theory, which describes a purposeless, mindless process. You frequently claim that Darwin was wrong, but how persuasive is that when you don't paraphrase him accurately and don't make arguments in support of your claim? Such words mean nothing without you demonstrating why you believe them with an example of what you consider an error from Darwin and what makes it an error in your estimation. To claim error requires that you falsify the allegedly erroneous claim, otherwise, you've said nothing about reality.

Egyptology has never made a single prediction or come up with a single explanation for anything is proof that they are wrong.

As I said, the sine qua non of a correct idea is that it be demonstrably correct, that is, that it can be used to accurately anticipate outcomes, and that it can't be successfully rebutted. Ideas that predict nothing are worthless. Creationism and astrology are also good examples. And that fact is how we know that they are founded in untrue principles.

No. Prediction suggests understanding and proper theory.

You're agreeing with me here, so why the word "No" there?

Truth exists. It merely can't be stated in our language.

I don't have any problem expressing myself there, but we probably have different definitions of truth.

None of the important things in life can be reduced AT THIS TIME. For instance the cause of change in species can not be reduced at this time.

I'm not sure what you mean, but much is comprehensible by examining it at the smallest scales. This is how we understand molecular disease like sickle cell anemia. It's how we understand infectious disease and how antibiotics work.

there is no metaphysics outside experiment.

We probably use different definition here as well. Experimentation is physics to me, not metaphysics. Metaphysical constructs (noumena, ding an sich) are hypotheticals or heuristics of sorts invented to explain and unify experience (the phenomena of consciousness).

 

[cladking]

That's not a part of the theory, which describes a purposeless, mindless process.

Correct. But is is a basic tenet of that era (and this) that humans are continually and continuously improving and becoming increasingly intelligent. It is also fundamental to his thinking that the fit which survive are breeding increasingly fit new species given a very long time. Obviously a four legged whale is not superior to one that swims in the sea but still the latter is a culmination of what came before as naturally selected for fitness. This is the same thinking that kept Britain ruling the waves and subjugating people all over the world despite the consequences to the people.

 

[cladking]

Why you believe them with an example of what you consider an error from Darwin

I've listed many times what Darwin's errors were and even when i provide links it is simply ignored. Remember he believ4ed 8in stable populations and that we don't need to understand consciousness. I've listed at least a dozen of his cockeyed 19th century assumption some of which are still believed today (The fittest survive). They are gainsaid or ignored even when I quote chapter and verse of Darwin.

All his beliefs were consistent with 19th century. ALL people are a product of their place and time. 19th century beliefs were not based in science but in religion and language with a healthy dose of old wives tales.

We are homo omnisciencis or homo circularis rationatio (choose your poison). We always and can only end up at our assumptios exactly like Darwin did. It is simply impossible not to reason in circles for our species unless experiment can derail our one dimensional train of thought. It's the way we think and we have been thinking this way for only 4000 years. Before this men were wise not opinionated and omniscient.

 

[John53]

Correct. But is is a basic tenet of that era (and this) that humans are continually and continuously improving and becoming increasingly intelligent. It is also fundamental to his thinking that the fit which survive are breeding increasingly fit new species given a very long time. Obviously a four legged whale is not superior to one that swims in the sea but still the latter is a culmination of what came before as naturally selected for fitness. This is the same thinking that kept Britain ruling the waves and subjugating people all over the world despite the consequences to the people.

If that's what you think evolution is then you should do a bit of study on it before attempting to discuss it. Just the basics would help you immensely.

 

[Little Dragon]

This is the same thinking that kept Britain ruling the waves and subjugating people all over the world despite the consequences to the people.

It wasn't Darwinian evolutionary thinking bruh. It was a big phat navy. That allowed one little island, to become a global superpower for centuries.