[note: the author formatted this is a way that did not leave space for a page break. So I am inserting the break at the top — NR]
- Paley’s teleological argument is: just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watch-maker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker. Paley also addressed a number of possible counterarguments:
- Objection: We don’t know who the watchmaker is. Paley: Just because we don’t know who the artist might be, it doesn’t follow that we cannot know that there is one.
- Objection: The watch (universe) is not perfect. Paley: Perfection is not required.
- Objection: Some parts of the watch (universe) seem to have no function. Paley: We just don’t know those functions yet.
- Objection: The watch (re universe) is only one possible form of many possible combinations and so is a chance event. Paley: Life is too complex and organized to be a product of chance.
- Objection: There is a law or principle that disposed the watch (re universe) to be in that form. Also, the watch (re the universe) came about as a result of the laws of metallic nature. Paley: The existence of a law presupposes a lawgiver with the power to enforce the law.
- Objection: One knows nothing at all about the matter. Paley: Certainly, by seeing the parts of the watch (re the universe), one can know the design.
- Hume’s arguments against design:
- Objection: “We have no experience of world-making”. Counter-objection: We have no direct experience of many things, yet that never stops us from reasoning our way through problems.
- Objection: “The analogy is not good enough. The universe could be argued to be more analogous to something more organic such as a vegetable. But both watch and vegetable are ridiculous analogies”. Counter-objection: By definition, no analogy is perfect. The analogy needs only be good enough to prove the point. And Paley’s analogy is great for that limited scope. Hume’s followers are free to pursue the vegetable analogy if they think it is good enough. And some [unconvincingly] do imagine the universe as “organic”.
- Objection: “Even if the argument did give evidence for a designer; it’s not the God of traditional Christian theism”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding.
- Objection: “The universe could have been created by random chance but still show evidence of design as the universe is eternal and would have an infinite amount of time to be able to form a universe so complex and ordered as our own”. Counter-objection: Not possible. There is nothing random in the universe that looks indubitably designed. That is why we use non-randomness to search for extraterrestrial life and ancient artefacts.
- Other arguments against design:
- Darwin: “Evolution (natural selection) is a better explanation”. “There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” — The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. Counter-objection: “Natural selection” would be an alternative hypothesis to Paley’s if it worked. But it demonstrably doesn’t, so there is not even a point in comparing the two.
- Dawkins: “Who designed the designer?” Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Dawkins: “The watch analogy conflates the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves with the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes”. Counter-objection: Paley is aware of the differences between the living and the inert and is not trying to cast life into a watch. Instead he is only demonstrating that they both share the property of being designed. In addition, nothing even “arises”. Instead everything is caused by something else. That’s why we always look for a cause in science.
- Objection: “Watches were not created by single inventors, but by people building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: In Dover case, the judge ruled that such an inductive argument is not accepted as science because it is unfalsifiable. Counter-objection: Both inductive and deductive reasoning are used in science. Paley’s argument is not inductive as he had his hypothesis formulated well before his argumentation. Finally, Paley’s hypothesis can absolutely be falsified if a random draw can be found to look designed. This is exactly what the “infinite monkey” theorem has tried and failed to do (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: Paley confuses descriptive law with prescriptive law (i.e., the fallacy of equivocation). Prescriptive law does imply a lawgiver, and prescriptive laws can be broken (e.g., speed limits, rules of behavior). Descriptive laws do not imply a law-giver, and descriptive laws cannot be broken (one exception disproves the law, e.g., gravity, f = ma.). Counter-objection: Of all the laws with known origin, all (100%) have a lawgiver at the origin. The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive laws is thus arbitrary and unwarranted.
- Objection: It is the nature of mind to see relationship. Where one person sees design, another sees randomness. Counter-objection: This ambiguity is present only for very simple cases. But all humans agree that organisms’ structures are clearly not random.
- Dawkins: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Counter-objection: Just a corollary: since organisms indeed appear designed, then they are most likely designed according to Occam’s razor.
- In conclusion, Paley is right and his opponents continue to be wrong with not even a plausible alternative hypothesis.
