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Author Topic:   The third rampage of evolutionism: evolutionary pscyhology
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 181 of 236 (189403)
03-01-2005 5:02 AM
Reply to: Message 180 by Syamsu
02-28-2005 11:13 AM


This might do well in common language, but in describing things with mathematics no such fuzziness can be made. You have to choose, are you going to make an equation of cause and effect, or are you going to describe in terms of decisions on probabilities.
I do believe in cause and effect, but when the machine system is not a static hardwired system, and may have several layers including feedback options, it is not as simple as "if A then B".
In a system that has rules so that it recognizes many options from one input A, many inputs which coincide with A that also have many potential outputs, can assess results of actions toward A, as well assess and change rules regarding rules, the system is fluid and can be said to have free will.
It is the ability to have indecision, or make decisions knowing full well there were equally good options, where we can see free will exists even in a machine system. This may relate back to a rule which initially says "if in doubt, choose randomly", but then the rule to assess results will take the results of your action and maybe you will make a more concrete decision next time.
Your rule system may also look for a temporary preference to break the deadlock. In the end it is a system of rules governing rules, which are looking to solidify to make one choice. It is the search for the proper rule structure with a recognition of many valid inputs and actions which is free will.
The search is free will, the series of patterns of behavior as general rules are formed or "preferred" based on assessment of results, is identity.
The human mind is not like a roullette wheel, not by a long shot.
See the pattern? The whole position of evolutionism is based on a veiled denial of free will, where creationism celebrates it. The nefarious social darwinist ideologies an obvious associate to evolutionist denial of decision.
I am an evo and I am clearly arguing to you that we have free will. Thus your entire argument falls flat.
Unless you are arguing that I must believe you that I have no free will and as a consequence of input A (being an evo), I must have output B (denounce free will)?
Ironically, you are the only one here denying free will.
One more blank statement like this which is false on its face and I will leave you to your solipsistic rambling. If you want to discuss the nature of decision in a mechanistic system, then talk to me and do not tell me what evos do or must believe. I am honestly an evo and I believe wholly in free will, or in any case that our decision-rule machinery is so fluid that even if mechanistic, one has the ability to change behavior and so "get better" at making decisions.
If in stead we would screw up our understanding of cause and effect, it would certainly also lead to ideological madness, because that is also fundamental.
One of the best philosophers, one of my favorites anyway, is David Hume. He has a whole paper destroying the notion of cause and effect. While it is in error, it is brilliant and worthy of understanding. In any case it does not lead to ideological madness, only a greater level of skepticism.
Neither has evolution screwed up anything. People taking things they do not understand out of context and then applying them to pet projects does not reflect on those things which were taken out of context.
I have free will. I am not a nazi, and indeed it appears I am one of the very few here with the balls to actually confront modern nazilike witchhunts... and I am an evo. Deal only with me and what I am saying.
That is, we should be able to localize a decision to a point, and at this point we would find nothing. I would not push back to a spiritual machine, but I think it likely possible to construct some model of how these points of decision relate to one another.
I am totally admitting that decision, or the force which makes a decision, is a theoretical problem for those who believe in a mechanistic (material) universe. That does not mean it is unsolvable however, and I think I have advanced a worthwhile solution.
I do not exactly understand what you are advancing for the "model" of decisionmaking. I thought it was an argument for spiritual machinery, in which case I would then ask what rules it can operate under which would allow it to escape the problem material decision rule systems are tied by. If it is not this, then what is the nature of free will? What is the force which chooses?
Also, I would like to know how this differs from animals in which we see them (at least some of them) making decisions.
This message has been edited by holmes, 03-01-2005 05:03 AM

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 180 by Syamsu, posted 02-28-2005 11:13 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
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Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 182 of 236 (189426)
03-01-2005 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 181 by Silent H
03-01-2005 5:02 AM


