On Sunday, November 16, 2014 10:06:47 PM UTC, Kim Jones wrote: > > > On 17 Nov 2014, at 4:53 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > On 16 Nov 2014, at 03:31, Kim Jones wrote: > > I wonder if by now it's worth considering in information-theoretic terms > how the evolution of "academe" tends to result in universes in which most > and possibly all information becomes increasingly self-referential and > redundant ie uncreative. I don't know if the current "scandal" involving > the massive fraud in student assignments to which most Oz unis have turned > a blind eye - and presumably will continue to self-servingly turn a blind > eye - fascinates you, but I can't help thinking this kind of thing > necessarily results somehow. Has this ever happened before in history? I > mean, when before has an entire (usually non-anglo) > > > I should perhaps have written "English as a second language students" > > > student cohort been able to get someone else to write their assignment, > pass their course - even though they might have difficulty sitting a basic > English test - and collect their degree? Is it the Anthropic Principle? > It's definitely inflation of one sort or another. The reason it's inflation > is because it introduces the incentive to keep pushing the academic ceiling > of "qualifiability" for this or that profession higher to allow the > universities to charge ever higher fees amongst a clearly openly cheating > student population. Maybe Darwin has the answer. But it also means that a > PhD is increasingly a meaningless bauble. It also means via MWI that > because it is possible it has already happened, therefore we should > acknowledge that at times throughout history there is a "brake" applied to > the anthropic gathering of knowledge by system-cheats. > > Question: in evolutionary terms, what is a "system-cheat"? Shouldn't we be > studying this more? There is a clear advantage in being one... > > > Would you count the fact that some spider get disguised into ants to avoid > some bird predator as a system-cheat, or a natural lies. It communicates > the lies of the spider: "no, I am not that delicious spider dinner that you > love so much, I am that disgusting unswallowable ants you would not eat > even if getting paid". It works, the bird avoid them. > > Yes, the parts of the lies the creation is not known. Are we, as Löbian > person, descendant of PA + consistent(PA), pr PA + non-consistent(PA)? > > Sometimes I tend to feel like those who believe in actual infinities might > be descendent of PA + non-consistent PA. > > Eric Vandenbussche solved the problem of showing that[ PA + > non-consistent(PA)] proves not just not more theorems than PA, (as is well > known by logicians) but even more interesting problems, basically like PA + > con(PA). > > Incompleteness entails, for the machines (and many non-machine reasonable > extensions) a big gap between proof and truth, but this propagates at > deeper (looking more concrete from inside) level, and being on the side of > truth (that is of searching the truth) might be an handicap in real life. > (Like in the physicists' "joke": a physicist looks anxious and sad, and > his colleague ask him why. He answered that his best student was trying to > understand quantum mechanics. The colleagues replied something like "I > understand you, he is on a very slope if not finished. It is a joke which > happened many times. > > In arithmetic There are many intermediate gods in between the machine and > truth, and some are devils (falsities) which can nevertheless imitates God > perfectly ... relatively to us. They make the measure problem more complex, > especially near (relative) death. > > As a platonist-friendly, I still believe in the benefits of lies > reduction, like I believe in the harm reduction philosophy in the health > and risk domain. > > Bruno > > > OK - but where we are talking about universities passing en masse students > who have not qualified to pass but rather paid someone else to do their > assignment work, a syndrome that has persisted for some time and which is > now openly acknowledged with a shrug of the shoulders? What kind of values > are in operation here? The degree of fraud now taken for granted in the > knowledge generation industry seems to be a genuine cause for comcern. Who > is more at fault? Those who cheat the system or the guardians of the system > allowing it to be rorted? In a system where everyone passes and no one > fails, this is an easy way to keep the academics employed and does seem > the unspoken reason behind this, particularly at a time when governments > (at least in Australia) is seeking to divest itself of the economic burden > of funding of universities. This is institutionalised dishonesty and surely > compromises the integrity of all academe. I don't hear too much weeping and > wailing going on! >
You're right imho in what you describe. But something approaching invariance at some high level resolution, in terms of a sequence or a process, takes place just as you say throughout the Western world exception of none. Academia are not plausible at the scale of that but may be on a case by case basis by campus/department/field. Evolution science is torn asunder. Life Science in its wake. The vast R&D led private sector investment conceals the scientific reality with new technologies that in turn facilitate empirical advances on the shop floor. But abstract theory hasn't progressed in 20 years while research scientists have been swept along in the slipstream of technological solutions to market orientated problems, that cannot scale, but can deliver impressive results in certain bounds that are illusionary from scientific goal perspectives. This has actually driven recruitment and professional advancement in distortive sub-optimal ways, contributing to the veryserious schism progression now in which scientists are maturing to establishment leadership positions having come up entirely by this empirical path since graduation. They all share the same fundamental gaps in scientific awareness and specific knowledge, effectively blinding a whole generation to fundamental misconceptions now driving Life Science. That they are the source of the empirical progress. That their personal explanations for the successes misattributed to themselves, in the form of books authored by them, and suggestions of replacements or major adjustments to abstract theory have now organized around movements that explicitly refuse entrance to Darwinian theory and the abstract theorist community behind it. Yet their theories and the stance they position on their gateway website are fundamentally completely misconceived and flawed, du to a competency/knowledge gap commonly shared by all them: They do not understand the distinction of abstract theory visa vie empiricism. So the are effectively incompetent in both domains to be in leadership roles. They propose theories that construct arguments in the abstract, but which are fundamentally constructed from empirical data. "Epigenetics" being a case in point for a fad that already long since passes its peak. No one mentions epigenetics much any more. Why? Because the fad now is computation,due to an influx of out of sorts computationist researchers, who trade on visionary all-encompassing solutions to all the problems, while tacitly reaffirming the misconceptions above mentioned of the current sensior cadre in life science. Driving the scism further apart in terms of cohesive scientific prospects. Building in a rejection of Darwinian principle that is unnecessary and invalid simply because no abstract alternative is on the table, and they can do what they are doing without rejecting Darwinism. They can ignore it, or define their envisionings as a product of natural selection. Who gives a fuck...nothing is changed this way, but massive blind alleys can and do happen this way. Life science now risks decades of phlogiston sniffing. Life Science is in the hands of a new elite now, that seem on course for an era of Discovery of the sort requiring both hands to fully locate and stretch apart for the whole. Sorry I know things I say make you physically nauseous. I remembered to untick the cc if that makes a small difference link to the brave new world http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