Links:
Maybe lightning hit the fittest? Or a meteor?
Ironically, the mere existence of covid 19 is something you seem singularly unable to address. At least Behe has the honor to be open about what his convictions ultimately mean.
Behe is open about the fact that he believes Malaria was designed by his Intelligent Designer. Why can’t you be as honest as he?
But, nonetheless, design utterly unlike that which humans create and which they strive to achieve, right?
Surely that all depends on what we are looking at. The aerofoil section of a bird’s wing has been copied by human designers.
We don’t have to look very far for examples
But unlike human designs, in which it is not always the case, the designs of nature form an integral part of the organism to which they belong.
Has it? Are you referring to George Cayley?
DNA_Jock,
Egads! Careful of anthropomorphization. Spiders don’t so much “hear” as humans do. It’s tempting to think of all animals sharing similar senses to us, but that leads to such concepts about spiders as “that spider is looking at me in a sinister manner” when even those few spiders with some measure of the ability to see objects (primarily jumping spiders) have really only a very few cm of clear vision.
Funny that you think the news will save your arse: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/what-r-value-means-help-lift-coronavirus-lockdown-uk/
No, just because your pseudoscience rapes some common concepts, that doesn’t mean they gladly submit to “evolution”. You’ve tried and failed with ‘mutation’, ‘variability’, ‘genetics’ and so on.
As far as R0, it’s only a RETROSPECTIVE value (know what that means?) that …“The number is not fixed. It can be altered by many things, including behaviour, which is why countries around the world have imposed stringent social distancing measures.”
So (aside from the unrelated definitions) R0 definitely has nothing to do with “fitness” that is supposed to differentiate between organisms under changing conditions whereas R0 simply doesn’t deal with changes as shown.
Are you even trying?
Example? Wait, there’s none Alan can produce. But he just likes to insinuate because that’s all he has.
Do you even know what ‘antonym’ means? Can you look it up if not part of your first language?
Ah, the Spinoza doctrine.
What about Spinoza? I thought mind and matter are the same to him.
That’s fine, but we need to address the anti-Paley objections for now.
True. But my point was different (more broad).
Natural design is very much LIKE design “which humans create and which they strive to achieve”.
I’m prepared to defend an argument they are, but it doesn’t matter. Any system with genetic copying and variation is subject to the same basic principles.
You’d better take this up with epidemiologists, who routinely use R0 in exactly the same was as evolutionary biologists do, as a measure of relative performance.
Fuck, you get your science from the Daily Telegraph, now? 🤣
Did quantitative population theory get R0 from epidemiologists, or was it the other way round?
I’ve failed to persuade you of anything, a completely different matter, since you can’t even sensibly define the things you stick your dead-fish scare quotes round. You’re the man who thinks all allele frequencies in a population at a given locus cannot add up to 100%, let us remind ourselves, an hilarious proposition to anyone who can accurately define these things.
In what way does this differ from a measured fitness value?
Unrelated except that they use the same concept and name to quantify the same thing …
What? Your actual quote shows that to be untrue. R0 can change due to circumstantial factors, as well as mutations in the viruses themselves. ‘Doesn’t deal with changes’ is about as inept a reading of ‘The number is not fixed’ as could be imagined.
Likewise R0 in evolutionary theory is not static, and can be ‘altered by many things’. You’re not doing a brilliant job at showing these uses of R0 to be unrelated, you know. But keep at it.
You are not grasping the essential syllogism:
p1) Everything an atheist claims must be wrong.
p2) YOU are an atheist
even nonlin can complete this, but by all indications it’s the ONLY syllogism he can understand.
I can see kairosfocus puffing up with “turnabout accusations”. 🙂 A word and its antonym are supposed to have opposite meanings {left, right;up, down; hot, cold} and most don’t bear scrutiny and encourage binary thinking – a trap you appear unable to escape from)
As to “argue” and “assert”, you have demonstrated it is possible to argue by assertion, and to think that an assertion is an argument. So describing an argument as the opposite of an assertion makes no sense coming from you. But that is hardly surprising.