Your argument for decision as machine is shrouded in apparently unneccessary complexity. Why *many* inputs and outputs. Why not just one, or two, or three? The complexity you put up doesn't actually enhance your argument any, it does put up a false front of sophistication however. If we cut the many, which seems to serve no purpose whatsoever, then what would we end up with, if A then B?
I would say let's chuck all that, let's start with the point of decision. Start with what it's all about, if you want to describe free will. That seems the sensible thing to do, and your way I can't see other as an attempt to shroud it all in mechanisms.
In your explanation you talk about things like:
- a *force* that makes decisions
- knowledge of "good" options (reminds of social darwinist "good")
- rules governing rules
It is all slanted towards mechanical cause and effect. You have all these mechanisms culminating in choice. But that is false logic according to common knowledge, because choices go the other direction, relate the future to present, and never go from past culminating in the present.
You miss the point that David Hume's philosphy is not applied to try to explain mental disorders, like evopsych is, and that people do not actually at all live by David Hume's philosphy as true. You I suspect also don't live by your own philosophy about free will as true. You just much use the "hollywood" common knowledge about decision like we all do, as basics.
But that knowledge may wear down by an onslaught of evolutionism, and the result would not be nice. Isn't that just a very credible and reasonable argument? You have no call to act so insulted, the concern has obvious legitimacy. Our emotions get to be understood as machines, very questionable indeed.
I think it is not the point to advance a solution to "decision", eventhough I also offered one. Evo's, and scientists generally have a problem about decisions, they don't see any. That observation is all that is needed to devalue science generally on it's reliability to deal with the phenomenon of decisions. One evolutionist and another, offering some theory about it is hardly enough.
We must have a historical perspective on our world now, for reasons of practicality. A decision perspective to see the things that are there in regards to the decisions at which they originated, even we don't exactly know where those decisions took place. And especially of course we must have a choice perspective on our emotions.
I think you are only giving more credibility to my assertion, that evopsych and science are destroying knowledge about decision. You may call your construct free will, and attribute decision to it, but it doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with realization on probabilities, or setting probabilities, or anything of that sort. It seems to have a lot to do with cause and effect, with rules and forces predetermining an outcome.
edited to add: it's not neccessary IMO to make an explanation of any spiritual machinery, or reference to God. All that is needed is for evolutionists to recognize a single big decision, and accept decision generally, and they would have lost the creation vs evolution debate. At decison XPNT0341 it became a relative certainty that this class of organisms would appear. So you see a scientific sounding name, no reference to God, but just a decision at which a kind was created, and that would settle it.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu
This message has been edited by Syamsu, 03-01-2005 10:27 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 181 by Silent H, posted 03-01-2005 5:02 AM Silent H has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by Wounded King, posted 03-01-2005 11:13 AM Syamsu has replied
 Message 187 by contracycle, posted 03-04-2005 4:25 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 183 of 236 (189442)
03-01-2005 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Syamsu
03-01-2005 9:21 AM


All that is needed is for evolutionists to recognize a single big decision, and accept decision generally, and they would have lost the creation vs evolution debate.
You still have yet to show any way in which this is a coherent argument. Free will is not creationism, evolution is not determinism. Even if every scientist in the world were to whole-heartedly believe in the fundamental indeterminacy of the universe there would not be a scintilla of evidence less for evolution.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Syamsu, posted 03-01-2005 9:21 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dan Carroll
Inactive Member


Message 184 of 236 (189444)
03-01-2005 11:21 AM
Reply to: Message 183 by Wounded King
03-01-2005 11:13 AM


You still have yet to show any way in which this is a coherent argument.
Gasp.

