On 27 June 2018 at 03:24, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 6/26/2018 2:32 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On 25 June 2018 at 19:54, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 6/25/2018 8:06 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>> >>> I don't think that's the case. C seems to me to be capable to explaining >>> anything (e.g. we're living in the Matrix). The theories of M are >>> certainly >>> incomplete, but if there is empirical data inconsistent with those >>> theories >>> it just shows they have limited domain. If there is empirical data that >>> is >>> impossible to include in M how would we know; how could we be sure that >>> it >>> could not be included? >>> >>> I don't see how that fact that I am conscious and have a first person >>> experience of reality could be explained by M. >>> >>> I suggest you should think about what you accept as good explanations of >>> other phenomenon. >> >> I gave several examples before, regarding emergentist explanations. >> >> Suppose that Darwinian theory has not been discovered, and we have the >> following conversation: >> >> T: Where does life come from? >> B: Ah, well, it emerges from chemistry. >> T: Fine, how does that work? >> B: I told you, it emerges from chemistry. What kind of explanation >> were you expecting? > > > I don't think Darwin had anything to do with discovering the chemical basis > of life, which I suppose is what you meant put in the future of the > exchange.
Well, he discovered the principle of selection with variability, and how this leads to biological complexification. That is no small part of the puzzle. I meant Darwinism in the neo-Darwinism sense, including Mendel's postulation of genes, Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA structure and many other things. Notice the difference. We have all of these mechanisms to back the "life emerges from chemistry" theory. Each one explains a piece of the puzzle. For consciousness we have nada. >> If you take Thomas Kuhn's ideas seriously, then consciousness seems to >> be the current sticking point that is likely to trigger the next >> paradigm shift. The exercise we've been through is one where you >> insist that what Kuhn refers to as "normal science" can eventually >> crack the problem, while I insist that it cannot. This sort of thing >> happened before, it's not new. > > > Did Newton explain gravity? Did Einstein? They did, in the sense that they refer to above: they described the mechanism. We even have nice equations that make correct predictions all the time. You know more about that than me. > Are you satisfied with the > chemical explanation of life? Yes. There are some mysteries remaining, my favorite one is how the first self-replicators originated. But even there are several plausible ideas. > I don't think there's anything "normal" or "extra-normal" in science. There > is good science and better science; and they are measured by how > comprehensive, accurate, and predictive they are. Kuhn proposed the term "normal science" to mean the exploitation mode of scientific discovery, while "paradigm shift" refers to the explorative mode. Kuhn's idea is that normal science takes place most of the time, incrementally improving understanding within the current paradigm. When the limits of the pardigm are reached, improvement stalls around certain issues and eventually a reexamination of the base assumptions is necessary. This leads to a crisis and parts of the edifice comes tumbling down. The quintessential example is classical physics and Einstein. Telmo. > Brent > > > -- > 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