Now, be fair, he could have quoted the Daily Mail!
Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t post your nonsense OPs here but that’s partly from compassion. No wonder you remain pseudonymous.
Why don’t I take you seriously?
The first and most important reason is that no-one else does either. Remember, I have asked you several times if you have ever had an exchange, anywhere in the blogosphere, where someone remarked something along the lines of “that’s a very persuasive argument”? My own research has shown no trace of such an encounter and your time on this site has produced nothing along those lines. Why take you seriously when no-one else is persuaded by your assertions and arguments unsupported by evidence?
The second reason is that you are not curios about biology. My question about why great white sharks and Atlantic white-sided dolphins should have similar shapes and streamlining, built for bursts of speed and similar colouration giving an element of camouflage viewed both from above and below was a demonstration. I can argue, with evidence, that is a clear example of convergent evolution. You are not interested. Fine, but makes it pointless to interact with you.
Thirdly, “Intelligent Design” was born of a scam to inject YEC theology into science classes in US schools. It has failed, so far, to make much progress in that regard. I have never set foot in the US so it isn’t a problem I am able to do much about so I generally leave that issue to those who can. The concept of “ID” is utterly bogus, so I don’t take it seriously at all. That you still display a version of Bill Demski’s ironically-named explanatory filter on your blog is the cherry on the cake.
I have a soft spot for jumping spiders. They are fun to observe – I often see them on the terrace table when the weather is warm and sunny. They are so feisty! Approach them cautiously with a finger and, at first, they don’t scuttle off – they square up!
ETA Jumping spiders can learn!
@ nonlin
In the process of moving your latest comment to guano, I inadvertently deleted it due to a glitch that “disappears” moderated comments when attempting to restore them. I’m afraid there is no copy for me to reinstate. You’ll have to resubmit. (And avoid personal insults if you can.)
You are wrong about everything. Until you come round to my side you will continue to be wrong about everything.
Your turn.
Me too. They belong to the select group of arthropods that will actually turn to face you. Somehow the sense of getting their attention personalizes them, Works for praying mantises as well.
I wan’t thinking specifically, but, yes he would be an example.
Bird flight was well studied b the early pioneers. The mistake many of them made was to try to emulate the flapping motion of bird’s wings. But there is a reason why there is a limit to the size of flying birds. It was soon realised that the wings could be fixed and rigid with forward speed providing the necessary airflow over the surface. But they still copied the general shape of the wings of birds.
More Goethe than Spinoza.
I don’t follow Spinoza. Steam and ice might be the same substance but they have different qualities.
Well you need to address them.
Well you say that art has no function. I would say that art has the function of externalising the inner feelings of the artist.
Not that anyone asked, but a few brief remarks on Spinoza.
If we begin with the question, “does anything exist in such a way that it can be fully comprehended entirely by itself, without reference to anything outside of it?” then Spinoza’s preliminary answer is, “Only God exists in that kind of way.”
But he then argues that nothing else can exist which is distinct from God. (This is where the heavy lifting comes in — it basically turns on how Spinoza thinks about the relation between explanation, causation, and what it means for a substance to be finite or infinite.)
Basically, Spinoza’s reasoning is that once we realize what it really means for something to be a substance, we will realize that there cannot be any finite substances. Instead there must be only one infinite substance, and that is what is called “God.” But if there aren’t any finite substances, then you and me and galaxies and quarks only exist as aspects (not parts) of God — what Spinoza calls “modes”.
One could say (though Spinoza doesn’t put it this way) that God is the mind of the universe and the universe is the body of God.
This may seem like Goethe, but with at least this one crucial difference: Goethe thinks of the imagination as a creative power that discloses truths deeper or more fundamental than the senses, whereas Spinoza emphatically disagrees.
Spinoza thinks of the imagination as just as limited and biased as the senses are, and for him true understanding is only possible through the intellect — which is (he insists) a cognitive power completely different from the imagination.