"Creationists make it sound as though a theory is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
-Isaac Asimov

This message is a reply to:
 Message 183 by Wounded King, posted 03-01-2005 11:13 AM Wounded King has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 185 of 236 (189618)
03-02-2005 9:43 AM
Reply to: Message 183 by Wounded King
03-01-2005 11:13 AM


You are confusing the creation vs evolution debate with some kind of competition between the science of creation and the science of evolution.
If decision XPNT0341 were found, it would be a creation event being recognized in science. That would not mean that evolution becomes untrue, (although it would mean that the theory of evolution has been deceptive) but it would still mean that evolutionists would have lost the creation vs evolution debate, because creationists have broadly recognized creation as a matter of decision, and evolutionists have broadly denied it.
There are still zero big decisions recognized by evolutionists in billions of years of history, and evopsychs even deny decisions in emotions. Perhaps you can name some evolutionists recognizing some decision somewhere, but still the large picture is broad denial.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 183 by Wounded King, posted 03-01-2005 11:13 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by Wounded King, posted 03-03-2005 8:50 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 186 of 236 (189748)
03-03-2005 8:50 AM
Reply to: Message 185 by Syamsu
03-02-2005 9:43 AM


it would mean that the theory of evolution has been deceptive
In what way? Evolutionary biologists doesn't deny that points in time may exist where one probability becomes inevitable, you just claim that they do.
evolutionists would have lost the creation vs evolution debate
Not as it is understood by anyone but you.
because creationists have broadly recognized creation as a matter of decision, and evolutionists have broadly denied it.
Rubbish, you have never substantiated this assertion.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by Syamsu, posted 03-02-2005 9:43 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by Syamsu, posted 03-08-2005 5:11 AM Wounded King has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 187 of 236 (189974)
03-04-2005 4:25 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Syamsu
03-01-2005 9:21 AM


quote:
It is all slanted towards mechanical cause and effect. You have all these mechanisms culminating in choice. But that is false logic according to common knowledge, because choices go the other direction, relate the future to present, and never go from past culminating in the present.
Well as they say "conventional wisdom is always conventional and never wise." The statement above is totally absurd.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Syamsu, posted 03-01-2005 9:21 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 202 by Syamsu, posted 03-11-2005 3:08 PM contracycle has replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 188 of 236 (190003)
03-04-2005 8:57 AM
Reply to: Message 180 by Syamsu
02-28-2005 11:13 AM


quote:
You broaden the meaning of machine, to allow for decisions as machinebehaviour. This might do well in common language, but in describing things with mathematics no such fuzziness can be made.
Thats nonsense - it is math that showed us the essential similarity of machines and living creatures. They obey the same rules of engineering, and apparently do not obey any supernatural rules differentially.
quote:
hey do not describe a freedom in anything. See the pattern? The whole position of evolutionism is based on a veiled denial of free will, where creationism celebrates it.
Cerationists are liars confusing what they wish would be true with what is actually obsservably true. your very statement shows this as it purposefully does not accept that the view espoused is that such freedom is meaningless.
quote:
My theory is that nothing, or zero, is making the decision. That is, we should be able to localize a decision to a point, and at this point we would find nothing. I would not push back to a spiritual machine, but I think it likely possible to construct some model of how these points of decision relate to one another.
Nonsense. A localised decision is called a "switch", and it will necessarily be physical.

This message is a reply to:
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Parsimonious_Razor
Inactive Member


