Hi Krim See comments.
DM > > [Krimel] > I don't think determinism is off the mark. What is off the mark is the > idea > that determinism can provide infallible prediction. DM: Ain't that what it means in contrast to and necessary but often insufficient causality. The point that converges > from math, physics and biology is that all of the cause and effect > relationships can not be specified in advance. DM: And probably do not give us determinism even if they could be. > > Or look at it in terms of degrees of causality. If all of the really big > forces are in balance then minor even very minor causes can play a > decisive > role. Take an apple clinging to the branch of a tree being pulled by > gravity. We know that as the apple matures the force of gravity will > surely > pull it to the ground. Our study of biology will yield clues as to the > range > of possible dates that a mature fruit is likely to be shaken from the > tree. > But to predict exactly when and where that apple will fall we would have > to > factor in exact temperatures, wind speeds, the population of animals that > might climb or bump into the tree, conditions of the soil and the amount > of > water vapour in the air... DM: And then there's that last molecular chain that has to slide apart for the drop, subject to when one specific electron jumps ship. Given this I think determinism becomes a misleading word. > > It is not a problem so much for determinism as for exact prediction which > has long been seen as the goal of determinism. DM: Without exact predictoin why we want to kep projecting what is therefore either a dream or an unevidenced assumption? > DM: And vice versa > > [Krimel] > Perhaps but as I have said in the past I don't think a top down approach > works very well. > DM: It is clearly 2 way. >> [Krimel] >> Our experience of all of this is shaped primarily by our biology. > > DM: Yes upto a point, but just as much we are shaped by our openness > to new possibilities emerging on the back of all these patterns.I see a > person as having an expanding history and future. > > [Krimel] > But I think projecting a future DM: It is not projected, it exists and is expanding or contrading, a probability is a function of the future. or exploring the past are both subject to > the problems of determinism outlined above. But you are quite right as the > behaviorist would have it what we do is a product of our genes, our > history > and the present moment. > >> [Krimel] >> We are organisms confined within certain biologically ordained limits. >> Each of us has a range of possibility. > > DM: This range has increased from what is possible for a single > celled organism to the range open to a thinking, socialised person. > There are realised possibilities required (a history) to reach new and > more complex possibilities. > > [Krimel] > Correct. The range has increased as a function of the inflow of solar > energy > into the biosphere. The result has been increasingly complex techniques > for > the dissipation of that energy. Each increase is a product of what has > come > before. The range of possibility is limited by the degrees of freedom lost > in previous choices. DM: Lost is some aspects and gained in others. > >> [Krimel] >> Emotions are for the most part, in most of us, purely autonomic and >> outside of conscious control. > > DM: From the point of view of habit and inheritance, but what about from > the point of view of their creation and dynamic emergence? > > [Krimel] > The point of view of creation and dynamic emergence is evolution; pure and > simple. DM: Prior to the selection of what is actual in terms of adaptation is the selection of what is possible to become actual. > >> [Krimel] >> We do no choose to be happy any more that we choose >> major depression. > > DM: Is not reaction and response not potentially open? > My life coach and Sartre suggest that we always choose. > > [Krimel] > I would say that choice is largely an illusion. DM: On what grounds? In experience we find only choice, to magic it away is the illusion. This is the approach to science that dissects and finds nothing alive or even Being. It is the interplay of > complex causal factors colliding in ways that make final outcomes hard to > predict. We are driven to believe in free choice, but as John Searle > points > out this does not square well with what we know about nature, biological > or > human nature. DM: Rather this is the illusion of SOM, where we seek knowledge by studying order, and so we knwo only order at the expense of DQ that is essential to make any sense of life and experience. > > >> [Krimel] >> We do not choose to fall in love or to be awed by a work >> of art. > > DM: Are you sure? Is there no alternative to habit, if nothing > else habits need their origins explained. > > [Krimel] > Habits are static patterns of behavior. They are explained in the same way > as other static patterns are explained above. In the same way that fixed > action patterns and instinct evolve in species. Patterns of individual > behavior evolve as a response to events in the environment working on what > biology gives us. Biology provides the foundation and framework. > Experience > builds on it. DM: And seeing only habit you see no emergence, no original act of response/ creation prior to any habit. > >> [Krimel] >> While we might learn consciously to appreciate certain kinds of art >> or a certain type of person; these learned preferences affect who >> specifically we love or which pieces of art inspire us but they do not >> alter the fundamental nature of these biological responses. > > DM: Maybe consider the complexity of the organism as a self-changing > system? It changes within itself whether or not stimulated to do so. > It has an ability to change its response, this is key to flexibility and > survival. > Is this not what humans are very good at compared to animals. If approach > 'a' does not work lets try 'b'. I think where you see the fixed space I am > seeing the wiggle space. > > [Krimel] > Yes. The ability to respond to increasing complexity is the niche our > species dominates. We can see this ability reflected in the increase in > the > size of the human cortex. We have an expanded capacity to store, replay, > process and evaluate experience. Lots of room to wiggle in that space. > > DM: I don't want to underplay causes, history, habit,DNA, etc, but I think the whole point of DQ is to big up the wiggle, it is half of the whole, SQ being the other half. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