For these reasons Goethe has a great deal of faith in the power of art, whereas Spinoza is completely dismissive of art — for him the paradigm of knowledge is logic and mathematics, in which we grasp the necessity of purely abstract, formal relations without any visualization at all.
Spinoza does not hesitate to draw out various psychological and political consequences from his mathematical metaphysics. On his view, only the mind that is properly trained (i.e. to apprehend the relations of necessity at work in deductive logic) can understand why only God exists and why God and the universe are the same.
For this reason, Spinoza concludes that almost everyone is wholly ignorant of God since they imagine Him to be something like themselves, only vastly more powerful. Since knowledge is knowledge of necessity (as in deductive logic, such as geometric proof) and knowledge of the universe is knowledge of the laws of physics, and since everything that exists, exists only as a mode of the infinite substance, there is no free will: we believe ourselves to be free only because we are ignorant of the true causes of our actions.
Thus the true philosopher understands that God is nothing at all like a person, that there is no free will, and also (this part of the argument is more complicated) there is nothing distinctive of each individual that survives the death of the body. So what the majority of people believe — in God, freedom, and immortality — is wholly mistaken.
Yet the philosopher must be very careful about correcting the falsehoods in which the people put their trust, since it is only by means of their imaginations that the ignorant masses can restrain their appetites sufficiently that their behavior has the outward appearance of virtue. Moreover, the many are ruled by their passions and those passions are easily manipulated by propagandists, so that skilled propagandist can persuade the people to kill and die over symbols.
Although only those whose minds are properly trained in logic can arrive at the metaphysical truths necessary for genuine virtue, nevertheless the ignorant are many and powerful and they will kill the philosophers if they can. Therefore the philosopher must live quietly, in secret, and give the masses no excuse for killing him.
Thanks for this input.
The way I see it is that Spinoza saw things in terms of substance with the the universe as an infinite ‘thing’. And this leads to a deterministic outlook. In this respect this is similar to Paley’s view of the universe being a giant machine.
But hopefully we are moving beyond this clockwork view of the universe. Reality is beginning to be seen in terms of dynamic processes and not in terms of objects affecting other objects in multiple rounds of cause and effect which can be reduced to their component parts. And this dynamic becoming was what Goethe perceived by using his ‘exact imagination’. This is not to be seen as a subjective fantasy confined within his mind alone. It is an objective process that requires the senses to begin with. But then it takes an active thinking and bringing together of memory pictures to form in the mind the dynamic movement of the beings of the external world under study. Their true reality can only be seen by the mind, not by sense impressions which only gives static images of the moment. But unlike Kant’s unknowable ‘thing in itself’ this gives us true reality which can be known without having to posit anything hidden behind it.
Goethe was a forerunner of systems biology which is still in its infancy.
If we are to discuss Paley then he needs to be seen in the context of the wider field of thinking on the subject. So I think your post was relevant to this thread. Paley’s view of a clockwork universe is fast becoming obsolete.
You’ve done worse. “Think twice” is a good practice you might want to follow.
No, I didn’t keep a copy. I was just explaining to Allan how ignorant he is comparing R0 to “fitness”. But now he will never know and will die ignorant if this makes you happy.
That’s Corneel 100%.
That could be. But it’s not something measurable, so we will never know. Meaning that “function” is as good as “no function” for the rest of us, the observers.
Kantian Naturalist,
Interesting comment. Was Goethe even known as a philosopher? Isn’t Spinoza wrong too, on one hand to say everything is God, and on the other to chip parts of said God such as ‘philosopher’, ‘masses’, ‘logic’, ‘virtue’, etc?
You got this wrong. “Designed” (Paley’s claim) is not necessary same as “machine”.
Whoosh!
I’ve no reason to doubt that you are right. But making the connection between a watch and the designs of nature would automatically lead people to think of the universe as a giant mechanism with all that this entails.
In fact you, yourself said that “living beings DO contain machines”. Where does the machine metaphor stop?
I see the small green mantis we get here occasionally but haven’t tried provoking one. Some friends came across a mantis nest in their garden and kept it in a jar till the eggs hatched. Thirty or so miniature mantises soon hatched*, indistinguishable (to me) from adults apart from size (who were released back into the garden forthwith). I’ll try a bit of provocation the next time I encounter an adult mantis.