Message 189 of 236 (190219)
03-05-2005 2:15 PM
Reply to: Message 163 by Silent H
02-07-2005 6:02 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
I am in the middle of working on a dissertation project so large portions of time disappear very quickly for me. I haven't had time to sit down with this topic in a while. If you are still interested we can pick this up again.
I have been thinking off and on about the fundamental issues we have been addressing.
There are still a lot of rifts in ev psych about the metatheory. The Santa Barbra school of Tooby and Cosmidies are big fans of the "computational theory of mind" mostly because of their cognitive background. In these model they attempt to describe the inner workings of the mind as a series of domain specific modules which have been shaped by evolutionary pressures. They do studies looking for these modules. Such as the cheater detection hypothesis that shows people are better at solving certain puzzle tasks if phrased in a social contract language rather than abstract knowledge. They tried to show that the mind doesn't use general rules like If P then not Q but rather processes things along specific circumstances. This is the school of research in ev psych that is most concerned with how the mind works, and is probably most subject to a lot of the discussions we have been having.
The Santa Barbra school believes that adaptation and design have to be demonstrated in a cognitive model. But not everyone agrees.
For example here at the University of New Mexico Steve Gangestad and Randy Thornhill practice more of a behaviorialist model. They believe we can demonstrate functional design by looking at the thoughts and behavior of the subject (thoughts here is more in line with the radical behaviorialist view that thoughts are as much a behavior as walking). In these models the cognitive model is not necessary and the exact biological nature of the brain/mind is certainly not needed.
It is this model I have had most of my training in, and why I don't think the intricate biological description you are asking for is that important. Someone from the Santa Barbara school might disagree with me so I thought it was important to at least get that out.
What I am trying to figure out is exactly where the heart of the issue here lies. Let me propose a couple questions/ideas and see where they fall.
Do you have a problem with "functional design" as a definition of adaptation?
Do you think the elucidated design can point us in the direction of the selective pressure that shaped the adaptation?
So for example, do you think we can make the argument, with out ever looking at the fossil record or molecular genetics that bird wings have been functionally designed for flight? Or that the vertebrate eye has been functionally designed for sight? Can we then claim that the wing is an adaptation for flight and the eye is an adaptation for sight? From that can we derive that the wing was shaped by selective pressures that favored flight, and that the eye was shaped by selective pressures that favored sight.
If your problem lies in this area of research then a different path of argument is necessary.
But if you agree with functional design as a methodology for looking for adaptations do you then have a problem with its application to the mind because of some intrinsic property of the mind?
I think this is maybe where the problem is based on past things you have said.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Silent H, posted 02-07-2005 6:02 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
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Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 190 of 236 (190309)
03-06-2005 5:23 AM
Reply to: Message 189 by Parsimonious_Razor
03-05-2005 2:15 PM


Re: less rampage but still evo-psych issues
If you are still interested we can pick this up again.
That was a pretty precipitous drop-off. I was beginning to wonder. Yes, at any time you want to pick it back up as a topic, I am ready.
Someone from the Santa Barbara school might disagree with me so I thought it was important to at least get that out.
Sounds like I would favor Santa Barbara, but from what you wrote I don't know if I'd wholly agree with them either.
So for example, do you think we can make the argument, with out ever looking at the fossil record or molecular genetics that bird wings have been functionally designed for flight?
While I do not have problems with functional design per se, it certainly can lead to problems as your first example indicates. Lets pretend we are an alien race come down to the earth many centuries in the future after a nuclear biochem war wiped out most macrocellular life outside of the polar regions, or life within deep underground.
What then would a wing's function to a "bird" be? It would be as an intricate pair of fins for swimming and not have anything to do with flight at all. That's right... penguins.
What if they had only landed a robotic probe in a desert area and only found some blind lizards in deep caves, what would the function of the "eye" be?
Given a limited time and temporal glimpse at any attribute of one species, may not give one an accurate view of what function a certain characteristic might have provided and so evolved.
This is a highly accurate analogy to humans. Despite our covering the entire globe and looking rather different, we are one species, seen at one point in time. And given that our "organ" actually evolved in deep time, what particular function a PM might have evolved to "solve" may be as accurate to its use today as the penguin's wing is now to the original function of the wing in general.
But if you agree with functional design as a methodology for looking for adaptations do you then have a problem with its application to the mind because of some intrinsic property of the mind?
You are correct that this is an even greater part of the problem. That is the above issue regarding dicovery of functional adaptation is compounded in a synergistic fashion by intrinsic properties of the mind.
Unlike a wing which changes based on environment over generations, the mind adjusts to environment within a single lifetime. If this was not true then every PM would be standard and trackable based purely on genetics (with some minor developmental hickups just as there are some birds with malformed wings). But it is clear that people can be changed through physical and social experiences, and have PMs formed.
This is not to wholly deny that some PMs are hardwired, or that rules for PM formation could be hardwired. The problem is disentangling the hardware from the software using mere statistical correlation studies. It seems implausible to get at true underlying hardware PMs based on limited behavioral studies.
It is further a bit mystifying to see grand claims made so early based on such limited studies, such that other fields are thrown right out. I have to say the short shrift treatment that sociological and anthropological research have been given by EP authors is less than scientific. Yet it seems that that is what they must do to announce the rather heavy conclusions they want to say they have reached.
PMs do appear to be affected by culture. The idea that we can reach nonalterable PMs is interesting. But I have yet to see a described methodology which does this.
I am sorry that I am picking on what appears to be something you are sinking a lot of time and energy into. I do not think the question you are seeking to answer is wholly bankrupt, but I would be less than honest to say I agree with the methods. I do not see how behavioralists can sufficiently prove their case. You have a lot of work cut out for you.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 189 by Parsimonious_Razor, posted 03-05-2005 2:15 PM Parsimonious_Razor has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 191 of 236 (190569)
03-08-2005 5:11 AM
Reply to: Message 186 by Wounded King
03-03-2005 8:50 AM


