the rules in science

I do not know if this will help in your difference of opinion with Syamsu, but I thought I would give it a try.Bertrand Russell, in The Principles of Mathematics, writes (page 454 Norton and Company), "..a psychological reason is given why we cannot imagine holes in space. The impossibility of holes is apparently what is called a necessity of thought. This argument again involves such purely logical discussion. Concerning necessities of thought, the Kantian theory seems to lead to the curious result that whatever we cannot help believing must be false."Now I DO read the last sentence in two different ways depending on whether "cannot help" or "help belieiving" is the 'syllable of emphasis'. It seems to be the conventional reading of Kant that his ideas are unusable because whatever is true in it, is so obvious that there is no need for the subtility he introduces. That, I take it was Russell's reading. Thus holes or no holes the physical connection of matter to spirit was never a possible thought as you suggest.But when I first read the sentence, I, with my own bias, stressed help "believing"... and thus I had at first read Russell to have said that if one can not help in believing in/of something then it must be false. That seemed to be a true senetence for me and I was open to the possiblity that the biological relation to whatever the holes in space might physically be or not be biologically was then a vaild converstaion. This way of simple change of empahsis is all that seems required to open the way to answering the question you put, beyond subjectivity, to Syamsu.The full answer however seems to involve the notion of "physico-theology" and reading reverse wise Kant's Critique of Judgement so as not to only find it as a wrongful physical teleology. I contend that a notion of genetic programs WITH a notion of the atoms involved might indeed find this goal achieved. I have not achieved it but this does not mean that there is no "in principle" answer to your questions to Syamusu. Russell's idea of belief was NOT what he found at Harvard.Here is how I have started to script the problem-
Physico-Theology : Beyond the Culture of Intelligent DesignKant, made the fundamental point about this subject when he wrote, “physicotheology is a misunderstood physical teleology, only serviceable as a preparation (propaeduetic) for theology, and it is only adequate to this design by the aid of a foreign principle on which it can rely, and not in itself, as its name seems to indicate.”By definition, physicotheology in name is “the endeavor of reason to infer the supreme cause of nature and its properties from the purposes of nature (which can only be empirically known)." The existence of an object of physcio-theology belies the false social praxis of the creation-evolution debate as it appeared throughout the 20th century right up to the attempts to change the discussion through the notion of intelligent design. The creationist revival of the 60s and the Intelligent Design Movement have tended to polarize the empirical from the supernatural, amongst all inquirers after truth but the IDists have additionally confused the use of reflexion in subjectively internalizable purposivness of some nature of human nature. They have done this through the concept of irreducible complexity which prematurely invokes a bound between the reduction and analysis of organized beings which is actually and then rarely if ever approached a posteriori. This in turn inhibits to what aid the ”foreign principle’ of Kant can alter a verisimilitude into a probability AFTER the/a moral theology is given, not before.This claim can be understood from the notion of ”physical teleology’ as described in Mayr’s dissection of the word.And because of this physicotheology as it becomes a prepared discipline indicates the intellectual end of the creation/evolution controversy as a new broader philosophy of biology can be constructed in which the polarization is separated into simple differences of the skills of the participants which tolerates room for biologically attachable concepts into religious contexts not religious content to biological evidence. I have been dismayed that I was unable to become an evolutionary theorist in my own time due to the older generations’ arguing over faith and science rather than agreeing to disagree and get on with it.Mayr asserts that certain erroneous principles needed refutation before biology could become an autonomous discipline of science. This was not so. It was only that moral teleology and physical teleology be kept fully separate and cognized but yet the advances in biology since and including the synthesis occurred in the broader popularity of the separation of church and state which did not suffice for the sepretatist’s job. In this attempt to prefigure a new biophilosophy Mayr removes the potential use of Netwon’s sensical analogy from the repertoire of biological intuition. He failed because he did not see through that the dream state of biologists can precompete for theory formation as Poincare pointed out for math in Science and Method (page 37) "Under this second aspect, all combinations are formed as the result of automatic action of the subliminal ego, but those only which are interesting find their way into the field of consciousness. This, too, is most mysterious. How can we explain the fact that, of the tousand products of our unconscious activity, some are invited to cross the threshold , while others remain outside? Is it mere chance that gives them the privilege. Evidently not..."There is no doubt that your question makes sense but if we insist on asking if red is a taste we will not have an answer.Brad

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If you are able to make sense of Syamsu's assertions that every event involving physical processes and inanimate objects is made as a result of moral decisions by those self same physical processes and inanimate objects in the "spiritual realm" then I for one would love to see it.

