Why is evolution even still a debate?

[night912]

It's impossible to know thyself without knowing consciousness.



This must be determined. We must build ever more accurate models. Modern humans must do this through experiment and no other means.



I seriously doubt that reality will differ too much from what is apparent. But it really doesn't matter because we must seek the answers. If we are a brain in a vat what thing created the apparent reality? How did we get in a vat and how do we emerge from it?



I think you're still imagining natural selection to argue against the absence of natural selection. This appears to be the equivalent of saying nuh uh.

Obviously there are individual differences in fecundity but this hardly makes one individual more fit than another and the fact that all else being equal will have more off spring does not make it more fit nor do the off spring cause a gradual change in species. Species simply don't change in this way. Show an experiment or empirical evidence that supports a gradual change and win the argument.

Have you ever heard of the Dodo Bird?

 

[cladking]

Have you ever heard of the Dodo Bird?

Of what relevance is this?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It's impossible to understand consciousness except through experiment and no experiment has ever been performed vis a vis a definition for "consciousness". We do not know anything at al;l about consciousness except through Look and See Science which has no metaphysics and hence no meaning at all.

truth is not necessarily a reflection of reality

There are assumptions that underlie definitions and axioms which also can't be tested.

Darwin was patently wrong but we see a separate "reality" that doesn't exist.

We simply come to understand things in terms of false assumptions.

It's impossible to know thyself without knowing consciousness.

Obviously there are individual differences in fecundity but this hardly makes one individual more fit than another and the fact that all else being equal will have more off spring does not make it more fit nor do the off spring cause a gradual change in species.

These are a group of comments you just made. Rather than address them individually, let me ask you what value you see in these ideas. What value have they been for you? Rephrased, how would it benefit somebody like me if I agreed, if you were right in some sense and I saw and assimilated that? How would my life change? Would I be happier? Would I make better decisions?

As you can probably tell, my outlook is pragmatic, focused on results. I view life as a series of conscious experiences, some pleasant, some unpleasant, some neither. And I imaging a graph of these experiences as points above and below a baseline, peak experiences yielding peaks as wide (lasting as long) as the state persist, pleasant experiences tending to be wider, flatter hills above the baseline, and undesirable experiences graphed below the baseline. Total lifetime experience can be thought of in terms of the total area below the curve subtracted from that above it. The value of reason is in managing this profile to facilitate more and better desired outcomes (desired experiences) and fewer of the other.

I value ideas according to their ability to help me maximize that total experience - to make good choices and avoid creating avoidable unhappiness the best I can. Given that definition and in those terms, what value has there been for you in adopting such ideas over more conventional thinking, and what value do you think there would be for others if you convinced them that you were right? I've shared my definition of wisdom, which is knowing what will bring the most happiness for the longest time. Intelligence is the ability to identify and solve problems such as how to acquire money, but wisdom is understanding the limits of money and the danger of pursuing it excessively or improperly.

That's what I want for myself - the wisdom to make good choices and the intelligence to effect them, which is discovered empirically - trial and error to discover what works. Maybe one scrimps and saves in pursuit of a goal that when attained, is relatively unsatisfying, or one falls into a situation not seen as desirable but which later proves to be. These are all new roads on the mental map of how reality is and works - things to do and things to not do to keep that curve as far above the baseline for as long as possible. Haven't I just described the pursuit of happiness and how wisdom and knowledge about how the world works facilitates achieving that?

To me, that's what the reasoning faculty is useful for, and nothing else. Reasoning is not one of those desired experiences, but a means to acquiring and accumulating them, a means to an end rather than an end in itself. So ideas are valued or not according to their ability to accomplish that goal.

And critical thinking is the crown jewel there. How many mistakes are avoided using this? It is one of the most valuable things a person can learn. It's the inoculation against being indoctrinated. Like the coronavirus vaccine, it's not 100% effective, but mostly so. The indoctrinated make decisions others want them to make, which is rarely in their best interest, as when you participate in an insurrection because you can't tell you're being played and wind up in prison, or refuse a vaccine because others want you to and you wind up on a ventilator or dead. Obtaining desired outcomes (or, in this case, avoiding undesirable ones) is what the reasoning faculty can do, but nothing else.

So, how do these ideas you present fit into that? If they don't, I don't think I can use them for anything. And that is why I asked you what they do for you - what decisions you have made because of them resulting in desirable outcomes, how they improve your life to see if they might improve mine. You can see why my understanding of things like truth and knowledge addresses only ideas that are demonstrably the case.

I might have already shared this from an anonymous Internet persona with you :

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue. If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything."​

 

[night912]

Of what relevance is this?

It's extinct eventhough all members of the species were equally fit for survival.

 

[cladking]

It's extinct eventhough all members of the species were equally fit for survival.

Are you suggesting then that some species have no fit individuals so are destined to become extinct?

Perhaps this also explains why some species never arise at all. Every individual is so sick and unfit that it never comes into existence.