*Checking Wikipedia, I see there is a larval stage prior to the nymph emerging but they stay in the ootheca (as I see the “nest” is referred to).
Spinoza is certainly deterministic, but that’s because he lacks any concept of emergence or of “levels of reality”. It would be anachronistic to read him as a reductionist, because he is not giving an argument for reducing everything to physics. Rather, the alternative — that there may be emergence or “levels of reality” or whatever — had not yet been formulated.
Indeed. But one can read Spinoza as having the sort of view as well, because Spinoza does not think that any finite substance could support a distinction between intrinsic properties and relational properties. But that is what a ‘clockwork view’, partes extra partes, requires: that we can distinguish between what properties something has all by itself and what properties it has by virtue of its causal relation to other things.
Spinozistic modes can’t be distinguished in that way because each mode is comprised of infinitely many modes, “all the way down”, without ever reach a limit beyond which further division is impossible. (In other words, Spinoza denies that there are atoms or anything like atoms.)
And each mode expresses the infinite power of God in a determinate way, so in that regard there’s an intense dynamics of becoming in his metaphysics with respect to the finite modes and a metaphysics of the unchanging and eternal being with respect to infinite substance.
I disagree that sense impressions only give static images of the moment. We do not as it one take a series of photographs that the mind assembles into a movie. Rather, I think that we really do directly perceive dynamic becoming. Yet we are habituated to not notice it because of the pragmatic benefit of chunking dynamical processes into semi-stable “objects” and “relations” and “properties”.
That may be true, if one considers Goethe’s influence on Ernst Haeckel and D’Arcy Thompson. Still, general systems theory was developed in the 1960s, autopoiesis emerged from second-order cybernetics in the 1980s, developmental systems theory in the 1990s. I’m currently reading Biological Autonomy (2015), which is a really outstanding presentation of the importance of organizational closure in biological systems. I think it is fair to say that on their view, teleology emerges in systems that combine organizational closure and thermodynamic openness.
The underlying issue in the metaphysics of life is whether one thinks in terms of “active mechanisms” or “passive mechanisms”. (I am borrowing this from The Restless Clock by Jessica Riskin.)
Riskin argues that if one has as one’s materialistic metaphysics a conception of matter as passive, as inert, as “dead,” then one will need to imagine this matter as infused with something fundamentally immaterial in order to make the matter self-moving. This is what the argument from design does: it says that there must be Mind added to Matter in order to get Life.
This contrasts sharply with the emphasis on life as inherently or intrinsically purposive or self-moving, that doesn’t need anything added onto it. This Aristotelian-Kantian emphasis on the vitality and purposiveness of life was questioned by the materialistic critics of vitalism, but at the same time, there were quasi-vitalists who responded to the undermining of the life/non-life distinction by going in the other direction: by finding movement, power, activity, becoming everywhere. (One might say that they “vitalized” matter.)
The contemporary heirs of the 19th-century “vitalization of matter” would be complexity theory as a theory of self-organizing systems, which is why I’ve long maintained that the real challenge to design theory (as a neo-Paleyian, passive mechanism, top-down imposition of order on passive inert material) comes from theories of self-organizing systems, not from evolutionary theory.
In other words, if you want to understand why Dembski is wrong, don’t read Dawkins — read Stuart Kauffman!
Right back at you, Mr. Would-be-ironic. Anyway, the topic today is Paley and you’ve long deviated from it.
Only to point out that we are much more than the machines we contain. Hence, not a metaphor.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Alan Fox,
Mantises are hemimetabolous insects. What that means is that, prior to being adults, the main difference is that they don’t have wings or genitals. You will only see true larval stages in the holometabolous insects, including beetles, flies, wasps, and moths, among other smaller orders. That’s why young grasshoppers look just like tiny adults, and same with mantises. There are actually some really interesting hypotheses on the evolution of holometabolism, but I haven’t seen evidence convincingly proving one or the other. If you’re interested, you should look more into precocious eclosion, specialized nymph and pronymph.