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As things stand it seesm to me that he is just applying meaningless labels to ill thought and evidentially refuted concepts.

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That was Straggler. They stand at a very odd angle indeed.First off, I cannot, in today's world, explain why we do not tend to think more often that moral "decisions" precede material ones for the self-same space of the material and its laws. I had tried to skectch a reading in the history of biology that explains how come we do not. The use of "red" vs "taste" however was rather cryptic and not fair as it was two sided.Syamsu had a very specific question about "evolutionists" and 'why' questions as this thread opened. In particular Mayr's reading is that Darwin can be used to support the notion that ethics arose via hard group selection. My reading does not lead to this support or conclusion. If, as I imagine soft group selection can result in ethical praxis, there is no a priori reason to have to say that moral possession is without the material and its laws, only I would not agree that cosmic teleology had been reliably ditched in the last century, as Mayr, one of the supposedly top 100 scientists of all time would like us to believe. But to say that moral decisions are made via the same material in the same space does seem questionable to me. That is why it is a psychological problem about holes etc. I am not sure I would agree with Saymsu about cause and effect, but then I am speaking more as a biologist than a physcisit or whatever physical nature is being observed. Regardless, in today's world we do not have a science that pursues the difference of GOD and LORD or "spirit" that Newton did in the General Scholium.
I do not see why we can not have such a science. Straggler is correct how it stands but in repose....I wrote that all of this was the confusion of one sense for another as I said in my last post. In fact forcing oneself to answer the question, "Does what I am reading make sense?" is a good guide to interpretation. Syamsu has a rather specific notion of reality and I would not hesitiate to think that Straggler finds it all quite false.But,...while reading Kant in some detail I was able to notice that Kant has a thought process that ((attempts)(he only really succeeds in analogy))relates the utilitarian happy populations of nations to atoms under attraction and repulsion which the Critique of Judgement slowy (from the beautiful to the sublime to the teleological) replaces with relation between taste and teleology. I KNOW some artists miss that. Interestingly despite myself NOT thinking there was any such comparison (populations of people in the civil state and molecules in motion) I was told indeed at Cornell that this is viable avenue of higher education's pursuit. What I was not told however was that the notion the sublime trumps this every time. This is what got me into so much trouble outside academia.Sorry, to take up this much space here, I am probably done threading this for a while. I did try to say that Syamsu's general observation is one that I seem to have observed as well. But as for THEN answering Straggler on Straggler's terms he had not done as well.
It is possible that Syamsu views these terms as a distortion. I dont know.

Hi Syamsu,Straggler has asked me to try to answer the "decision" questions he put to you

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As Syamsu is so unwilling to answer and as you seem to be the only person who even claims to have half an idea as to what he does actually mean, maybe you can answer the following questions:
Is a Tsunami a "decision"?
Does the sea as a whole "decide" to rise up and kill people?
Does each water molecule take part in this decision?
Does each atom? Each quark?
Are you saying that the sea/molecules/atoms/quarks make a moral decision that results in a Tsunami?

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How exactly do decisions and morality of the "spiritual realm" apply to nature?

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Syamsu is claiming that all alternatives in time are formed by decisions and that the reason "why" any given outcome is chosen over any other is a subjective decision made in the "spiritual realm". All acts of nature are therefore "decisions" and the inanimate objects and processes involved in such decisions are therefore capable of good, evil, love and all other non-objective facets of the "spiritual realm".

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So what decisions do toothbrushes make, can planetary orbits be evil and do coffee-cups experience love?

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As stupid as the above sentance sounds Syamsu has claimed all of the above as "common sense" conclusions of his decisions theory. Are you really agreeing with this?