- you don't accept the existence of any decision for lack of evidence, but you do accept cause and effect
- there is not a single decision of any magnitude recognized in billions of years of evolutionary history, or history of the universe
- there are no decisions recognized in emotions even, by evolutionary psychologists, the decisions operate outside the emotions according to them, but are undescribed
A big decision recognized would be much too similar to creationism, for the creationists to carry on. It may not fit exactly to the bible, and sure enough this would disturb some to the point of rejecting it, but what they would be rejecting could well be called something like generic creationism. The basic principles are very similar. As the evolution vs creation debate is actually mainly carried by wide common popular support, in stead of the few fundamentalists that it is said to be carried by, the common support for the debate would fall away, once the common sense notion of decision has a place in science.
Common sense tells us that decision is true. Maybe decisions will be evidenced in science, maybe not. It would sure suck if it were neccessary to have knowledge of decision to for instance, save the planet from environmental catastrophy, or to make an intergallactic spaceship etc. because we aren't very likely to find any solution to a problem that involves decisions, with the current crowd of scientists, to which decision is nothing more than a theoretical possibility that is prefferably avoided.
Evolutionists lost the debate to anyone who is reasonably sure of the existence of decisions. So I think you've lost, because evolutionists don't recognize any decision, and creationists do recognize several big decisions.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by Wounded King, posted 03-03-2005 8:50 AM Wounded King has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 192 by Wounded King, posted 03-08-2005 6:01 AM Syamsu has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 192 of 236 (190573)
03-08-2005 6:01 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by Syamsu
03-08-2005 5:11 AM


- you don't accept the existence of any decision for lack of evidence, but you do accept cause and effect
I'm sorry, you just don't know what you are talking about.
I have never denied that 'Decisions' exist, just that there is no evidence, other than our evaluation of probabilities and our own subjective experienced mental state, that they can go 'one way or another'.
Your continual weak attempts to conflate a sensible rational approach to issues such as free will and determinism with some sort of nihilistic fatalism are about as successful as your attempts to conflate all evolutionary science with racists and eugenecists.
- there is not a single decision of any magnitude recognized in billions of years of evolutionary history, or history of the universe
Probably because no-one in science knows what the hell this means, it is your own invented terminology. There are certainly many key events and series of events, which would generally be seen as obeying all the normal laws of the universe with which we are familiar and which our best current theories suggest have a probabilistic basis.
- there are no decisions recognized in emotions even, by evolutionary psychologists, the decisions operate outside the emotions according to them, but are undescribed
So once again, when people frankly admit that they don't fully understand a phenomenon you see it as a reason to dismiss them out of hand, it must be wonderful to think you already know everything.
Common sense tells us that decision is true.
This is a non argument. The entire point of science is that common sense is insufficient to discern the truth about things.
Maybe decisions will be evidenced in science, maybe not. It would sure suck if it were neccessary to have knowledge of decision to for instance, save the planet from environmental catastrophy, or to make an intergallactic spaceship etc. because we aren't very likely to find any solution to a problem that involves decisions, with the current crowd of scientists, to which decision is nothing more than a theoretical possibility that is prefferably avoided.
This is just incoherent fantasy. Just because there is no strong scientific evidence in favour of free will doesn't mean that scientists all walk about like zombies. Scientists are cntinually working with probabilistic models of systems, including evolutionary models, which assume the possibility of differing outcomes. People make decisions every day, that has nothing to do with your ephemeral and abstruse form of 'decision' much as you may wish it to.
. So I think you've lost, because evolutionists don't recognize any decision, and creationists do recognize several big decisions.
Well I think you have lost because you haven't shown the faintest inklinging of knowledge about any sort of science, either biology or physics. Your continual restatement of your initial assumptiona as if they were furthering your argument is pointless.
It is particularly laughable that you not only completely misrepresent the evolutionary side of the debate but the creationist side too.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by Syamsu, posted 03-08-2005 5:11 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 193 by Syamsu, posted 03-08-2005 10:20 AM Wounded King has replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 193 of 236 (190595)
03-08-2005 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by Wounded King
03-08-2005 6:01 AM


