"Taught"-o-Logical Wake Up Call
Teaching ourselves a lesson

"No, Virginia, there is no Cartesian duality ... existence is completely entangled
... you epitomize what you're made of."

Ceptual Institute

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to:     Subject: Intelligent Design (ID) versus Darwinism    Date:   12 Jun 2000       Organization:  Ceptual Institute

     To all,

I've not followed the discussions in this thread, so may cover ground previously reviewed.
I hope you will bear with me as I look to cover some plausible alternatives.     
ssalthe@binghamton.edu wrote:

> to Necsi from Stan Salthe, re: replies to Bob O'Hara on science, etc.

> Continuing on those points still in need of clarification:

> (1) I argue that values need to be brought into judgment of the
> validity of scientific theories. Bob argues against this. The case
> would hinge, I think, on the <uses> of the theories. Those
> pragmatically involved in furthering technology would probably
> not require much of a values scan in themselves. Here the values
> examination would need to be focused instead on the
> technologies themselves vis-a-vis pollution, unwise development,
> and so on. Theories, however, like the Darwinian theory of
> organic evolution, that have minimal practical application and
> maximal mythological implications, would need to be subject to
> values tests.

Unless we want to retain the subtle Cartesian prejudice that mind and matter are disconnected phenomena, it's important to recognize that value systems are the product of precursive and substrate systems. The entire diversity of value/behavior systems.

What we are faced with are the fundamental essences innate to 'self-defined sets'. Value-arrangements , a.k.a. "paradigms" are the only windows through which to glimpse our own constructive fundamentals, even though tautologically, they are the products of those essences.

And yes, using any one -- or few -- values biases may lead our collective reasoning into not-quite-accurate deductions about what the universe's function/behavioral essences are. Such as: "entropy is only a degratory phenomenon" or "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" or "imaginary numbers are only a technical artifact of information processing, they have no existence in 'reality'".

The first hurdle to be overcome is to accept that tautologies DO provide perspective and utile valid information, different from individual member entities. In it's purist sense, 'tautology' is the primal enactment of 'emergence'. Let me repeat that.

Tautology is the primal enactment of Emergence.

"Values" (the more the better) will shine a light toward what are more accurate scientific theories. More reasonable (i.e., inclusive, encompassing) scientific theories, will shine a light toward the nature of "values" .. their internal architectures as well as the possible forms they can be enacted as.

> (2) Bob suggests that it would be unwise to apply a <single
> universal moral code> to judge scientific theories. Two points
> here. There is a single universal scientific practice (Western
> science), which is the fulcrum on which Western technologies and
> corporations are conquering the world for the Noosphere. In line
> with this, one would suppose that a single moral code ought to
> accompany this. A single universally valid science implies a
> universally valid moral code.

Yes, BUT ... when pluralities of systems get enacted ... all of them having to perform in some relative capacity of "self vis a vis else" .. what comes out of THAT situation is that many many different mechanisms and processes of acting out those singularly shared values and 'moral' imperatives blossom to the different capacities of severally involved systems to perform.

E.g., societies operate with one value imperative: stay functional as a 'society'.   Yet there are commercial mechanisms, decision mechanisms, information mechanisms, and more, in all sorts of arrangements. Autocracies, aristocracies, democracies, socialisms, etc., with all manner of alternative procedures to accomplish societal welfare. A uniform 'value', a diversity of 'moralities'.

> However, supposing that will not be
> the case, and that, following the suggestions of postmodernists,
> there will come to be numerous sciences, then each one could be
> scanned by an associated moral code.
>
> (3) On structural attractors being in place before the origin of life --
> yes, just as physics and chemistry were in place, and just as
> universal constants were. These attractors entrain relatively
> simple forms in abiotic systems (trees vortices), but would lead to
> much more complicated forms in the context of genetic
> constraints. In this sense, yes, <evolution is, to a large extent,
> predetermined>, but history does play a role. Every actual system
> is unique, but does have generic characteristics. Thus, looking at
> convergent evolution, the differences between new world and old
> world hawks is very slight, so here history had little effect, while, in
> comparing seahorses and chameleons, the differences are quite
> large, as a result of different historical trajectories. African and
> new world porcupines would be an intermediate case, as would
> be woody plants with compound leaves.

Mechanisms verses effective outcomes. Alternative mechanisms are differentially employed, even according to extended environmental conditions. Systems explore the optionspaces of their physical abilities/potential in coordination the world around them at any moment - and when possible - anticipated in the future together.

> (4) On using Sokal's balcony test to see whether natural selection
> is just a human concept, perhaps Bob would tell us how to do it.
> On weightiness, we know that we, and stones, fall, but the theory
> of gravitation is a human construct to explain it. It would be
> interesting to hear what phenomena, comparable to falling when
> we jump, Bob can adduce for natural selection, or, for that matter,
> for evolution. Falling requires no theories, no science. Evolution
> by natural selection is ENTIRELY constructed (phenomena plus
> explanations) within science discourse.

Not quite so easy to slough off or casually challenge. Even gravity might be a "constructed product" of the architecture of the universe (.1973, 1992), rather than a 'fundamental', or rather than some type of 'emergent', which are how it is evaluated currently.

> (5) On moving complexity science in the direction of fuzzy logic
> and vagueness (to deal especially with immature phenomena),
> Bob suggests that it would then be <less useful to scientists>. If
> complexity involves vagueness, I would contest this opinion.

I would vocally agree. But on philosophical principles. Current science operates on the notion that 'exact specification' is the goal of information/knbowledge research .. coming to some supreme and 'perfect' knowledge about how the universe functions. The thing is, this notion is a product of the 'control and secure the lifespace' methodology of survival concerned "self-vis-a-vis-else" systems. However, as mentioned above, holistic systems must endure/survive in temporal streams where new information and conditions are encountered anew on a continual basis.   Existence's best strategy -- built of what exists in the essential components and relations of the primal architecture of the universe -- is to be open, flexible and resilient ... ie: vague & fuzzy. (!) The mechanisms are only guidelines, not absolutes. They are sureties which can adapt as conditions change. Reliable qualities that persist in the face of a not always reliable experience fields.

Translation: mathematical models may be accurate but unless we give ourselves over to the recognition that parameters change in the midst of models applications then we'll forever be having to choose between perfection and fallibility. The wiser course is to reform the mathematics to match the requisite flexibility/adaptability of systems.

> In any case, contrary to Bob's opinion that vagueness <arises
> fromlack of knowledge or understanding>, I would say rather
> that in the face of vagueness we feel lack of knowledge or
> understanding. Our sense of what understanding is has been
> rather tightly constrained by Aristotelian logic, which I would say,
> we now can see is a logic appropriate only to machines. Alas for
> Western science and analytic philosophy, the world seems to be
> mechanistic only in very rough ways, and in respect to only some
> of its phenomena.

Right.    When the better way would be to embrace the unknown--confident in the essences which we're contrived of and our capacity and potential to rely on those resources to develop new ones and to become more than we are at this moment, present in a narrow window poised within Time's full expression.

> STAN

                                                                                                                                   

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