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I was wondering if you are at all familiar with Lotka's Elements of Physical Biology The reason I ask is because the notion of adjustor here is much like a generic "decision". I can report that Wright's 1931 reference to Lotka's "larger" notion from species seems to NOT have been followed up on. Furthermore, recent work in "Coalesent Theory" utlilizes the forward process (and they use this F word) that Lotka describes in general (see 'thumbs' above) and yet rather than developing the decisions outside the frame of animal's behavior as Lotka did and Wright contained statistically (to Darwin) they have constructed a backward ancestral process (see John Wakely Coalescent Theory).Until this is brought out in biology (admiting a possible forward role for teleology in the change in gene frequency view)(instead we have Gould claiming an "adaptive hardening" since the 30s rather than a tasteful expansion), it would be hard put to say if the molecules of a climatic catastrophe make decisions in any way. That doesnt seem like common sense to me. But the Tin beetle and Tusnami are similar in a way. What happened in biology was the use of biotic adapations to discuss group selection. I can not claim presciences anyfurther on your decision perspective. If this helps to answer than that is all I can give.This seems to be what is causing biologists to not seperate the why question anymore but I doubt it supports the idea that atoms make moral decisions. For Lotka statistics intervened. Wright's path analysis provided a unique approach that Fisher did not have but theorectical biology never grew large enough. So instead of something that seemed so obvious to Kant being extant it is now hard to get the same across.

Here is a use of the word “rule” (Kant "Introduction to Logic 1800) which does not seem incompatible with Darwin’s thought that it might be “good” in imagination to suspect some form over “any” other (

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”It is good thus to try in our imagination to give any form some advantage over another.”

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On Natural Selection page 19 Penguin Books).It appears that this(fitness valuation) could have been applied to Bufo melanostictus (Sheldon Guttman , Biochemical Techniques and Problems in Anuran Evolution) in Evolutionary Biology of the Anurans ed by Vial) using the same connotation of the word “form” of Darwin and “rule” of Kant.Kant’s text appears to be able to criticize Darwin’s as Syamsu has horizoned whether one likes his postings or not.Edited by Brad McFall, : missed pic

Ok, the torque begins...
(I do not want to take this thread too far by working through Kant's text to the intersection with the holes issue I opened my positngs in this thread with...but that gives a more complete answer...)
I will be staying with Kant's terms, so far. I will not use our ability to cognize a sentence like, "It is good to be bad."The dispute in this thread seems to come through the distinction on pg 41 of Kant's Intro

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In order to be able to decide this important question (what is truth) we must be able to distinguish that in our knowledge which belongs to the matter of it and refers to the object, from that which concerns the mere formas the condition without which knowledge would not be knowledge at all. Attending to this distinction of between the objectiveand the subjective and formal aspect of our knowldege..

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assuming the question "what is truth?" adequately binds the Straggler/Syamsu difference.Assuming that Kant decides that this qustion falls into two
1- "Is there a universal material criterion?" and
2-"Is there a universal formal criterioin of truth?"Darwin's reference to "form" in the quote I provided above is where he pins himslef down to the notion of form that Kanthad taken up previously as the subjective basis for any truth. Mayr will later deny that the forms which are the objects of natural selection ARE NOT hourly being scrutinized but if it is good to try to imagine the advantage of one form over another then it is also good to try to imagine selection operating during the same time because WE DO NOT HAVE THIS OLDER notion of form but instead a seperated one of genotype and phenotype. Thus it does appear that Darwin spoke of form where he needed to speak of material. It needed to be that a particular toad venom and not the toad was "the form". That wasnot the case for Darwin. This does not affect the particular sicence of any monophyletics but only at the most general level (such as Mayr disagreeing with Darwin about when during the course of the day selection could be occurring).So where only the form remained Darwin was trying to say things that depend on an aposteriori materialism in fact. In the book I quoted from Darwin, he was arguing against special point cretation which had to apply to some of his 'any" form somewhere on Earth and not agaisnt God per say.This difference as Kant had it is necessary if one intends to compare art forms and those man-made from those shapes in nature of individuals etc. If one insists on a particular molecular reduction of the individual of Darwinism one need not feel necessarily (for those holed subjects) the force of this twisted but ture argument.Brad.I can try again if this wasnot clear enough. It may be that Darwin only meant that it was "good" to do some science of competetion but then he should not have left this in the form that grounds the knowledege of its truth but rather in speculation about the object (shape of the phyletic trajectory rather than sahpe of the creature or material that makes up this shape).Edited by Brad McFall, : No reason given.