Were all your ancestors unfit?



"Extinct" simply means every individual died and says nothing at all about the fitness or unfitness of any one of them.

 

[cladking]

These are a group of comments you just made. Rather than address them individually, let me ask you what value you see in these ideas. What value have they been for you? Rephrased, how would it benefit somebody like me if I agreed, if you were right in some sense and I saw and assimilated that? How would my life change? Would I be happier? Would I make better decisions?

Science went off the rails in 1813 and is mired down in 1920. As such it is wrong about a great many things. I lack the expertise to identify most of them but I can certainly highlight those that fly in the face of reason, experiment, and ancient science. I can spot some that are metametaphysical; ie- not based in experiment. Hence my primary concern is getting things back on track and this will require a massive paradigm shift. Obviously everybody can not and should not suddenly be trained in generalism rather than specialties. Most progress, especially technological progress, is going to come from specialists for decades to come even if I am right and significant resources are committed to its study.

I suppose most individuals are going to have little pragmatic use for any of this for decades as well. Of course just having a new perspective and new insights can be highly beneficial in numerous practical applications such as operating or guiding a business or industry.

Perhaps my primary concern is to establish through experimentation and empirical evidence the exact means that was employed to build the Great Pyramid and all the great pyramids including most ancient megalithic structures. Once this is done I'll go back to my primary goal which is the invention of machine intelligence or to understanding the nature of thought and consciousness. People can't imagine it but there is no science and no technology in the process we call Egyptology. It is the quintessential Look and See Science and it is largely responsible for many problems today. Just as "Evolution" leads inexorably to the mistreatment of people Egyptology leads to the perpetuation of superstition and ignorance.

Most individuals have little use for the knowledge that there are no identical things in existence or the butterflies are the chief cause of hurricanes. Our experience is in a world created by people who didn't know such things and designed our world accordingly. People don't care pyramids were built with linear funiculars and Egyptologists can't see their nose in front of their face. We have eradicated most immediate threats to the existence of most individuals so even being more fit to survive is of no practical value any longer.

Nobody needs to know any of this to do his job properly. But in order to progress, increase efficiency, and improve the commonweal this is the fastest and most direct path.

Without an understanding of EXACTLY how science works nobody can know what he knows. And this is the most direct threat to our species; we all think we know everything so are individually and collectively doing things that are killing us and damaging our niche. We are promoting incompetence and ignorance and destroying the "fittest" among us. So long as we remain "homo omnisciencis" we remain in grave danger of utter extinction.

 

[cladking]

I value ideas according to their ability to help me maximize that total experience - to make good choices and avoid creating avoidable unhappiness the best I can. Given that definition and in those terms, what value has there been for you in adopting such ideas over more conventional thinking, and what value do you think there would be for others if you convinced them that you were right?

It's the only life I know.

There are numerous practical advantages and it's been a most interesting life even though a lot is spend "below the curve", or at least below your curve based on your definitions. Comfort has never been very important to me. Indeed discomfort makes time pass more slowly extending the lifetime.

To each his own, eh?

Reasoning is not one of those desired experiences, but a means to acquiring and accumulating them, a means to an end rather than an end in itself. So ideas are valued or not according to their ability to accomplish that goal.

Again, my primary interest is in thinking about as many things as much as possible. My very first project was learning language and my second, understanding thought, is ongoing.

So, how do these ideas you present fit into that? If they don't, I don't think I can use them for anything.

They have little use to you but then I know how change in species occurs and then learned that ancient people made the same discovery.

"Truth has no meaning divorced from any eventual decision making process. The whole point of belief itself is to inform decisions and drive actions. Actions then influence events in the external world, and those effects lead to objective consequences. Take away any of these elements and truth immediately loses all relevance.

"We should expect similar decisions made under similar circumstances to lead to similar outcomes. Pragmatism says that the ultimate measure of a true or false proposition lies in its capacity to produce expected results. If an idea is true, it can be used in the real world to generate predictable consequences, and different ones if that idea turned out to be false. In other words, the ultimate measure of a true proposition is the capacity to inform decisions under the expectation of desirable consequences.

"All we need to know is that we have desires and preferences, we make decisions, and we experience sensory perceptions of outcomes. If a man has belief B that some action A will produce desired result D, if B is true, then doing A will achieve D. If A fails to achieve D, then B is false. Either you agree that truth should be measured by its capacity to inform decisions and produce results or you don't. If you agree, then we can have a conversation. And if we disagree about some belief, we have a means to decide the issue. If this is not how your epistemology works - how you define truth - then we can't have a discussion, and I literally don't care what you think, since it has no effect on anything."

It sounds almost like something I might have said long ago. It's true enough but it has a limited perspective that I, for one, no longer share.

It also has a serious problem with the fact every possible application is going to be deconstructable so its truth is limited.

I believe the only point to living is to have fun and leave the world a better place. -to each his own is the first axiom.