Your irate rambling... doesn't seem to address anything, certainly not my position.
For instance you don't address that you have a problem with accepting decision, but you don't have a problem with accepting cause and effect. You don't address the difference.
There can't be any law at a point where something can go one way in stead of another, that is nonsensical. There may be some laws which constrain the possible outcomes to a few, but to say it is obeying laws at a point of decision can't be true.
Your irateness covers your basic lack of knowledge about decision. It is no coincedence that your style is irate, you can't handle it reasonably.
I certainly don't pretend to know emotions as much as evolutionary psychologists pretend that they do. Your accusation of pretensions are completely out of place. Remember that accepting decision means to accept that it is *impossible* to know some things. If something is a mechanism, the outcome may be calculated, but if it is a decision, it is impossible to calculate which outcome it will be.
Look at what Holmes "knows" about decision. Inputs, outputs, searching for laws, feedback, multiple layers, culminating in a choice etc. A very large construct, with not much evidence supporting whatsoever. I only posit that decisions have a location, that at this location is nothing, and that points of decision may relate to one another in a structure. I have been much conservative, the pretensions are on the other side, and very very very big they are indeed!
The point of science is to relate to common experience. At least that is the sort of science that I support, a longstanding tradition in science. I take it that when you say that the *entire* point of science is that common sense is insufficient, is more overblown irateness, that serves no other pupose then to disagree with everything I say.
You are wrong, scientists try to avoid probabilistic models, and even when they do use probablistic models, this is often accompanied by qualifiers that the outcome may actually be predetermined. The other way around doesn't happen so much in science, to qualify that the outomce may be indeterminate even when using a determinate model. As before "chance is the enemy of science" (dawkins, blind watchmaker)
I think it is safe to say, you think the creation vs evolution debate is about the kind of Bill Birkeland posts refuting the flood. That there are no deep fundamental issues, about creation being a decision, not some mechanism.
It is the notion of creation by decision that is fundamental to the mindset of creationism. That is evidenced in very many creationist posts on this forum. For instance "soracilla, does materialism hold up". You also evidenced it yourself by bringing a quote from a creationist what they meant by intelligent design. That was mostly similar to my formulation of decision. And that formulation would obviously be the absolute central thing in intelligent design theory, the one thing it all is based on, the creation event.
I already explained to you half a dozen times what I meant with decision, it is similar to a realization on a probability, or a probably being set, or changing. Now why do you now say that nobody knows what I'm talking about when I talk about decision? Is that because you don't know anything about decision?
(edited to add: I've declared myself the winner a few times now, but that is much useless. It would be good if somebody called the debate at this point, who the winner is, because I think it is basically concluded. Who will deny that decision is an important, fundamental issue in the creation vs evolution debate? Who will deny that creationists are broadly supporting decision (several creation events where by the will of God organisms are created), and evolutionists denying it (no single decision of any magnitude recognized but only reference to laws, forces, mechanisms)? Any counterargument just seems to sink to doubts about the fact of any decision having taken place whatsoever.)
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu
This message has been edited by Syamsu, 03-08-2005 10:36 AM