Darwin intended the word "good" to carry more than desireable representation of the taxonomist. Darwin made natural selection into Santa Claus keeping the North Pole list. The funny thing is that "opportunity" is the namesake of teleology not adaptation.I was using Penguin Books On Natural Selection 2005 from the 1859 edition.On page 24 he wrote,

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It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, presevering and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.

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Mayr says that this may not be said. But it is not the good or bad part that Mayr objects to, but rather the agency of selective operation (is it cybernetic, under nonequilibirium state conditions, in a chaotic trajectory etc?) instead. Darwin asks the biologist to imagine that it is good for one form/species/race to have an advantange over another and then ascribes what the evolutionist is to so find (a trait or object of some lineage)to be either "good" or "bad". We may attribute this to loose language but Will Provine never blushes when he says that Darwin "knew what he was doing, he was murdering a cultural tradition..."You might compare instead the use that Kant draws to the same phenomena (nonnative species in a nonindigenous region), also as to whether it is good or bad. Kant embeds the same phenomenon into a huge relationship of justice, in his book "The Metaphysics of Justice", asking us to imagine America rather than Staffordshire in the case.Darwin wrote to distance special seperate creation. (The) advantage of one form or race over another was the means that linked the creatures' diversity thought prima facie as evidence of seperate creation. It was for him a one act, dog eat dog world ,not a God makes perannials annually on differenly protected stations type of thing. He only murdered seperate creation not God as Nietsche thought. He could say this without using the word "good" or "bad" but he did not. That you immediately assumed this was only in the subject of the biologist and not in the material of the biologist shows that this was not what you are really after in the dispute with Syamsu.Darwin wrote (page 88)

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He who believes in seperate and innumerable acts of creation will say, that in these cases it has pleased the Creator to cause a being of one type to take the palce of one of another type; but this seems to me only restatnig the fact in dignified language. He who believes in the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowledge that every organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers; and that if any one beng vary ever so little, either in habits or structure,and thus gain an advantage

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So we were asked to imagine giving a benefit to a species and then viewing the benefit gained as something good. In Kant's view this amounts to making mutations juridical rights of other kind and thus we can ask if it is ethical to accept it passively or actively. Biologists instead decided to argue if ethics itself arose by soft or hard selection. Syamsu rejects passive acceptance. The solution, historically, has been to reject Kant as Clark did in his book, "The Nature of Explanation" Cambridge Univ Press 1943.Also page 24 Darwin "Although natural selection can act only through and for the good of each being..."Edited by Brad McFall, : removed double paragraph

Using 'species' instead, still brings up the same point I was making.It was important however that the only other time the word "form" is used in that Chapter is

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Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we inovoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life

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(page13)It is instructive that Darwin said "invent" rather than "trace". Darwin used "species" in this edition when he comes to labeling his diagram later.I did not mean "essence" (for form)but I was rather trying to deal with the more complicated structure of a gene tree inside species tree-object. (from Wakely Coalescent Theory)When Robinson in 1943 communicated Etherington the following, there was some hope that notion of the form of the proper object here might be approached but Robinson went for the formal rather than the material aspect and I have not seen the correct answer yet, getting back to the reference to Cantor and Russell etc.. Instead we have the dispute between Organicism and Redutionism

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"I should like to say how interesting I found their contents (from the algebraic point of view (I know little of genetics). In particular, the arithmetisation of trees is, I believe, an important step, inspite of the unwieldiness of shapes compared with ordinary numbers. If I may add a few remarks: "shapes" appear to me to be special cases of Russell's "relation numbers." However the operations (addition and multiplication) defined by you differ from Russell-Whitehead's who where primarily interested in a generalisation of Cantor's arithmetic of transfinite ordinals. Neverthless I found it quite interesting ( as an exercise for myself) to express your ideas in a more "formal" way."

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(in Abraham Robinson by Joseph Dauben Princeton 1995 p134)So what we really have with Darwin's text is the replacement of "innumerable seperate creations" rejected as a quantity but possibly replaced with infinite thoughts via relation numbers. This does not do away with God or Morality as Syamsu indicates he has a hard time getting across to evos. You can simply deny my reading thus, but it is what it is. That is the way I read it. I make no excuses.