Nonlin.org,
No, go for it, you sort me out. Tell me how something you got from Die Telegraph trumps scientific usage.
Schizophora, Thanks very much for the info. I can see it has been a controversial part of entomology. I found this.
Yes ‘static’ was the wrong word to use. Sticking with the sense of sight as an example. It is as if we are on a moving train looking out of a narrow side window. We do not know what is ahead until it comes into view, we see it in the moment and then it disappears as the train moves forward. Our senses only give us a narrow view of the ever changing present. It is through our thinking and being able to bring memory pictures into our consciousness that we have knowledge beyond this narrow range.
But we do notice this becoming. If I watch a bird taking flight I do not see a series of snapshots, I see a bird becoming airborne. But in the blink of an eye the moment is gone and something else takes my attention. But as long as I was paying sufficient attention in the first place, I can bring to mind the memory of the original event. If I did not notice the person in the gorilla suit walking over the basketball court it was not because I did not see it with my eyes, I did see it. It was because my thinking was focused on other things. It was my memory that failed me not my eyesight. I was not paying overall attention to the images my eyes were receiving.
When Goethe studied a plant or a bone he did not make this mistake. He paid a great deal of attention to the living form in its various states of becoming so that in his mind he could combine them in a way that was consistent with their metamorphosis. And for this to happen very detail received by the eyes had to be attended to and put in context.
A lot of assumptions here, not saying you are wrong, could be me interpreting the written words. Light reflected from the bird and its surroundings arrive at the lenses of your eyes and some finds its way on to the surface of your retinas and some trigger nerve impulses. Your brain does a lot of work in focusing and directing the gaze and interpreting and reacting to the nerve signals. There’s a lot to seeing that we don’t see.
Hmm! Not sure what you claim about this experiment is accurate.
Thanks for the link. Looks like an interesting book. It can be purchased here but it costs more than I can justify at the moment. At least I can read what is available. This is from the back cover:
And this is from the forward:
That looks like a good start to me although I hope they don’t get any biased criticism because of their use of the word ‘irreducible’. Some people don’t even like the mention of that word. I’ll need to read further to get a better idea of what they are giving us. I do like their holistic approach.
Or read Goethe. He did not presume any vital force acting on life from above, nor any unknowable reality behind nature. Vitalism is intrinsic to the living systems, it is part of what they are. They hold their own purposes within themselves.
Even the purported machines we contain are much more than machines.
We are not aware of light falling on our retinas, we are aware of something that has caught our attention. I can make sense of what caused this movement because of the many concepts I hold due to my education and memories.
What do you think sets the brain to work in identifying the source of the stimuli?
What do you find inaccurate? Are you saying that not all of the spectators had the image of a ‘gorilla’ on their retinas? And if they all had this image why did just a few of them remember it?
The following was also taken from the foreword of the book that KN linked to
KN, can you tell me who wrote this foreword?
CharlieM,
Here’s an idea. Stop using the verb “see”; it is leading to horrendous equivocation.
I suggest the following:
Raw visual input — retinal stimulation
Processed visual input — outputs from the visual cortex
Perceived vision — what we consciously experience
Recalled vision — what we remember experiencing.
Each one of these is quite distinct from the next.
By the way Charlie, it’s nearly a year later and I still have the conscious perception of specific neurons failing to fire. Doesn’t bother me anything like as much as it used to though — the brain is still pretty plastic, even in the late fifties.
Even better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, sometimes denoted É or E′) is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms.
Are you saying you actually perceive these neurons? If so, how do you perceive these neurons in relation to your categories?
Raw visual input — retinal stimulation
Processed visual input — outputs from the visual cortex
Perceived vision — what we consciously experience
Recalled vision —what we remember experiencing.
Do you perceive neurons or do you perceive effects?
Are they allowed to say that E’ is a version of something? 🙂
Can you give examples from above where I was unclear so that I can clear up what I meant?