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 Message 192 by Wounded King, posted 03-08-2005 6:01 AM Wounded King has replied

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 Message 194 by Wounded King, posted 03-08-2005 12:11 PM Syamsu has replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 194 of 236 (190612)
03-08-2005 12:11 PM
Reply to: Message 193 by Syamsu
03-08-2005 10:20 AM


For instance you don't address that you have a problem with accepting decision, but you don't have a problem with accepting cause and effect. You don't address the difference.
I've addressed this many times, I have no problem accepting decision as most people understand it, I have difficulty accepting the fundamental indeterminism of the universe based on nothing more than your own empty assertions.
I already explained to you half a dozen times what I meant with decision, it is similar to a realization on a probability, or a probably being set, or changing. Now why do you now say that nobody knows what I'm talking about when I talk about decision? Is that because you don't know anything about decision?
No, it is becuase there are already terms to describe these things, but you insist on your own terminology so you can conflate your 'decision' with the type of decision we all experience in everyday life.
Any counterargument just seems to sink to doubts about the fact of any decision having taken place whatsoever.
Rather that there is no evidence that things can go one way or another, not that we don't commonly experience the phenomenon of decision, until you stop conflating the folk concept of decision with this more abstract metaphysical concept then you are never going to be talking anything other than nonsense.
I take it that when you say that the *entire* point of science is that common sense is insufficient, is more overblown irateness, that serves no other pupose then to disagree with everything I say.
You probably do take it that way, but all that does it show again your peculiarly skewed approach to science.
TTFN,
WK

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by Syamsu, posted 03-08-2005 10:20 AM Syamsu has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by Syamsu, posted 03-09-2005 10:29 PM Wounded King has not replied

  
Syamsu 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5590 days)
Posts: 1914
From: amsterdam
Joined: 05-19-2002


Message 195 of 236 (190851)
03-09-2005 10:29 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by Wounded King
03-08-2005 12:11 PM


Let's remember that no evolutionist here save 1, even knew an "official" term for the point where a probability changes, realization on a probability. So if I would use that word in stead of decision then all but 1 person would know what I was talking about.
For all I know you are now saying that we can't say within science that something can go one way or the other, because there is no evidence for it. You object to accepting fundamental indeterminism anywhere in the universe, within science. I have no clue what you mean by fundamental, I suppose you don't have either. Maybe you are saying that we may say that something can go one way or another, but we may not say that something *really* can go one way or another. Your position is a joke, isn't it?
If you are trying to show credible support for a science about tracing back the probability of the appearance of things to where the probability was set, you are failing.
You have 2 options in this debate. Either you show credible support for a science about decisions, turningpoints, realization or whatever u insist it should be called, or you stick your heels in the ground and object to all mention of things going one way or the other in science, for lack of evidence.
The first will lead you to a generic science of creationism, where you view the origin of things from the point(s) at which they became likely to appear, the second lays you wide open to the charge that science and evolutionists especially are destroying knowledge about decision, with justifiable accusations of facillitating predeterminist ideologies such as nazism, communism, social darwinism.
Either way, you lose.
For now you probably recognize the one decision of the creation of the universe, because that event is widely recognized within science as uncaused. The one decision by which all was created, and since you don't accept there is evidence of things turning out one way or another after that, it follows that the likelyhood of all subsequent organization of the universe must have been determined at this one point of creation, including all the organisms.
That way of thinking, tracing back the likelyhood of events, which you do every day, that is closely related to the meaning of creation in common language, and is formalized in creationist science, of intelligent design theory, creatio-ex-nihilo theory etc.
regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by Wounded King, posted 03-08-2005 12:11 PM Wounded King has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 196 by contracycle, posted 03-10-2005 3:43 AM Syamsu has replied

  
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