 

[night912]

Are you suggesting then that some species have no fit individuals so are destined to become extinct?

Perhaps this also explains why some species never arise at all. Every individual is so sick and unfit that it never comes into existence.

Were all your ancestors unfit?



"Extinct" simply means every individual died and says nothing at all about the fitness or unfitness of any one of them.

You're the one who claimed that every member of the species are equally fit and no gradual change. So if they're all equally fit, then how did they all go extinct if they're all equally fit?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

OK. I didn't see an answer there for how the ideas you presented benefitted your life apart from enjoying contemplating them, and that's a good enough reason to do that. I also enjoy just thinking. But these would be different kinds of ideas than I was discussing that help with making good decision to facilitate desired outcomes. In this case, the contemplation and the pleasure it brings IS the desired outcome, like reading a good book.

Comfort has never been very important to me. Indeed discomfort makes time pass more slowly extending the lifetime.

I believe the only point to living is to have fun and leave the world a better place

I guess I have to attribute meanings to comfort and fun that make these two comments complimentary rather than contradictory. Comfort is important to me, but I may not mean what you do when I say so. Comfort, pleasure, fun, satisfaction, happiness - they're all more or less the same thing - staying above the base line as high and for as long as possible.

I imagine living every life possible, remembering them all perfectly, and then choosing the best one to live again and again. That life is will yield the most of whatever it is we call that which we pursue. It's called pleasure in the phrase pursuit of pleasure when used to mean what we all have a right to do, rather than in a disapproving way as when an atheist is told that he is rebelling against God to pursue hedonistic pleasure.

Comfort to me is being above the baseline. It includes not just physical comfort like a plush recliner in an air conditioned room, but also love, the respect and approval of others, and other positive experiences down to freedom from anguish, shame, worry, regret, anger, fear, boredom, insecurity (financial, health), and other unpleasant experiences. Think Maslow's hierarchy of needs all met. I suspect that that is the goal of most people even if they don't realize so explicitly.

 

[cladking]

OK. I didn't see an answer there for how the ideas you presented benefitted your life apart from enjoying contemplating them, and that's a good enough reason to do that.

It's impossible for me to separate what I am through being a scientist, a generalist, an individual, a thinking person, or any one of my beliefs. But I have a small talent for experiment design and am good at hypothesis formation and invention. Most of what I do is for my own use but I also affect my environment in numerous ways. Most are personal and not really relevant to the discussion.

But these would be different kinds of ideas than I was discussing that help with making good decision to facilitate desired outcomes. In this case, the contemplation and the pleasure it brings IS the desired outcome, like reading a good book.

I think the kinds of decisions you're talking about like whether to marry Linda or Charlotte or to become a doctor or a ditch digger are ones I make in my sleep. I simply choose to wake up with some kind of answer.

...the respect and approval of others,...

Lol.

There's nothing wrong with such things but I am naturally predisposed to disagree with everyone. If Egyptology said pyramids were made with linear funiculars or biologists announced there's no such thing as "survival of the fittest" I'd want to see the experiment and data and I'd be inclined to doubt it. Obviously they mustta used ramps and funiculars can only operate on ramps and a fast rabbit has a better shot of survival than a pokey one. I have no use for things like respect and approval. When you buy high and sell low you get everyone's undying respect. When you run to starboard with everyone else people consider you one of the guys but you're still among the first to die when the boat capsizes. Panics and group behavior are the most destructive to individuals. Paradigms are just a way to think so everyone knows where and when you lived.

-to each his own.

There's no question that people are wholly distinct from animals and all other life. There's little question that humans are devolving and becoming less fit. There are many dangerous challenges facing the human race over the next century and unless we mend our ways there is every chance we will not survive. A good start would be to change our perspective so we can see the massive and structural waste that is creating most of the CO2 which could possibly be problematical in the future. All government meteorologists believe it's a problem in the here and now and will be in the future as well. A good start would be to come to understand the mechanisms that drive speciation and start the study of consciousness. Who knows how much time we have left?

 

[cladking]

So if they're all equally fit, then how did they all go extinct if they're all equally fit?

They are all equally dead.

They are each most sincerely dead.

 

[night912]

They are all equally dead.

They are each most sincerely dead.

Now that you've realized that your claim doesn't hold up, there's no need to continue discussing about it.

 

[cladking]

Now that you've realized that your claim doesn't hold up, there's no need to continue discussing about it.

I got it now.

Your contention is they are each equally unfit so they are equally dead thereby proving gradual change in species caused by natural selection.

I think my answer was funnier though.

 

[cladking]

Your contention is they are each equally unfit so they are equally dead thereby proving gradual change in species caused by natural selection.

This seems a mighty burden on dodo birds that died thousands of years ago in overstuffed nests surrounded by huge coveys, hordes, and flocks of off spring and in-laws. How can even the fittest bird provide for generations as yet unhatched? To be lumped in with many other less fit birds is very unfair.