I see (heh) DNA_Jock has covered stuff better than me but the point I was making is light falling on the retina forms an image, sure, just like it does in a camera obscura. But I think of the retina as part of the brain and the signals generated by light falling on rod and cone cells as the start of information processing. For example those images are two-dimensional and the brain recreates three-dimensionality.
And as Jock says seeing and remembering seeing are two separate issues. Did you ever have a go at watching the video I keep posting by Ian McGilchrist?
https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain?embed=true&language=mn
And any entity is incapable of understanding anything as complex as itself!
Did I stutter?
I wrote: “I have the conscious perception of specific neurons failing to fire”.
So it falls in the “Perceived vision” category, you know, the what we consciously experience category. And what is being perceived is the direct consequence of specific neurons failing to fire. Not the neurons themselves. How would anyone ‘perceive’ neurons?
I have covered this with you in depth, and I see no reason to revisit your hopelessly wrong analogies to the blind spot, nor your staunch efforts to tell me what I experience, as summarized here. You spent a lot of time equivocating ‘experience” back then…
To be sure, Goethe is an important part of the history here. But that doesn’t mean that our understanding of dynamical processes hasn’t advanced since 1832. Above all, in the 20th century we started figuring out how to describe dynamical systems in mathematical terms.
I’m familiar with recent work by Ilya Prigogine, Susan Oyama, Stuart Kauffman, Alicia Juarrero, John Dupre, and Terrence Deacon. I’m very excited about this new book by Moreno and Mossio — I know I’ve read one of their papers on organizational closure and learned a lot from it.
I’d certainly read Goethe if I were interested in the history of theories of dynamic processes.
The foreword is by Cliff Hooker (Professor Emeritus of University at Newcastle). He’s done a lot of work on dynamical systems.
The only paper of his I know (which I think is outstanding) is “Bio-agency and the problem of action” by J. C. Skewes & C. A. Hooker, Biology & Philosophy volume 24, pp. 283–300 (2009).
Not sure about this. Cayley may have based his first prototype on bird wing shape but the Wright brothers?
So you don’t want to die ignorant. Good for you. R0 is in “the news” due to the virus and that’s what triggered you. Be honest.
Now why R0 is not same as “fitness”:
R0 is a statistical measure of the status-quo. It’s STATIC. As such it’s DELAYED and obsolete (must be recalculated) as soon as the environment or the organism changes. Whereas “fitness” pretends to be forward looking and also pretends to differentiate between new variants. It pretends to be DYNAMIC and REAL-TIME.
R0 is real and somewhat useful (in status-quo!) whereas “fitness” is imaginary and useless. That’s why you will not find anything quantitative (measurable, useful) about “fitness” and this virus in “the news”. But you might find some fluff and bullshit.
I’m sure them other poets you cite are as good as Goethe. But when will they stop with the fiction and address the reality? Are poets and reality even compatible?
It pains me that you think you’re being clever with this kind of response.
I think we know where to look for that!
Get the story straight. You’re the triggered one, spluttering at the very idea fitness can be measured. And so, I said ‘what about R0?’. Because it was in the news and everything.
R0 is a measure of fitness: the number of completed cycles of a reproductive process produced by each instance. Quoted R0s for a virus indicate the total number of new infections from each infected individual; for an organism, they indicate the number of offspring reaching reproductive maturity – typically zygote-zygote. Each individual has a fitness; the composite statistic is a mean for all individuals – in both cases.
Clearly wrong. You’re saying that the mean number of new infected individuals per infected individual cannot change. You might want to revisit that. R0 can be changed by measures, by changes in the population (e.g. immunity) and by mutation.
There is absolutely no difference in the metrics on that basis. Clearly, you can only measure something that has happened. But R0 is also used in epidemiology to predict what might happen, given various future values as a result of measures. If it weren’t dynamic, there would hardly be a point in trying to change it. Additionally, different variants of a virus can have different R0 values. ie, it differentiates between new variants. Which sounds familiar.
Ah, I love the gnashing of denialist teeth in the morning.
Apart from the quantity R0, that is. You may have heard of it.